Mendy Grostein didn’t always walk with an awkward gait. It began when he accidentally hit his foot with a shovel as he was digging old Mrs. Levine’s grave – but it wasn’t her fault. Most people have several personality characteristics that serve to define them – quiet, out-going, reticent, jovial, etc . Mendy had none. Asking anyone who knew Mendy to describe him, you would always get the same response “Mendy the Gravedigger” said without ceremony, emotion or distance. That was his persona. Mendy was defined by his role in his community. A pivotal role that was appreciated by all.
Mendy however was not just any grave digger. He was the best. Even with his right foot bent inward and dragging on the ground as he walked. Keeping with the culture common perhaps only to those of Mile End, he became known as Mendy the “G”, thus leaving open to the creativity and imagination of his acquaintances (not friends of which he had few if any) what the “G” actually stood for. Perhaps “gravedigger”. Perhaps not.
Mendy was selective and only worked in the Ste Sophie cemetery where he was the sole gravedigger. He felt that burial was a sacred ceremony and needed to be done properly. Of course it helped that the payment he received for his services in Ste Sophie was more than he could have made anywhere else. Much more.
It began when Mendy was 15 years old and the Sageretsky family in Ste Sophie was faced with the challenge of interring the family patriarch Moe which would ordinarily be a family responsibility. They had refused. The problem was that Moe was a bigamist- and as a result they wouldn’t bury him anywhere, let alone in the family plot. Moe had thought no one knew. That it was his secret. It wasn’t. The entire community knew.
Moe had a second family with Ginette Lapierre who operated the town’s grocery store. Together they had six children – Andre, Lucille, Genevieve, Jacques, Clement and Sam.
That it was Moe’s second family was confirmed by Ginette who would tell anyone who would listen, and since hers was the only grocery store in the town that meant pretty much everyone, that Sam was named after Moe’s late father Saul whose outstanding feature had been his red hair. Bright red. Moe also had red hair. Bright red. Little Sam as well. In fact they were the only ones in the Ste. Sophie community with red hair which you will admit was quite a coincidence. That’s what Moe kept pleading. That it was only a coincidence. No one in the community believed him. Least of all his family. So they refused to bury him. The task was left to Mendy and his career was born. Only Ginette and her children attended the ceremony. Another coincidence.
