S

ome people are hard to 
put in a box. But when 
Karen Couf’s friend 
and mentor, the late Dorie 
Shwedel, wrote a personal ad 
that so perfectly described her, 
she ultimately changed Karen’s 
life forever.
It was the early ’90s; Karen 
had recently returned to 
Detroit after living in New 
York for 10 years and met 
Dorie soon after. Karen 
worked with Dorie in public 
relations in The Slade House 
in Franklin, a historic building 
owned by Dorie’s husband, the 
late attorney Marvin Schwedel. 
They laughed a lot — particu-
larly when Karen would share 
her dating adventures. 
“My dating life wasn’t pret-
ty,” Karen said. “I once sat 
across from a blind date who 
said, ‘That’s a scone? I never 
heard of that!’ and then he 
stuck his finger in my scone! 
Another guy was wearing an 
extremely bad-fitting toupee 
… I would have preferred no 
hair to that.” 
Back then, the Detroit Jewish 
News had a personal section 
in the back of the newspa-
per called The People-Voice 
Connector. Voicemail was a 

new thing then and 
each ad was assigned 
its own code. Readers 
could either call and 
leave a voice message or 
write a response, using 
the code to respond to a 
particular ad’s “mailbox.” 
Meanwhile, cardiolo-
gist Gerry Cohen, who’d 
grown up in Montreal and 
worked at the Cleveland 
Clinic, had also recently 
relocated to Detroit to work 
at Sinai Hospital. Dating 
hadn’t been kind to him 
either. 
“In those days, Jewish single 
events were very infrequent, 
and unless you had roots or a 
network, it was tough to find 
someone,” said Gerry, who 
had made it a goal to meet 
someone and settle down. 
Gerry also turned to the 
Jewish News for help. In early 
1994, he placed a personal ad 
describing himself as a “1957 
vintage bed warmer in my 
30s,” an ad Karen specifically 
remembered.
“I met a number of nice 
singles through that ad,” said 
Gerry and then Karen’s ad ran 
in the July 1 issue and grabbed 
Gerry’s attention. 

“She sounded like a person 
with character,” said Gerry, 
who immediately sat down 
to handwrite a response on 
a lovely card with a Monet 
painting on the front. He 
wrote: “Dear Ms. Keatonish, I 
am Woody Allenish …” 
“This was before he was 
persona non grata, of course,” 
Gerry added.
 Gerry’s card was the only 
handwritten response Karen 

received — “and the classiest.” 
(She received plenty of voice 
messages that all sounded the 
same — “kind of boring.”) 
“His card really stood out. 
Someone took the time to 
write! We’re so far from those 
times now,” marveled Karen. 
“More than that, what he 
wrote … it was so clever and 
hysterical! I was so touched 
that my mentor had the abil-
ity to define me in a way that 

28 | MARCH 30 • 2023 

OUR COMMUNITY

“Through a 
Detroit Jewish News 
personal ad!”

How 
We Met

ROCHEL BURSTYN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

