Joseph Allen "Sonny" Weinstein

A Life Lived in Full: Reinvention, Devotion, Second Chances, and the Magnificent Art of Making People Feel SafeJoseph Allen "Sonny" Weinstein, 94, a born-and-bred Philly guy who lived life with decency, humanity, joy, and inimitable style, died on November 21st, 2025 in Boynton Beach, FL, of MDS (myelodysplastic syndrome). Sonny was the kind of person who instinctively knew how to make life easier, kinder, more orderly and practical, and, always, more fun for everyone.

“He created warmth and a feeling of love everywhere he went,” says his wife, Beverly Bashe Weinstein. “He just made people feel safe.”

This obituary is an attempt by us, his family, to honor his enormous spirit and perhaps inspire those who did not know him to take to heart the beautiful lessons of his life.

THE EARLY YEARSBorn in Philadelphia on July 28th, 1931, Sonny spent his early years in the Strawberry Mansion section of North Philly before the family moved to the neighborhood of Balwynne Park. Their apartment offered a glimpse of the city’s downtown skyline, implying a world of possibility for Sonny.

He briefly attended Central High School, then graduated from nearby Overbrook High. He studied at Temple University for a time but was too restless, curious, and eager to stay put. During the Korean conflict, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and became a military policeman, serving stateside.

He often told the story of guarding then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower during a golf outing.

“But the other MP’s were guarding him from us,” he liked to joke.

He also was enlisted to teach a criminology class to military officers. “What qualified me to do it? Absolutely nothing!” he’d say, laughing. “I just stayed one chapter ahead.”

During the mid-1950’s, Sonny met Ruth “Ruthie” Hoffrichter, the first great love of his life. They married in 1957 and began building a family in Northeast Philadelphia — eventually settling in a house on Tremont Street in Holmesburg. They raised two children, Ira and Wendy, in a home filled with stability, humor, and the low hum of Sonny’s entrepreneurial energy.

He owned a handful of discount shoe-and-sandal stores across Northeast Philly, called Sonny’s Shoe-a-teria. Ira, Wendy and various youngsters hired from the neighborhood spent countless hours working in the stores, dusting shoes, stocking shelves, helping Sonny and Ruthie assemble handmade shoe ornaments for women’s pumps and flats. It was the kind of childhood experience you appreciate fully once you’re grown, says Ira - the messy, communal learning that builds competence and character.

When business declined, Sonny pivoted, becoming office manager for Mobile Medical Supply Company. He kept the office running with the same reliability he brought to every job.

And then, when Ruthie’s parents were celebrating their 50th anniversary, he catered their party himself. The food was so good, the event so polished, that his daughter Wendy told him afterward: “Dad, you should do this professionally.”

ANOTHER REINVENTIONSo Sonny reinvented himself once again—this time as the founder of Great Impressions Catering, a business that specialized in intimate, home-based parties. He had a knack: perfect timing, perfect trays, perfect warmth.

His children, extended family, and friends all worked for him. “I guarantee you, half the people who will attend my dad’s funeral once worked a party for him,” says Ira.

Catering, like the shoe business years before, became part of the family’s DNA. It was an example of ethics, resourcefulness, and grace under pressure. Sonny hired neighborhood kids to help out, gave second chances to those who messed up, and taught his children values worth sharing.

Ira remembers once agonizing over whether “a small shortcut” he planned to take regarding a tax situation would be considered “stealing.”

“Stealing is stealing,” Sonny told him, plainly. “There’s no lighter version of it.”

As Ira and Wendy moved into adulthood, they, like their parents, became entrepreneurs. Ira sold cards and gift items (Sonny eventually joined him) and Wendy opened a chain of Philadelphia hair salons, called Ground Zero. This time, Sonny and Ruthie actually worked for her, manning the desk, assisting with the books and supplies, mentoring new employees in matters of customer service, and imparting wisdom and kindness to employees and clients who eventually began to regard the entire Weinstein family as their own.

