Physical separation didn't stand a chance of driving a wedge between Joseph Bernstein and his beloved New Orleans Saints.
After retiring to Bay St. Louis, Miss., and then relocating to Dallas following Hurricane Katrina, Bernstein and his wife, Phyllis, did their best to get their Saints fix on NFL weekends.
Bernstein, a New Orleans native and the last remaining member of the original Saints ownership group, died at his home in Dallas on Dec. 5. He was 94.
"(Moving to Dallas) just meant they would find (Saints games) through the internet, radio, whatever they could do to sit around and listen to the games," said Jon Bernstein, the youngest of four Bernstein children.
Bernstein is survived by his wife, Jon, daughters Jill Bernstein, Barbara Shuker and Elizabeth R. Bernstein, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
"The Cowboys are on TV every week here, or we get NFC East (Division) games – they tend to show Washington or Philadelphia locally," Jon said. "So we don't get the Saints all the time, but they would do what they could to listen and stay in touch. They enjoyed and loved the team for its entire existence."
Joseph Bernstein, who attended Tulane Law School and practiced law in New Orleans, was the attorney for the organizing committee to bring professional football to New Orleans and played a role in the creation of the Saints in 1966.
The New Orleans native graduated from Isidore Newman in 1948 and after graduation, attended the University of Alabama.
Jon Bernstein said his father kept records of his time with the Saints.
"I remember one time after he and my mom had retired to Bay St. Louis, going through a file – he had a whole file of all the exhibition games they used to put on at Tulane Stadium, with literally the whole profit-loss statements, all the financial records, everything," Jon said.
"One thing I remember that was most interesting is the concern they had because New Orleans was not integrated, and the NFL would not play in a segregated city. So they had extra security at Tulane Stadium, and it went off without a hitch.
"The preseason games that they did, they all went off without any problems or concerns. There was, at one point, people thought getting an AFL team would have been easier and faster but fortunately they held out for an NFL team, they wanted an NFL team. And that's what they got."
Jon said that his family lived Uptown, and they'd either walk or drive to Tulane Stadium and, later, attend games in the Caesars Superdome. Once his parents moved to Bay St. Louis they still would faithfully attend games.
Jon, born in 1965, got a sense of how much the Saints meant to his father as he aged, after majority owner John Mecom sold the team to Tom Benson in 1985. Prior to the sale to Benson, Mecom bought out all the minority owners to be able to make a 100 percent franchise transfer.
"It wasn't until after that that I started to really understand what it meant to him," Jon said. "He just loved New Orleans: He was born there, born in Hotel-Dieu hospital (now University Hospital) and that was his home, other than his time at Alabama and his time in the military.
"He lived in New Orleans his whole life. The franchise, being part of that was one of the many things that he was happy to participate in as a New Orleanian."
