Herbert Rovick

Herbert Rovick celebrated his 106th birthday in his home of 60 years in Wagener Terrace on Dec. 17, 2022. 

The longtime owner of George’s Loan & Music Co. on King Street in downtown Charleston was laid to rest May 1.

Herbert Rovick passed away on April 28 at age 107, according to his obituary. A graveside service was held in Emanu-El Cemetery in the Maryville section of West Ashley, with arrangements handled by J. Henry Stuhr Downtown Chapel.

The Post and Courier wrote about Rovick in 2022, when he and his sons celebrated his 106th birthday.

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As noted in that article by Ema Schumer, who visited with Rovick at his Wagner Terrace home:

Rovick's eldest son, Jay, thinks his father's diet kept him healthy all these years. His birthday breakfast comprised oatmeal, toast, fruit, juice, coffee and water. The 73-year-old son said his father has always urged a diet of moderation.

His youngest son, Alan, 69, stressed his father's work ethic.

Rovick started working at age 7 and did not stop until 100.

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At 106 years old, Herbert Rovick, a former shopkeeper on King Street, goes for a drive around the peninsula nearly every day with his sons Jay (left) and Alan (right).

The Post and Courier also was there in 2017 when Rovick retired, along with his sons and co-owners of the downtown pawn and music shop he had operated for nearly 60 years.

Now-retired business reporter Warren Wise in that article noted:

George's Loan & Music started in 1936 at 492 King, where the restaurant 492 is now located. George's was owned then by George Silverstein. At the insistence of his late wife, Dora, Herbert Rovick bought the business's name in 1958. In the 1970s, the shop moved to a rented site in Bluestein's Menswear store down the street. The building burned in 1987, and the Rovicks bought the current building at 516 and 520 King the following year.

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Herbert Rovick greets longtime customer Clifton Jenkins at George's Loan & Music Co. in downtown Charleston. Jenkins, who has been a customer for 42 years, was having batteries replaced in his watches and a link taken out of one band. Rovick's son, Jay, is on the right.

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During the shop's heyday and before regional malls lured shoppers to the suburbs in the 1970s and 1980s, business flourished with an influx of people from rural areas as well as the upper peninsula.

"You couldn't walk on the streets there were so many people," Herbert Rovick recalled this week. "We were open until 10 o'clock some nights."

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Herbert Rovick (left) talks with customer Henry Bennett at his shop, George's Loan & Music Co., that he has owned since 1958 in downtown Charleston. Bennett was replacing a watch battery. 

The longtime store location became an Athlete's Foot sports shoe shop, with Benny Ravello's Pizza opening in the space at 520 King St. also owned by the Rovicks.

George's Loan & Music Co. went away like other longtime King Street stalwarts, including Morris Sokol Furniture, Hughes Lumber & Supply Co., Bob Ellis Shoes and Dixie Furniture.

Rovick was born Dec. 17, 1916, in Kansas City, Mo., to Polish Jewish immigrants, the late Jacob Rovick and Ruby Kaufman Rovick, who immigrated to the United States through New York's Ellis Island.

From Wise's 2017 article:

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Herbert Rovick, Sgt., US Army

After living through the Great Depression and surviving the Battle of the Bulge and the bitter cold European winter of 1944-45 during World War II, Herbert Rovick moved to Charleston in 1949 from Kansas City, where he met Dora Slotchiver from Charleston, the woman who would become his wife. Dora was visiting her sister in Missouri when they met.

After getting married, they lived in Kansas City for a while, but his wife longed to be back in Charleston, so they moved to her hometown in 1949. He worked in jewelry and clothing stores for a while, but at the urging of his wife to own his own business, he purchased Silverstein's pawn shop.

On his birthday in 2022, Schumer noted in her article:

The father has clearly passed down his penchant for joking onto his sons.

When a coughing fit besieged the birthday man, Jay Rovick's first reaction was to make a joke. 

"You don't want to go out on your birthday!" Jay said to his dad.

But the father remains the ultimate jokester.

"I'll go out with anybody on my birthday!" he responded.

Rovick was a life member of Synagogue Emanu-El and the Charleston Elks Lodge, a member of the Jewish War Veteran's Association, B'Nai B'Rith, the Hebrew Benevolent Society and a founding member of the Seabrook Island Club.

Memorials may be made to Synagogue Emanu-El, 5 Windsor Drive, Charleston, SC 29407.

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