A self-cultured woman with a self-deprecating sense of humor, Elaine Ruth Brust (née Wieseneck) left her family a gallery of stunning sculpture and a trove of memories. She died in Denver, Colo. on Nov. 14. Brust was 89.
Born in Far Rockaway on June 2, 1925, she was raised in the Arverne section of Queens and graduated from Far Rockaway High School. That was her highest level of education, her son, Richard Brust said. “’College was for people who had money, and we didn’t’ she frequently said,” he said.
Brust and the man who was to become her husband, Norman Brust, grew up in the same Arverne neighborhood. “He would sit on the porch of my mother’s family’s house to wait for the girl who lived across the street to leave, so he could run after her,” Richard said. “One day they struck up a conversation and realized how much they liked each other.”
World War II interrupted the couple’s blossoming romance. Norman served as an Army combat medic in the 106th Division. Captured at the Battle of Bulge, he was a prisoner of war until he was liberated. Norman graduated college in 1947. On June 26, 1949, the couple wed in Far Rockaway. They were married until Norman, a former president of Peninsula General Hospital, died in 2009. He was also an internist with a practice in Far Rockaway.
Working before she had children, Brust was the assistant to the chairman of RCA and met many of the stars that passed through the New York office, including Frank Sinatra, Olivia de Havilland and Joan Crawford. “She claimed that Sinatra once tried to ask her out, but he never followed through,” said Richard. He couldn’t confirm that story.