Background

    Bernard “Bud” Fensterwald, Jr. was born on August 2, 1921 in Nashville, Tennessee. He was born into a respected Jewish family of relative wealth. He was the second of two children born to Bernard and Blanche Fensterwald, preceded in 1919 by his sister, Ann. 

His father, Bernard Fensterwald, Sr., born 1890, was an owner of a local department store, Burk & Co., on Church Street in downtown Nashville, located since 1915 directly next to the Maxwell House hotel. The store was founded by Bernard Sr.’s father, Joseph Fensterwald in the late 1890’s, who relocated from Baltimore, to sell clothing manufactured by Burk, Fried and Co., which was owned in part by the Fensterwald family. 

Bud’s father, Bernard Sr. graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vanderbilt University in 1911. He then went to work in the family business, although he was active in local philanthropy and became a Trustee of both Vanderbilt and Fisk Universities. 

The Fensterwald’s skilled tailors, had emigrated to Baltimore from Germany in the 1850’s as there was a direct steamship connection between Bremerhaven and Baltimore. Similar to Ellis Island, Baltimore was an important point of emigration into the US. In fact, the B&O Railroad had a terminal at the Port of Baltimore to directly transfer immigrants seeking to relocate to the Midwest. 

At the same time, many Jews entering the US from Germany chose to stay in Baltimore and a flourishing “Needle Trade” developed. Burk, Fried was one such company. It established a manufacturing plant there in 1889 that was destroyed in the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 and rebuilt in 1907. Joseph Fensterwald came to Nashville to open a retail store to sell the clothing manufactured in Baltimore. Meanwhile, one branch of the family remained in Baltimore, while another went to Norfolk, Virginia to open another retail branch. 

Nashville and Baltimore had an interesting distinction that may have made all of this possible. Following the Civil War, Baltimore was the closest Northern industrial city to the South. At the same time, Nashville exited the war relatively unscathed (compared to cities like Atlanta). Recovery came that much sooner. 

Bud’s mother, Blanche Rothschild Lindauer, born 1892, came from an equally distinguished Nashville family. Her father, Benjamin Lindauer (1856-1916), the first Jewish President of the Nashville City Council (1898), was a principal in a successful local dry goods firm, Herman Bros., Lindauer, located then on 2nd Avenue N. in downtown Nashville. 

Bud’s grandmother, Bertha Fensterwald died in 1903 from childbirth; his grandfather, Joseph, known as Popsy, died in 1931. 

The Fensterwald’s were plagued with poor hearts. Bernard Sr. died from a heart attack in 1951; Blanche died similarly in 1963.