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December 1, 1987
EX-DELI OWNER ISADORE POLIS
JIM NICHOLSON, Daily News Staff Writer
Isadore "Izzy" Polis, a retired salesman and delicatessen owner, died Sunday. He was 70 and lived in Northeast Philadelphia.
Raised in South Philadelphia, Polis was an amateur singer and entertainer and had been the subject of a Larry McMullen column and was a two-time winner of Daily News Phantom Rider contests.
From 1950 to 1960 Polis worked in sales at the Sears South Philadelphia store. In 1960, he and his wife Freda opened "Izzy's Food Market and Delicatessen" at 32nd and Baring streets in the Powelton Village section of the city. In 1966 he gave up the food market and went back to Sears until 1967, when he suffered a heart attack and retired.
In Izzy Polis, columnist McMullen found a subject who, like himself, had carved out an interesting youth in South Philly from the most elemental environment. Some might say poor.
His father died of a heart attack at age 42, and when Izzy was 12 his mother took him to the nearby butcher shop and got him a job. He later told McMullen that "one of the reasons this country survived the first Great Depression was that most of us already had a lot of training in being poor." He said his family was so poor, his mother and father came over from Russia carrying their bedding on their backs.
Izzy recalled for McMullen in a February 1979 column that some days he would troll the gutters looking for "stumps."
"And we didn't care if the people who smoked them had cancer, or who stepped on them or if horses did anything on them. When I got back, every pocket was filled with stumps. A kid I knew had a machine and we broke up all the stumps and dumped the tobacco in and got papers and made new cigarettes."
He said that as a kid, he yearned to hop one of the many freight trains leaving for the West out of the railroad yard in South Philadelphia. He wanted to go to California and become a singer, but he never quite got up enough nerve to make the break. But he kept his love of song and had a strong voice into his late 60s.
As a 1978 winner of a Phantom Rider contest, Izzy became a permanent member of the Strap-Hanger Panel, a body of experts from the regular riding public the Phantom employed as advisers. Last October, when the Daily News rented two 67-foot-long subway cars for the Phantom's 16th birthday gala, Izzy was an invited guest. Throughout the proceedings he entertained.
Positioned near the five-piece Fralinger String Band ensemble, Polis sang as the train rumbled through the tunnels.
"He was a great amateur performer," said Phantom Rider. "He was in one car and you could hear him from the back of the other car, 134 feet away.
"He was constantly monitoring SEPTA's performance," said Phantom, "but he was not a common scold. He had the Phantom approach; if something was good, he would compliment the service."
Polis was a member of the Jewish Y, at Marshall and Porter streets, and the International Al Jolson Society. Since 1979 he had been active in the Hot Shots, a musical combo group, in which he sang and played piano and saxophone. He was an Army veteran of World War II.
In addition to his wife, the former Freda Zozofsky, he is survived by two sons, Harry M. and Bernard; a brother, Edward P.; three sisters, Elaine Geller, Ray Simons and Florence Reif; and three grandchildren.
Services will be held at noon tomorrow at Rosenberg's Raphael Sacks Funeral Home, 4720 N. Broad St. Burial will be in Har Zion Cemetery, 1201 MacDade Boulevard, Collingdale, Delaware County.
CONSIGLIA RITACCO
Consiglia "Rose" Ritacco, who had been active in Epiphany of Our Lord Sodality, died Sunday. She was 83 and lived in South Philadelphia.
She was the former Consiglia Riviello.
She is survived by a son, Ernest Ritacco; a daughter, Lucy Ligato; a brother, Albert Riviello; five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Thursday at Epiphany of Our Lord Roman Catholic Church, 11th and Jackson streets. Burial will be in Holy Cross Cemetery, Baily Road and Wycombe Avenue, Yeadon, Delaware County.
Friends may call between 7 and 9:30 tomorrow night at the Carto Funeral Home, 2212-14 S. Broad St.
Copyright (c) 1987 Philadelphia Daily News, reprinted with permission
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