Cutting a fabulous figure

Longtime Free Press fashion editor’s finely woven legacy covered the front page and runways as well as school carpools and weekly Shabbat dinners

By: Eva Wasney

Rhoda Feldman was a woman of style and substance.

After breaking ground as one of the Free Press’s first female news reporters, she became Winnipeg’s homegrown style guru, keeping locals abreast of the latest trends as the paper’s jet-setting fashion editor.

Rhoda died in September at the age of 91 — one week after she and husband Zivey Feldman celebrated their 71st wedding anniversary surrounded by their large, tight-knit family.

Rhoda and Zivey met as teens at the YMHA on Albert Street, then a community hub for Jewish youth in Winnipeg, where they got to know each other during co-ed dances. The like-minded pair fell into a comfortable courtship.

“We had similar interests,” Zivey says. “We just bonded.”

Both hailed from the North End, albeit from different economic circumstances.

Zivey, the son of a major local garment manufacturer, came from a well-to-do family of community boosters. Rhoda was the second eldest and sole girl of four siblings who grew up sleeping in the kitchen of her family’s small basement apartment and helping care for her brothers while their father was overseas during the Second World War.

During the summers, she was shipped off to Prince Albert, Sask., to stay with her mother’s gregarious sisters. She travelled by train with a note pinned to her shirt, alerting the porters she needed to transfer in Regina. The visits, spent sleeping over with cousins and getting spoiled by her aunts, were a highlight of an otherwise hard childhood.

Rhoda’s gift for writing was noted and encouraged by Mrs. Slusky, a teacher at William Whyte School whose early support laid the groundwork for an accomplished career.

Upon graduation from high school, when most of her peers were looking forward to marriage, she aimed to study journalism in university. Her parents called a family meeting to discuss the request — an uncommon path for a young woman at the time — and her post-secondary aspirations were approved by committee.

Writing under her maiden name, Koven, Rhoda penned a sports column for The Manitoban called Koed Korner, where she reported enthusiastically on the achievements of female athletes and women’s sports on campus.

“She was very aware of women’s issues — our place was everybody’s place, we were all equal,” says granddaughter Leslie Emery, a cantor at Congregation Shaarey Zedek, who counts her grandma as an influential figure.

“I can do everything I want to; why shouldn’t I? My grandma did.”

And Rhoda really did do it all.

A driven person with lofty goals, she started pestering Free Press editors about a job in the newsroom and, thanks to her dogged persistence, landed a position as a reporter in 1953.

Rhoda and Zivey married the same year and embarked on the first of many international adventures together: a very long honeymoon road trip to Las Vegas, where the 20-year-old bride wasn’t old enough to partake in most of Sin City’s offerings.

Rhoda worked as a reporter for several years before pausing to start a family. The couple had five children — Brian, Lisa, Karen, Susan and Alan — and while family was the top priority, professional pursuits weren’t far behind.

Zivey had taken charge of National Cloak, his father’s clothing business, by the time Rhoda was tapped to become the Free Press’s fashion editor in the 1970s. They were demanding parallel careers, yet there was never a question of compromise.

“One was my business and one was her life,” Zivey says, adding they relied on outside child care help — a tall task with five kids.

“When we were both away at the same time, we would find the person who was watching our kids all packed up and sitting on the front steps, ready to leave,” he says with a laugh.

The couple often hit the road together, with Zivey meeting clients and Rhoda taking in runway shows.

“We might go to the same city together and I wouldn’t see her until she was ready to come home,” he says, adding they did run into each once while walking down Fifth Avenue in New York City. “I bumped into her — it’s a city with millions of people!”

Despite being well-travelled, Rhoda had a terrible sense of direction and often relied on the kindness of strangers to get her where she needed to be — occasionally, those strangers were fashion insiders who could help facilitate stories.

“She managed to use it as part of her charm,” son Alan Feldman says. “It was almost like a Columbo approach.”

Rhoda frequented New York in the ’80s and developed genuine friendships with many people on the scene, thanks to her friendly, outgoing demeanor. She met artist Andy Warhol at legendary nightclub Studio 54 and interviewed the likes of Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren.

A career high was nabbing an exclusive interview with the famously elusive cosmetics magnate Estée Lauder. It’s unclear why she spoke with a reporter from little ol’ Winnipeg, but Rhoda’s famously charming persistence may have had something to do with it.

The profile ran in December 1982, with insights on the Lauder way of life and tips for socializing, scarf-wearing and long-lasting lip-colour application — blush powder, followed by lipstick.

While her reporting life may have been glamorous, the work of writing is rarely so.

“I’d walk down to the bedroom she had converted into an office and she’d be sitting there in her bathrobe with her hair in a towel and Craven (cigarette) in her mouth, typing away trying to get a deadline taken care of,” says Alan, the youngest in the family and the only sibling left at home when Rhoda went back to work.

He witnessed his mom transition from typewriters to computers and became well-acquainted with the former Free Press newsroom on Carlton Street. She later freelanced for various outlets and dabbled in radio and television.

In between writing stories, Rhoda volunteered for the school carpool and hosted the family’s weekly Shabbat dinners, which were come-one, come-all affairs at the Feldmans’ longtime River Heights home.

“My mother always had dinners Friday night and we did the same,” Zivey says. “It kept the family bonded together.”

Rhoda’s spreads were legendary: multiple meats — brisket, chicken wings, sausage — and more than one side, such as her signature mandarin and avocado salad.

“I don’t know how she did it while working, but she’d cook for a couple days to get everything ready,” Leslie says. “And if it was your birthday week, you got to pick the menu.”

“It was pretty remarkable,” Alan says, adding his mom was an involved and supportive matriarch who held high expectations for her family.

Unsurprisingly, Rhoda had a passion for shopping and left behind a closet overflowing with high-quality garments and shoes.

“She always had an outfit, head to toe, even as she aged,” says Leslie, who treasures the pieces she inherited from her grandma’s wardrobe.

Rhoda remained active in retirement, volunteering with various boards and community organizations. A voracious reader, she continued writing and had an unpublished murder-mystery novel in the works.

“That would’ve been just one more feather in her cap,” Alan says.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com