Helen Rosengart and husband Harvey moved from Brooklyn, New York, to Bulloch County, Georgia, in the 1950s, founded sewing plants for their own line of children’s clothing, and helped form the core of the local Jewish community. Mrs. Rosengart also became one of the few women in the region to own a radio station and later a driving force in Statesboro’s arts scene through the Averitt Center and the Statesboro-Georgia Southern Symphony Guild.

Harvey Rosengart died in December 2000 at age 77. Helen Rosengart directed musicals at the Emma Kelly Theater into her 80s. Now 96 and a resident of Bethany Senior Living, Rosengart gave a lively interview as the subject of the second video in the Bulloch County Historical Society’s “Legends” series. As with the video of Si Waters released a few months ago, Tyson Davis, lecturer in the Multimedia & Film Production program at Georgia Southern University, handled the videography and editing. This time the Historical Society’s executive director, Virginia Anne Franklin Waters, was the only onscreen interviewer, while Davis contributed a few questions he edited out of the finished product.

The star, Helen Rosengart, and family members and friends attended the Historical Society’s Aug. 26 meeting for the premiere viewing.

Before the video rolled, Waters noted that she grew up on Savannah Avenue, which is also where the Rosengarts lived, bringing up their two “beautiful boys,” sons Russell and Robert, and that her mother and Mrs. Rosengart were friends, and the same age.

“Why did you and Harvey move to Statesboro, Georgia – of all places – this wonderful Jewish couple from Brooklyn moved to Statesboro, Georgia?” Waters asked in the video.

“We came to Georgia because we felt that we have a good labor market, and we came to establish a sewing plant that would make children’s dresses, and we had lots of applications, lots of people,” Rosengart answered. “However, none of these people had ever worked in a commercial plant before. So we actually had to train every single person.”

She recalled that one lady who said she had been sewing for 30 years at first protested that she did not need to be taught to use the machine. After “Mr. Harvey” convinced her that it would only be fair for her to sit through the instruction with the rest of the workers, the experienced home seamstress sat “paralyzed” when the electrically powered sewing machine was turned on, because she had only used a pedal-powered machine before.

“It was harder to teach people like that than people who hadn’t sewn very much, but we did it,” said Mrs. Rosengart. It took six or seven months to train everyone, she recalled.

The brand the Rosengarts established was Cari Classics, carried by Belk and other department stores – not discount stores – as a quality label. First they opened a small plant in Statesboro employing 80 people.

“Then as it expanded and became a good brand name, we went to Portal and we hired a hundred people there, so in total we had 180 employees,” Rosengart said. “We were like a family. I mean it wasn’t just, like a business, and everybody was so nice and cordial and friendly.”

She did some of the design work. Some of the Cari Classics girls’ dresses were decorated with intricate embroidery. The plain-sewn dresses would be mailed to Puerto Rico where an embroidery shop, operated by a woman there, did the work and mailed them back. “They were beautiful, beautiful works of art,” said Rosengart.

Hebrew Congregation

Waters, who isn’t Jewish but said she had been blessed to grow up in a diverse neighborhood, recalled that the Rosengarts, the Seligmans, the Moseses and Oppenheims, the Minkowitzes and later the Solomons, among other families, were prominent in Statesboro’s Jewish community in the mid-to-late 20th century.

They formed what for nearly 50 years, until around 2000, was the Statesboro Hebrew Congregation, without establishing an official synagogue or having a rabbi of their own. They met first at the Rosengarts’ home, then for a time at a location on the Georgia Southern campus, and later in homes of other families, Rosengart said.

“When we came to Statesboro we knew that there was no synagogue here, but there were three of them in Savannah, and for the holidays everybody went to Savannah,” she said. “And when we first got here we said, this isn’t going to work, we need to do something. So we called all these families, they came to my house, and we said, if we have services on Friday night, every Friday, would you be willing to come? ‘Oh yeah,’ everybody was so excited.”

Her late husband served as lay leader of the congregation. Growing up in New York City, he had come home from school each day to then go to Hebrew School at 3 p.m. and could read Hebrew and carry on conversations and prayers in the language, had a beautiful singing voice and knew songs that went with certain prayers, said Rosengart.

Leader in the arts

Waters asked what other things she would like to share.

“The Averitt Center, that’s my joy,” Rosengart said. “I mean, I’ve acted all my life. When I was 10 years old, my teacher gave me the leading part in a play, and I got hooked.”

But by the time the Georgia Theater movie house was remodeled, eventually becoming the Emma Kelly Theater, performance heart of the Averitt Center for the Arts, Rosengart was older, and found there really weren’t many big roles for older women in plays.

“So I thought, why am I wasting my time doing it? I’ll just direct these things.”

She started with a musical, “Anything Goes,” then did “Oklahoma,” then “Miracle on 34th Street,” and others. She was in her 80s when she directed “Annie,” with its featured roles for children, and one special dog.

Others involved in the production thought they would have to use a stuffed toy dog. Rosengart held out for a real one.

“It took me about three or four months to find somebody that didn’t laugh, and a very sweet animal, about 12 years old,” she said.

When the dog playing Sandy first walked out on stage to meet Annie, a collective “Ahh!” was heard from the audience, she recalled.

Rosengart also became a founding member and president of the Statesboro-Georgia Southern Symphony Guild. A violin group and brass group were formed, and she remembers taking instruments into local schools, giving some children their first opportunity to see violins and other instruments up close and touch them.

“The thank-you notes were absolutely unbelievable,” she said.

Radio station founder

Her founding of a local radio station, WPTB 850 AM, happened earlier. When the Rosengarts first arrived in Statesboro, she would complain to her husband about the quality of the stations then on the air.

“I complained about it constantly, and he go so irritated with me, (he said), ‘If you don’t like that station, go get your own.’ That was a good idea,” Rosengart recalled.

She began by writing to FCC in Washington, and had to get 100 signatures on a petition. That took a while but was done, and she hired an engineer, described a format, and had an attorney take the application to Washington. Then the attorney called to tell her that someone else had already claimed the callsign WPTB, ‘Wonderful Place to Be,’ and had copies of Rosengart’s engineering and format.

It took a bench trial before a federal judge, but the judge awarded Rosengart the WPTB designation.

“I’ve known Helen Rosengart for 65 years, and for all the things you’ve done in our community, we’re very grateful,” Waters said.