During that time, one especially memorable conversation with Sonny changed the trajectory of Wendy’s life - and has impacted so many other lives in the process.

“Once the salons were up and running efficiently, I felt kind of a void,” says Wendy. “I talked to my dad and was like, well, what now?

“He said, ‘It’s time to start giving back’” to the world that had helped her succeed, she recalls him saying. Thus began her salon’s ongoing support for charities and nonprofits that support cancer treatment, animal welfare, neighborhood development, and so much more. To date, Ground Zero - with the involvement of employees, friends, and clients - has raised more than a few million dollars to benefit people and communities in need of help.

“That’s a direct result,' she says, “of my dad saying, ‘Just do something.’

“Those were such wonderful years,” adds Wendy. “I got to put into practice, as a boss, everything I’d seen my dad do. But I also had him there to guide me. I just trusted him.”

So did his Sonny’s grandchildren - Ira’s kids, Jess and Harris - for whom “PopPop” was a universe unto himself.

“He felt almost immortal,” says Harris, now 31. “He’d been there as long as any of us could remember.”

PopPop and Bubbe, as they referred to Sonny and Ruthie, spent hours and hours together with Harris and Jess, who is now 33. They explored the Franklin Institute science museum, took in movies and live theater. “I’ll always treasure him taking us to see Spirited Away when it was released in America,” Harris says of the movie that became his favorite, “and watching him crack up at [racy] Avenue Q.

“We watched TV news and talked politics,” Harris adds. “He stressed how important it was to vote.”

But Sonny also gave his grandkids permission to savor life and just kick back. “Visits with him involved sleeping until noon,” says Harris, “eating a breakfast that made everyone happy, then making the most of the day.”

Sonny’s love of life - and for his grandkids - wasn’t just unconditional. It was fun.

FLORIDA: NEW LIFE, UNEXPECTED GRIEF, NEW LOVESonny and Ruthie retired to Florida in 2000 but were never far from Philly in spirit or engagement. They returned often for birthdays, holidays, and Wendy’s fundraising events. And the grandkids spent long, languorous visits with them in Florida, relaxing into the pace of life in the sun, under the swaying palm trees, all accompanied by the songs of the sea.

Then in 2011, Ruthie died suddenly. Sonny was gutted. He withdrew, grieving quietly for a year.

“He was loyal to a fault,” Wendy said. “When he was with my mother, he was with her completely. So you can only imagine what that was like for him, and for us.”

Meanwhile, in his condo building, lived Beverly Bashe, a widow whose husband, David, had died two years earlier. She had known Ruthie; Sonny had known David. They'd see each other at condo meetings, or in the lobby, or in the elevator.

Then, one afternoon, with Wendy visiting and helping Sonny prep a spaghetti-dinner fundraiser for cancer research, Bev stopped by.

“It was magic,” Bev said. “It’s like we looked at each other and thought, ‘Ahhh, there you are.’”

They talked about their late spouses with full hearts. They spent more and more time together, falling in love. They talked about the guilt - and the miracle - of finding happiness and love after grief and loss. And they talked about the hilariously odd culture of Florida widowhood, where, as Bev put it, “the South Shore is falling into the sea under the weight of widows!” and where Sonny — handsome, funny, still driving at night! — was a hot commodity.

But none of that mattered. They recognized something in each other that felt like destiny. And they took a leap.

They married in 2012, blending their families - Bev has two children and five grands - with extraordinary grace. They spent the early years traveling the world together: Italy, Greece, Rome, the Amalfi Coast. They navigated illnesses and recoveries. They laughed constantly.

Sonny made the bed every day; he washed every dish; he brought Bev flowers; he absently kissed the top of her head at the supermarket, charming those who saw his easy affection.

“We were a team from the beginning,” Bev says, “like four feet walking in two steps.”

Sonny called her “my rock and my salvation.” She called him “the safest place I’ve ever known.”

