Jerome L Sternstein

Jerome Hawley L , MA - Sternstein Jerome L. Sternstein, Professor Emeritus of American History at Brooklyn College CUNY, died on November 29 at his home in Hawley, MA, at the age of 92 surrounded by his loving family. Born on July 7, 1933 in Elizabeth, NJ to Anna and Benjamin Sternstein, he lost his father, who ran a successful shirt making business, when he was an infant. His mother then moved with Jerry and his older sisters Shirley and Elaine to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, where they shared a small one-bedroom apartment. Jerry spent his childhood on the beach, playing stickball and baseball, and attending Brooklyn Dodgers games. From the age of twelve he worked after school at his relatives' Zei-Mar Deli to help support his family. After graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1951 he held a series of eclectic jobs before joining the Army to obtain the GI Bill benefit to attend college and was stationed in Germany in the mid-1950's. Following his military service, he attended Brooklyn College, attaining a B.A. degree in history in 1959.

Jerry received a full-tuition scholarship to Brown University to pursue his Ph.D. in American History. While at Brown, he met and fell in love with a beautiful art student from the nearby Rhode Island School of Design, Kathryn (Trina) Sears. They married in 1964 and moved to Iowa where Jerry taught American History at the University of Iowa while completing his doctoral research. His dissertation, "Nelson Aldrich: The Early Years" received the prestigious Allen Nevins Prize of the Society of American Historians for the best dissertation in 1968. This honor led to a one-year fellowship at Harvard University's Charles Warren Center and an appointment to the faculty of Columbia University, where he taught until 1974, when he became a professor at CUNY's Brooklyn College.

During his tenure at Brooklyn College, he co-edited the Encyclopedia of American Biography with John A. Garraty, and authored numerous articles about the Gilded Age including a fascinating study on the acquisition of Pearl Harbor. He served on the Faculty Council and represented the faculty on the grievance committee of the Union. He also created and taught a course on the history of gastronomy - an area that reflected his deep and abiding passion for food and wine. The course was hugely popular, the only glitch being that a few students mistakenly thought they were going to be learning about celestial rather than culinary pursuits.

Jerry was an extraordinary cook and owned over 600 cookbooks. With his encyclopedic memory, he was able to immediately pinpoint which volume held the recipe he needed. He lovingly recreated his mother's borscht and matzo brei recipes, both of which are featured in The Brooklyn Cookbook. Jerry's competitive spirit ignited when he discovered a pumpkin pie contest at Foodworks, a new gourmet market that had just opened in Manhattan's Flatiron District in late 1997. Dozens of New Yorkers threw their hats-and pies-into the ring, but it was Jerry's legendary Bourbon Pumpkin creation that took first prize. His victory, immortalized on ABC Eyewitness News, became his well-earned (and much-enjoyed) fifteen minutes of fame.

Jerry's passion for food eventually blossomed into a late-in-life love of vegetable gardening, an endeavor he embraced wholeheartedly, especially after his retirement from Brooklyn College in 1998, when he and Trina moved full-time to Hawley, MA.

Jerry's inquisitive mind soon turned to the world of flowering plants, and he became especially enamored with rhododendrons, planting hundreds of varieties that, when in full bloom, became the marvel of the neighborhood.

Jerry was particularly close to his late eldest sister, the renowned abstract painter Shirley Jaffe, and could not have been more proud of her success. He attended recent retrospectives of her work in Paris and Basel, celebrating her achievements with great joy.

Jerry was a man who embraced life to its fullest, with a great sense of humor, a brilliant intellect and an astonishing memory for all things and everything he read. He was generous, warm, and genuinely interested in meeting new people and engaging with old friends. Jerry was a raconteur par excellence and the life of every party. He was the most loving father and grandfather ever, devoted to his two daughters, Adria Foster and Ava McDermott; his four grandchildren, Olivia and Miles McDermott, Jeremy and Gillian Foster; and his two sons-in-law Daniel Foster and Sean P. McDermott. He was also a devoted husband to his wife of 61 years, landscape painter Trina Sears Sternstein.

Life was always richer and far more fun in his presence.

A memorial service will be held in the summer in Hawley, MA.