Isidor Paiewonsky is making 90 today.
He's observing the occasion quietly with family and close friends at his home on Blackbeard's Hill — which he noted earlier this weekend is at least twice as old as he is.
The house is just a short walk from his birthplace on Synagogue Hill — literally down one hill and up the other. The weekend brought birthday celebrations on both hills.
On Friday evening, the Hebrew Congregation of St. Thomas, meeting in its social hall on Synagogue Hill, paid tribute to Paiewonsky, a lifetime member, at its Shabbat evening service. Gov. Charles W. Turnbull was there to make remarks, and Rabbi Stephen Schafer, who formerly served the congregation, would have been there to deliver the sermon, had Hurricane Jose not kept him from flying in from the mainland.
On Saturday evening, Paiewonsky's wife of 61 years, Charlotte, hosted a dinner party for more than 50 friends and family members in their home, which has been restored after being damaged by Hurricane Marilyn four years ago.
At the Friday service, in Schafer's stead, Dr. Donald Pomeranz read the rabbi's message, faxed earlier in the day, in celebration "of Isidor's kind of 90." Citing Paiewonsky's capacity to stay involved in the community even as it changes, Schafer wrote: "He's the kind of 90 I want to be when I grow up."
The rabbi also noted that in 20 years of living on St. Thomas he had known Paiewonsky only and ever as one-half of a duo. "The words always seem to come out together as one — Charlotte-and-Isidor," he wrote, lauding the couple's "gift to judge people generously, and mostly stay in for the long haul."
At the same time, Schafer added, "They know when to let go of authority and give it to someone else." As Pomeranz read these words, Charlotte Paiewonsky, seated to her husband's left, turned to their daughter, Avna Paiewonsky Cassinelli, on her left, and smiled. Cassinelli, who now runs the A.H. Riise Shops, an amalgam of businesses developed and begun by her parents, and is grooming her sons to succeed her someday, smiled in return.
Schafer referred to Paiewonsky as "a maven of the wider world" (the word, in Yiddish, the common language of European Judaism, means the man or woman in the know). The rabbi quoted his wife, Nina, as saying she "could sit at Isidor's feet and feel enraptured as he read the telephone book."
The governor, commenting informally after concluding his written remarks summarizing Paiewonsky's contributions to his community, said of his own knowledge of Virgin Islands history, "A lot of that I got from you." As a history professor at the University of the Virgin Islands, he said, he learned much about his own roots by reading Paiewonsky's history columns that ran in The Daily News for two decades and, in turn, "imparted that to my students."
The governor commended Paiewonsky for "your tenacity — most of the time you've been right." (Had that not been so, St. Thomas would today have, among other things, an airport built on concrete pads over the Lagoon on the island's southeast short. That's what Paiewonsky's late brother, Ralph, as governor in the 1960s wanted to do.)
Turnbull shared memories from his childhood in the Savan section of St. Thomas of how the Paiewonsky family — Isaac and Rebecca Paiewonsky, the parents of Isidor and Ralph — was viewed in the black community. "They are rich people but they are good people, who have, but help others. That's what we were told," the governor recalled.
In his own turn at the lectern, Paiewonsky had kind words for the governor, crediting him with being calm in the midst of the economic troubles besetting the territory today. Bristling silver eyebrows bobbing, he, too, paid tribute to his wife, and expressed pleasure that his children, grand children, and now their children consider the Blackbeard's Hill house "a haven where we all come home."
At the private party on Saturday evening, more than 50 friends and family members — four generations of Paiewonskys — gathered at the house overlooking St. Thomas harbor from atop Blackbeard's Hill. Many came from off island for the occasion, including son Michael's own son, Paul, who flew in from Norway. A trio provided West Indian music from the courtyard below the house as guests, ranging from well-behaved Paiewonsky great-grandchildren to contemporaries of the honoree, mingled in- and out-of-doors.
Champagne and a three-layer Vienna birthday cake topped by a big numeral 90 capped the evening, as toasts and gifts were given to the honoree. Sebastiano Cassinelli, Avna's son, presented his grandfather with an old ledger that he said businessman John Anderson had found containing writings from Isaac and Rebecca Paiewonsky about things Sebastiano had heard from Isidor as a child. He promised to read it with his grandfather "later."
"It was a lovely evening," one guest said, adding, "They have hosted so many parties there through the years that they have it down pat."
Today, on his actual birthday, Isidor Paiewonsky might put in a little time working on his next book — as opposed to his "latest book," a just-published chronicle of the pirate Captain Kidd's visit to St. Thomas in 1699, which will be in local bookstores any day now.
It's his fifth tome — all of them chronicling aspects of Virgin Islands history except for a book of poetry he wrote in tribute to his son Paul, who died as a young man in a skydiving accident off Puerto Rico. He says he plans to produce at least another 15, including one documenting "firsts" of Virgin Islands development. And, one must assume, one day, his memoirs.
Another thing he'll surely do today is take his regular stroll around the top of Blackbeard's Hill. And he will probably put in at least a little time doing what he has done for much of the adult portion of his 90 years — working behind the scenes to arm himself with facts and figures to support his quiet but effective lobbying efforts, both locally and in the nation's capital, of behalf of the business community, the environment, historical preservation, sustainable tourism development and the people of the Virgin Islands.
