"When I picture her, it's always the same. She's maybe four or five, her hair is braided in four or five plaits, and she's clinging to her father's knees."
By YOCHEVED MIRIAM RUSSOhug reunion 88(photo credit: )
Thanks to an article that appeared in Metro in June 2007, Juanita Cohen Smith of Eilat and her long-lost goddaughter, Dr. Jennifer Adams of Brooklyn, spoke to each other a few days ago for the first time in over 35 years.
"I cried and cried," Juanita says, "not from sadness but from pure joy. I can't believe she set out to find me like that. I was just overcome."
"As a child, I was captivated by her," Jennifer Adams recalled in a phone interview. "I remembered her as being very beautiful and very glamorous, with a lovely smile. She was a world traveler, even then. When I saw her photo on the Jerusalem Post Web site, I was so happy. She was pictured wearing a pink dress I remembered very well - I have pictures of my own showing Juanita in that dress! I was so happy to find her again."
Juanita Cohen Smith - who prefers to be known by her stage name, 'Juanita' - was profiled in Metro magazine as one of Eilat's most fascinating residents. Her public career began at age four, when she accompanied her opera-singer mother on the piano. A few years later, she'd set out - with fancy pink bows in her hair - to try to get auditions with some of the music groups that flooded New York in the aftermath of World War II. "I'd make the rounds of rehearsal halls," Juanita recalls. "There I was, this skinny little girl with bows in my hair, asking, 'Please, can I play with your group?'"
Some said yes, and Juanita began moving up in the world of jazz, rhythm and blues, and the first hints of rock n' roll. In the 1950s, she met the legendary Jimmie Butts, a popular jazz bass player, and became part of a group of musician friends who were promoted by a man who later became Jennifer's father, Prince Adams.
"Juanita and my father were very close friends," Adams says. "I'd searched for Juanita every now and then, but when my father passed away in 2005, I set out to find her and some of his other friends I remembered. I knew Juanita was in Israel. We lost touch when I was about five years old, and she moved to California. From there, she wrote to me several times and I answered, but I think all that stopped when she moved to Israel."
The reunion was a Google miracle. "Over the years, I'd Googled Juanita's name several times," Adams said in a phone interview from her Brooklyn home. "A few times I'd find some bit of information - one time I found her photo on a German Web site, because she'd performed there. But this time when I searched, I came across the Jerusalem Post article. I was stunned - there she was, and wearing a dress I remember!"
Adams emailed the Post, where her letter was forwarded to Metro, which ultimately led to her being put in touch with Juanita herself.
"Can you believe it? I was her godmother, I held her at her christening!" says the Jewish Juanita. Having a Jewish godmother is just fine with Adams. "Hey, it's all the same to me," she says, laughing. "I live in Brooklyn. I have lots of Jewish friends - I'll be celebrating Rosh Hashana with them pretty soon. To me, she's perfect."
The two have parallel memories of each other. "We lived downtown then, in one of those old apartment buildings, and she'd come visit us," Adams remembers. "She always doted on me. I had siblings, so it was always nice to have someone paying attention just to me alone. I remember the last gift she gave me - it was a doll, a huge one, almost as tall as I was. I wasn't a big doll person, but that gift was something I treasured for a long time."
"Jennifer had always stayed in the back of my mind," Juanita says. "But when I picture her, it's always the same. She's maybe four or five, her hair is braided in four or five plaits, and she's clinging to her father's knees. It's amazing - now she's all grown up, a science professor who teaches teachers! I always knew she was a genius."
There may be a deeper mystical connection between the two than appears. "Everyone always thought Prince Adams and I would marry," Juanita says, referring to Adam's father. "But at that time I was only interested in my piano. Then I was blessed enough to meet and marry my own wonderful husband, and Prince Adams married Carmela, who's Jamaican, like I am. [She] was Prince's first child - and they named her Jennifer!"
For Adam's part, she credits Juanita with giving her a broader world view than was common among other little girls in her neighborhood. "Juanita traveled all over the world, and then she moved to Israel. I think that inspired me, and gave me my love of travel. She gave me an international outlook."
Juanita's international career began with Jimmie Butts, with whom she stayed for 15 years before moving off on her own, playing piano and singing with just a drummer. Her first big gigs were in Canada, so she toured Canada again and again. She first visited Israel in the early 1950s with her parents, and after that, she says, "I always carried Israel on my shoulder."
When Eilat's Neptune Hotel offered her a contract, she jumped at it. "Eilat was very cosmopolitan in those days, the favorite vacation spot for Europeans, Asians, people from all over the world. The Neptune was the finest hotel, where ladies dressed in elegant gowns and jewelry. I played the piano in the lobby, every kind of music anyone wanted to hear, although I personally preferred Gershwin, doing my own interpretations. I stayed with the Neptune for nine years."
Today, from her home base in Eilat, Juanita is still playing strong - concerts in Europe, on shipboards, in hotels, where ever people who love music gather.
For her part, Jennifer D. Adams, PhD, is assistant professor of Science Education at Brooklyn College, CUNY.
Since Juanita doesn't have e-mail, the two plan to keep up the communication by phone and snail mail. "Israel has always been on my list of places to visit," Adams says. "Now I know I have somewhere to stay."
For Juanita, the reconnection was especially fortuitous. "My husband and two sisters have passed away, my brother is gone," she says. "All I really had left was Jennifer - and she called! I just said, 'Thank you, dear God!' What a wonderful thing this was!"
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