Ask Alice Bloomfield’s granddaughter how she’d describe her grandmother, and she’s likely to repeat a single adjective.
“She was the most glamorous person. She was so outgoing, glamorous and alive,” said Vicky Elnick of her grandmother, Alice, who died Dec. 5 in Walnut Creek. She was 104.
“She was so glamorous in the way she carried herself — she had a flair,” Elnick continued. “She could wear the simplest thing and make it look so fancy. She was very artistic. She even made hats when she first came to San Francisco.”
Bloomfield was born in 1902 in Berlin. She immigrated to the United States through Shanghai, where she and her family (husband and two children) resided for one year after she left Nazi Germany in 1939.
She and her husband, Herbert, who preceded her in death, had $34 in their pockets when they arrived in San Francisco, said their son Ernie Bloomfield.
Alice and Herbert bought a dry-cleaning store in 1943, and one store soon became two, both in Hayes Valley. Their biggest business was from servicemen who needed their uniforms cleaned and pressed.
Bloomfield continued to work in the stores even after her husband died in 1957, selling the business when she reached retirement age.
“She was a tough lady,” Ernie Bloomfield said. “She was hardworking, and often asked me about my own business.”
Alice then spent a year working at City of Paris’ jewelry counter (now Neiman Marcus).
“She couldn’t afford what she was selling, but she had a lot of costume jewelry instead and she looked like a million dollars,” Elnick said.
“I think she was ahead of her time,” she added. “Even in Germany, before she got married, against her father’s wishes she got a job because she couldn’t imagine not working.”
Other than a short stint in Southern California in the early 1980s, Bloomfield lived in San Francisco and then at Byron Park in Walnut Creek.
She traveled often, mostly to Israel and Europe, including Germany. She did not stop traveling until she broke her hip when she was 97.
“She was one of these German Jews who felt she was German. She really missed it,” Elnick said.
Bloomfield loved animals. She liked to knit and sew, and often took apart skirts or dresses and redesigned them in a way she thought looked better. She picked up painting after she turned 80.
She loved to read, entertain and engage people about politics or philosophy. Elnick remembered her grandmother often being the center of attention at parties or picnics.
“She spoiled the grandchildren,” Ernie Bloomfield said. “When I a kid, I couldn’t go into the living room, but my kids could dance on the cocktail table.”
Bloomfield’s children and grandchildren believe she lived so long because she was optimistic and stayed active even as she aged.
She also had a good sense of humor, Ernie said. He used to tease her about a porcelain pheasant she bought in Germany — he always called it a chicken when he saw her.
She didn’t itemize anything in her will. Except the pheasant, which she left to Ernie.
“That’s my mother,” he said, chuckling.
Bloomfield is survived by two children, three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Donations in her memory may be made to American Friends of Magen David Adom (ARMDI), 5535 Balboa Blvd. Suite 114, Encino, CA 91316.