Their example of finding and sharing joy after sorrow has had a profound impact on Sonny's grandson Harris. "The two of them took care of each other and loved (and still love) each other," he says. "They connected our families into one big one, and showed us that there are always new people to care about."

LEADING BY EXAMPLESonny believed in living his values. Especially loyalty. Not the rigid kind, but the principled kind.

“When my mom died,” Wendy says, “and dad started dating Bev, he was all-in. Out of respect, he didn’t talk about my mom with me when Bev was around. And when I complained about that, he said, ‘I loved your mother. I’ll always cherish her. But life is for the living.’”

He taught openness—being willing to learn, to grow, to reinvent, to begin again. “Until you’re dead,” he told Wendy, “you can always expand your mind.”

He exuded calm. If something upset him, Bev learned to bring him down gently. He did the same for her.

He taught that humor could soften nearly anything. His dark, dry wit showed up even in the hospital: “Kill me now,” he’d mouth silently to his kids, motioning a knife at his chest when a too-serious doctor would ask an absurd question - and everyone would laugh through their tears.

And most of all, he taught love, the uncomplicated, unconditional kind. Which was an especially powerful tool when he met Bev’s five grandkids - Rachel, Derick, Gabby, Sophia, and Grace. When they learned that Bev was dating Sonny, they initially bristled with loyalty to their late grandfather. Within minutes of meeting Sonny, though, they adored him, says Bev.

He dissolved their resistance “just by being himself.”

Even as illness crept in over the last year, Sonny stayed alert, curious, and funny.

He read the newspaper daily and watched MSNBC and CNN with the intensity of a man who refused to be left behind. He talked politics with the same ferocity he once brought to shoe sales.

And when he knew he was dying, says Wendy, “He accepted it. He felt surrounded by love. He felt grateful. He said ‘Life has been good.’ He had two great loves, great kids, great grandkids, great friends. What more could a person ask for?”

AN ENDING THAT MIRRORS THE LIFESonny died peacefully in the early morning hours of November 21st while in hospice care. The preceding weeks had been filled with long, special visits from family members who told him how much they loved him, what he’d meant to them. But Sonny waited until he was alone to peacefully slip away. As his nurse later told Bev, “People often wait until their loved ones step away. They don’t want to cause pain.”

That was Sonny—protecting someone from discomfort, smoothing the edges, taking responsibility for the moment. In that way, his final act was no different from the thousands of small kindnesses he had performed quietly across his life.

He noticed something needed doing. He didn’t ask permission to do it. And he did it out of kindness for others. Because he knew people needed it, along with safety, joy, steadiness, humor - and someone in their life who wakes up every day and decides to be good.

Sonny provided that to us, his family, for nearly a century. And we will forever be grateful to him.

Sonny is survived by his beloved wife Beverly Bashe Weinstein; his daughter Wendy (and grand-dog Ikey); son Ira and Ira's girlfriend Anne; his step-children Kelly Cicchinelli (Nick) and Andy Bashe ((Allison) his grandchildren Jessie, Harris, Rachel, Derick, Gabby, Sophia, and Grace; and a large, loving extended family. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Ruth “Ruthie” Hoffrichter Weinstein, and by his brother David.

FUNERAL SERVICESunday, Nov. 30th, 12pm at Goldsteins' Rosenberg's Funeral Directors, 6410 N. Broad St., Philadelphia, PA 19126. Burial will directly follow at Montefiore Cemetery, 600 Church Rd., Jenkintown, PA 19046. Shiva will follow immediately at Ground Zero Salon in Mount Airy, 7119 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19119. 

For those who can not attend in person, a livestream is available by clicking here

Contributions in his memory may be made to The Pap Corps Champions of Cancer Research, c/o Susan Hurwitz, 7280 South Oriole Blvd, TN 207, Delray Beach, Fl 33446. https://www.thepapcorps.org