“But she didn’t tell me until today. Because today I was so much better than I was at Thanksgiving.”
Even though she swore she wouldn’t, Miri wondered again if she should tell someone about Natalie. But who would she tell and what would she say? She was still thinking about it at the pageant that night, and after, when Rusty took her to Schutt’s, the ice cream parlor on Morris Avenue, for a hot fudge sundae.
Elizabeth Daily Post
THAT GIRL
By Henry Ammerman
DEC. 19—She was 22, with the longest legs he’d ever seen. “She could dance,” Jimmy Bower said. “She could really dance! That girl was going places.”
That girl was Ruby Granik, on her way to dance at the Vagabond Club in Miami when she boarded the ill-fated Miami Airlines C-46 on a bitterly cold Sunday afternoon. The flight had already been delayed two hours and Ruby and the other passengers waited another three before they boarded.
“I begged her to wait,” her best friend, Dana Lynley, said, “but she insisted on taking the non-sked. It was less money and money was tight. She hadn’t been paid yet for her last job and she needed to get to Miami. You didn’t win an argument with Ruby. Once she made up her mind there was no going back. That’s how she lived her life.”
“I knew her since she was born,” Billy Morrison, owner of Billy’s Tavern and family friend, said. “I served her her first legal drink, a pink lady. I made it weak but it still made her tipsy. Her father was my best friend. There are no words,” he said, visibly shaken. “None.”
Her uncle, Fire Captain Victor Szabo, of Elizabeth Engine Company #3 said, “I knew Ruby was on that plane. I knew it and yet when the call came in and my unit sped to the scene of the crash, I had to force myself not to think of her inside that broken pile in the Elizabeth River. I had to do my job. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. My wife and Ruby’s mother are sisters. My wife had gone out to Queens to keep Ruby’s parents company for a few days. We have no children so we thought of Ruby as our daughter, too. We couldn’t have been more proud. It’s a devastating loss.” He paused and turned away, using a handkerchief to dab at his eyes. When he regained his composure he said, voice breaking, “There was nothing left of Ruby but that Bulova watch and the infant in her arms.”
The infant belonged to Ruby’s seatmate. At 7 months, he was the youngest member of a family—his mother, his grandmother and his 2-year-old brother—all of whom died when the C-46 crashed and exploded.
Ruby’s last stop before leaving New York for the airport was Hanson’s Drug Store. Jimmy Bower, who worked behind the counter and had once danced with Ruby in a show, was distraught. “She loved all things strawberry,” he said. “I made her a strawberry ice cream soda. I kidded her about eating the Maraschino cherry on top. She enjoyed it down to the last lick. Sunday was the saddest day of my life. A lot of the dancers who hang out here feel the same way. Ruby lit up the room, always ready to enjoy a joke, always with that dynamite smile.”
The owner of the Vagabond in Miami, where Ruby was heading, said there was no replacing Ruby. “Oh, sure, there are plenty of dancers out there, but Ruby had that certain something. That je ne sais quoi, if you’ll pardon my French,” Frank Viti said. “She made the audience feel special, as if every dance move was just for them. Not that many dancers connect on a personal level, but Ruby Granik gave it her all.”
Her mother said she was an ambitious girl. “Since she was a child she knew what she wanted and she figured out how to get it. She didn’t depend on anyone to hand it to her. Not Ruby. We named her for Ruby Keeler, my favorite movie star. Who knew our Ruby would also be a dancer, a star? When our family hit rough times and I had to give up my job to care for my husband, Ruby became our sole support. But our girl never complained. She was a gem, just like her name.”
Her boyfriend, brother of actor and entertainer Danny Thomas, declined this reporter’s request for an interview. He was in seclusion, according to family members, mourning the loss of a wonderful girl.
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Christina