By Stacey Dresner

You never know what treasures you might find at your local thrift store.

This past winter, Thrifting New England, a thrift shop in Brattleboro, Vt., purchased several items at auction that were contained in an old chest —a couple of military uniforms, a wedding dress, candlesticks and old photos and other paper ephemera.

This cache of heirlooms was indeed a treasure to South Carolina resident and West Hartford native Marlene Bunis Grower. The items had been stolen from the home of her late parents Shirley and Lester Bunis last year. 

In February, after learning that the items belonged to the Bunis family, the staff at Thrifting New England shipped them back home to Connecticut.

The heirlooms are now back in Grower’s’s hands after a series of events her husband, Lewis Grower, called “kismet.”

Grower said she is just thrilled that the items are back and will be eventually passed on to her daughters and grandchildren.

“We were so incredibly grateful to all of the people that managed to have it all find its way back to us,” she said.

Grower said she remembers sitting with her mother a few years back and going through papers that had been in her late father’s drawer.

“There were cards and mail, and she was reading through things and telling me who this person was and who that person was and going through family history,” Marlene recalled. “There were wedding congratulations from way, way back. She held onto everything. Newspapers with things like the first moon landing. Birthday cards and things that my father had written to my mother when he was in the service.”

Bunis, who died in 2015 at the age of 97, had been the owner of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger (today known as the Southern New England Jewish Ledger for several years.)

She began working in the office of the Jewish Ledger when she was a student at Weaver High School. In the early 1950s, Bunis, who was married with two children, was asked return to and help run the weekly Jewish newspaper. In 1966, she was serving as the Ledger’s advertising manager and Bert Gaster was its managing editor, when the two purchased the publication.

During those years, Bunis and her husband Lester raised Marlene and her late sister Harriet in Hartford, later settling in West Hartford. After Shirley’s death, Harriett remained in the family’s West Hartford home until her death in 2020.

It was during this time that the items were stolen and ended in a storage facility and later at an auction house in Vermont.

From there, they were purchased by Angela Earle Gray, the owner of Thifting New England. An employee, Laura Maturo, posted Shirley and Lester’s wedding photos on several sites on Facebook

“The stuff ended up in Vermont,” said Lewis Grower. “We got a call from our son-in-law during the Super Bowl and he says, ‘I saw pictures of your mother’s wedding on a Jewish genealogy site.”

An Interest in History

Luckily for Marlene, the staff at Thrifting New England has a keen interest in historic heirlooms.

“We buy items to sell in store and online at auctions and estate sales,” said owner Angela Earle Gray, “We’re a little bit quirky and a little bit weird. We’re kind of a cross between antique and thrift in terms of what we are interested in, and we’re interested in history.”

On the night of the auction in question, Gray was not able to get a preview of the items in the old chest as bidders usually do. When the chest full of the Bunis’ belongings came out she was enticed when the auctioneer announced that there were military uniforms inside. She purchased the items sight unseen for less than $100, but the chest itself was purchased separately by another bidder.

In addition to the uniforms, wedding dress and an old mortar and pestle, Gray found that the chest had contained a bunch of old paper materials she wasn’t sure she wanted to take home with her.

But Gray’s  employee Laura loves old photos and ephemera (items that aren’t intended to have a long term life and get passed from person to person — like  Gray was exhausted and planning to leave for a family vacation early the next day, she gathered together the ephemera and brought it back to her store.

The next day her staff began going through the items. The uniforms and wedding dress were taken out to be cleaned, and Maturo found wedding photos, cards from a wedding shower, college report cards — “there were a lot of really interesting things in there,” Laura said.

“There were so many coincidences that came together to make this work. None of the other resellers would have bothered with the ephemera once they found it in the trunk, but because I had a Laura, I did,” Gray joked.

Maturo began posted pieces of the ephemera on different Facebook pages.

“I posted beautiful wedding photos from the 1930s. Based on the other items in the ephemera lot, I concluded it was Shirley Weinberg’s marriage to Lester Bunis,” Maturo said.

A week later she was contacted by Marlene and Lewis Grower.

“My son-in-law Jeremy Belin had seen this ad from Ephemera Vintage Paper Buy Sell Trade on the Jewish genealogy site,” Grower recalled. “A man had written to me and he told me that he thought my parents’ wedding photos were on there so he was trying to contact me to give me the information. I thought I was being hacked. But when my son-in-law called me, I knew it was legitimate.”

She got on the genealogy page and checked it out herself, found Maturo’s name on the ephemera Facebook page, then contacted her at Thrifting New England.

“We talked back and forth. She was the nicest, sweetest person,” Grower said. “They were willing to just send us the stuff, which was so incredible. We made arrangements to have her send it to us and we wanted to reimburse her so we reimbursed her for what she paid at the auction and shipping costs because I didn’t think it was fair to have her carry that burden.”

Days later, Gray shipped the box to the Grower’s daughter Sandra’s house in Wethersfield, Connecticut. Sandra went on Facebook Messenger with her parents in South Carolina and sister and brother-in-law Leah and Jeremy in Rockville, Maryland for the unveiling of the items in the box.

“She had everything immaculately packed in separate bags and folded neatly,” Grower said. “We opened up the box and my mother’s wedding gown was in it and my father’s Coast Guard uniform. You can see the name Bunis down on the bottom of the uniform. And my grandmother’s candlesticks. 

“She came from Zlobovka in Ukraine as a baby and they had wrapped the Shabbat candlesticks inside her blanket. It is such an heirloom that is so precious to our family. So we got that back. And my great-grandmother’s mortar and pestle; we got that back too.”

Besides the cards and photos and cards returned to the family, the box also contained another important artifact.

“A photograph from the 1930s of a Passover seder with my grandparents and all my deceased relatives. It was hanging in the hallway of my parents’ house for years and years,” Grower said. “It just brings the memories back of all of these family members, sitting around the Passover table…It’s going back up on the wall. We have a very strong Jewish identity. It will probably wind up in my house first, but it will end up in my daughters Sandra’s or Leah’s house someday.”

A few items were not recovered. 

A silver menorah had been sold to another bidder at the auction and he had already sold it to another person when he was reached by the Growers.

“It was a wedding gift to my parents and that was one of the main things I wanted back.”

She said she is hoping that someone will see a photo of the menorah on Facebook or in this story and may return it to her family.

Gray and Maturo at Thrifting New England are also hoping that anyone who has possession of the menorah and a few other things that only have meaning to Marlene and her family.

“I am hoping that we can bring some publicity to this so that Marlene may be able to get the rest of her items returned to her,” Maturo said. “Shirley seemed to be an amazing woman and it would be great to see all the items recovered.” 

MAIN PHOTO: Shirley Weinberg in her wedding gown. This photo of Shirley at her wedding to Lester Bunis in Hartford during the 1930s was among the items recently returned to the Bunis family.