Easter Egg Hunt
By Benjamin Slavin
For a decade, the Slavin household was home to a yearly Easter egg hunt. Not because there were young children eager to unearth colorful and candy-filled eggs. Nope. It started that way, but it was not long before the kids outgrew the tradition.
Instead, the annual hunt lived on through a Jewish grandmother. Sara Slavin, never less than 75-years-old for the proceedings, loved to get down-and-dirty finding her concealed Hershey’s Kisses and Cadbury Creme Eggs. One year, she brought the phrase down-and-dirty to life.
“Grandma must have spotted an egg while we were taking pictures because, as soon as it starts, she takes off for the garden,” her grandson Josh Slavin said. “The next thing I see is her sprawled across the dirt. Then, as everyone stopped to make sure she was okay, she popped up, egg in hand.”
Moments like these will live on in the minds of family and friends, even as Slavin herself fails to do so. Born Aug. 8, 1931, she made the most of her 88 years.
Slavin was always petite. Short silver hair topped her child-sized body. Glasses reinforced her brown eyes. Sales-rack clothing kept her warm at all times. She loved to bring up how in her heyday she was 5-feet-4-inches in heels, but even that was an exaggeration. By the end, she would need heels to break the 5-foot barrier.
She moved slowly and methodically, the result of short legs and old age. Despite her quiet movement, everyone knew when Slavin was nearby. She entered rooms with rhetorical bellowings of “Hello? Anybody here?” or a shriek of a name if she had a particular target.
“When I heard ‘Benjaminnn,’ I knew what to expect,” Ben Slavin, her grandson, said. “She needed me to figure out why ‘Mr. TV is not talking to Mr. DVR’ or grab something off the top shelf.”
Mr. TV and Mr. DVR were two of Slavin’s greatest foes. Technology had passed her by. A smartphone was never an option, as she sported a Samsung flip phone that rarely saw the light of day. She attempted to learn to email and read online stories, but clung to old-fashioned phone calls and books.
It would have been easier to convince Snoop Dogg to stop smoking weed than Slavin to stop reading books. Her bedside table was scarcely without a stack of mystery novels. The local library served as her second home, and her seal of approval was equivalent to an Oprah’s Book Club sticker.
“When she placed a hold for a book, we knew to get multiple copies,” Lee Ann Smith, an information assistant at the South Brunswick Library, said.
Scurrying after Easter eggs was far from Slavin’s only risky act. “She could do a headstand at 75, roller-skate too,” Debbie Slavin, Sara’s daughter-in-law, said. “I had to tell her to stop or she never would have.”
Slavin’s bubbly demeanor spread beyond her family. Anyone who has entered the Slavin household can recall an enjoyable conversation with its resident matriarch. Friends of her grandsons lovingly called her “Super G.”
“Some nights I would come home from work and Josh or Ben and their friends would be sitting there playing games and in the center of them would be Grandma,” Matt Slavin, Sara’s son, said.
Slavin could make friends with anyone, a trait that occasionally backfired. One day, she came home to her apartment building, shocked by the sight of police invading a friend’s apartment. As she found out the next day, the “friend” was busted for a large-scale drug operation.
Matt Slavin said his mother’s engaging personality and endless supply of stories date back to her childhood. She grew up in the remote coal mining town of Windber, where besides getting black lung disease, there was little to do.
Slavin left Windber as soon as she could, following the same path as many of her friends by attending Penn State University. But her vision of that path’s end was atypical of her peers.
“At the time, most girls went to college to meet a guy to then come back and start a family,” Debbie Slavin said. “Sara was not like that. She went to see what life was like outside Windber. As soon as she graduated, she moved to New York to figure out what she wanted to do in life.”
Finally free from Windber, Slavin needed some adjusting to city life. According to her son, it was a mistake-filled experience. “She went to this fancy fondue restaurant with her friend and they had no clue what they were doing,” Matt Slavin said. “They were using spoons trying to eat from the pot. Eventually, a waiter took pity and showed them the fondue forks, but they gave the staff a few minutes of entertainment.”
By moving to New York, Slavin diverged from her friends’ goals of settling down immediately, but she joined them in desiring a husband. So she set out to a place of culture and class to meet a nice gentleman. That place? An old-fashioned dude ranch.
Unfortunately, she did not find her dream man horseback with a cowboy hat, and the pursuit continued.
It took a while, but Slavin eventually found her husband. In 1962, at the Ansonia Hotel in New York City, she met Jim Slavin. Two years later, the hotel held their wedding. Like the dude ranch, the Ansonia was the epitome of class—evidenced by its eventual hosting of famous swingers’ club Plato’s Retreat.
In experiencing life as an independent woman for over a decade before getting married, Slavin accomplished her goals of leaving Windber behind. Her life was action-packed enough to write a book about it. Knowing Slavin, she probably already read that book.
Slavin left friends and family enough stories to last a lifetime, and an egg hunt-sized hole in their hearts.
“I really can’t quantify or adequately describe the depth of my feeling for my dear friend Sara,” Lorette Lacher said. “What I can say is she is priceless to me and totally beyond category.”
Ben’s Bio:
Slavin is a rising sophomore majoring in Sports Journalism with minors in Business Administration and Sport Management. Born and raised in South Brunswick, New Jersey, he is a massive sports nerd who runs an NFL blog, podcast, and Instagram account. Before enduring multiple concussions, he played goalkeeper for multiple soccer clubs and loves to harp on these “glory days.”