"Our Janice" was always a champion

     Came across a fond memory of a spectacular woman ...

     Janice Cahn was as close to a grandmother as we -- my younger sister Elsa and I -- ever had.

     She was Mom's surrogate mother, the beloved angel our mother needed so badly after she lost her mother -- and the rest of her immediate family -- to Nazi-made deaths in the Holocaust.

     Mrs. Cahn -- "Granny Cahn" to us, "our Janice" to Mom -- was one of our lives' greatest blessings, as she was to several immigrant families in Shreveport for decades.

     Almost 10 years ago, I did a blog piece on her. And here is an update because two nights ago while researching Shreveport pro baseball material in May 1970, I came across this photo.

      This was a heart-tugging, tear-inducing moment. A memory of someone so dear to us. There she was -- again -- on the sports page of The Shreveport Times. And by that time, I was on the sports staff there.

     It reminded of something I knew, but had never really researched:

     Janice Cahn -- or Mrs. Abry S. Cahn, as the newspapers in the 1930s, '40s and '50s called her, every time -- was a helluva competitive golfer. 

     She didn't talk about it much in our many visits from the late 1950s through her passing in June 1986. She wasn't one to brag. 

     Looking over the clippings I found Friday, she had so much she could have said. For starters, she was the first from Shreveport to win the Louisiana women's state amateur (in 1932). 

     She knew I loved sports, and so we'd talk about golf in the early 1960s when I was a fan only because of TV coverage and because of Arnold Palmer. 

     Among the many, many gifts Mrs. Cahn gave me was a book, The Gilded Age of Sport, written by Herbert Warren Wind. He was considered the finest golf writer in the country for decades (yes, before Dan Jenkins) and was one of Sports Illustrated's stars for a few years after its 1954 inception. 

     This book was first published in 1945, and updated every year. Mrs. Cahn gave me the 1961 version. I was 14; the book -- honestly -- was a bit above my level then. But it aged, and so did I, and it has been re-read often. It sits within reach of where I am typing this blog.

     Mrs. Cahn knew how to pique my reading interest ... among many other things this wise woman knew.

     Please read my 2012 blog piece on her (and know that we now have four grandchildren; it was three then):

https://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2012/06/granny-cahn-set-example.html

     And I am adding these clippings and photos that will tell you much more about Janice Cahn, and what a powerhouse she was, what a contribution she made to Shreveport-Bossier and to life itself.

     It is this simple: She was one of the greatest people we've known.

 

From a golf column in The Shreveport Times, 1953

December 1959, Shreveport Journal

From a 1970 Shreveport Journal story