Lookalike contest, baby magic and call for Unsung Heroes

WANTED: Carole King doppelganger

Like a lot of Jewish girls who came of age in the late 1960s and ’70s, I wanted nothing to do with my naturally curly/wavy/frizzy hair, so I ironed it to make it flat or straight. When at age 14 my mother saw what I was up to, she freaked and hid the iron from me.

So I tried the next best thing — pulling all of my hair into a ponytail on top of my head, then rolling it with an empty juice can. That method worked fairly well, until I stepped outside and into the humidity.

When I first heard the music of Carole King, I immediately invested in a copy of her 1971 “Tapestry” album. To this day, “Tapestry” remains among my favorite albums of all times, not only because every — and I do mean every — song on it is superb, but also because of its cover. There’s the Jewish girl from Brooklyn, casually dressed and barefoot in a window seat with a couple of cats, her shoulder-length curly/ wavy/frizzy hair, natural and fantastic. Maybe there was hope for mine.

She was an inspiration then and continues to be one now. After the show “Beautiful,” about King’s rise

Do you know any Unsung Heroes?

The Jewish Light is now requesting nominations for its 14th annual Unsung Heroes awards online at stljewishlight. org/heroes. The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. Friday, July 7.

The Light solicits nominations of volunteers making a major impact through their work without seeking substantial public recognition for their efforts. These people tend to fly under the radar. Honorees can be individuals or groups who are either Jewish or non-Jewish making a difference within the St. Louis Jewish community and/ or Jewish individuals or groups in St. Louis making a difference in the community-at-large.

The 2023 class of Unsung Heroes will be honored with a special event on Nov. 2 and in the Light’s Unsung Heroes magazine Nov. 8 to stardom, made its Broadway debut, I forked out an insane amount to get two premium seats at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. It starred Jessie Mueller who went on to win a Tony Award for her incredible performance as King. I later saw the play again in St. Louis, twice, and hope to see it for a third time when it opens the Muny’s 105th season on June 12.

To view stories and videos about past Unsung Heroes, go to stljewishlight.org/unsung-list.

News and Schmooze is a column by Jewish Light Editor-in-Chief Ellen Futterman. Email Ellen at: efutterman@stljewishlight.org.

That’s where you come in, especially if you bear even a slight resemblance to Carole King, or at least if your hair does.

Thanks to the generosity of the Muny, the Jewish Light is giving away a pair of tickets to every Muny show this summer — all seven of them — starting with “Beautiful.” And if that’s not sweet enough, Frank & Helen’s Pizzeria is throwing in dinner for two before each performance.

So what’s the catch you say?

Easy, peasy. Go to stljewishlight.org/carolekingcontest and upload your Carole King lookalike picture by 5 p.m. by May 25th. Relax, we don’t expect you to be a dead ringer. Just upload a picture that captures the singer’s aura, essence, killer hair, whatever. Be creative, have fun. And guys, especially you with curly hair, don’t be bashful — this is a gender not specific contest. Get busy. It’s not too late baby.

Speaking of not too late baby . . .

Mother’s Day, or thereabouts, seemed like the perfect time to check in with Nikki Freyman and Kati Kaup to find out how both women and their families are doing.

Readers met best friends Nikki and Kati right before Mother’s Day 2021, when Nikki, a married mother of two and Central Reform Congregation member, was carrying a baby via surrogacy for Kati and her husband, Gerome Gregory. (You can read the entire story at stljewishlight.org/ nikki-kati).

Kati, who has cystic fibrosis, underwent a double lung transplant in 2015. While doctors were optimistic that she could live a long life, they cautioned her against getting pregnant, fearing it would be too risky.

Knowing this, Nikki offered to become a surrogate (gestation carrier) for Kati and Gerome. In 2019, Kati underwent IVF (in vitro fertilization), which produced two embryos suitable for transfer. They were frozen until they could be implanted into surrogates.

One of those surrogates, of course, was Nikki, who on Nov. 9, 2021, delivered baby London Nicole (the middle name in honor of Nikki) at Missouri Baptist Hospital. At that time, a second surrogate named Ashley, whom Kati and Gerome found through a matching support group, was also pregnant, having been implanted with the couple’s other embryo. That embryo split during the pregnancy, which meant the couple was now expecting twins — an extraordinary development considering there was only a 2% chance of that happening.

When I checked in with Nikki and Kati last week, Kati reported that all three girls, 18-month-old London and 16-month-old twins Evie Elizabeth and Celine Henri, were thriving at home in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

“Luckily, we’ve been able to keep them on the same schedule,” said Kati, explaining that the three toddlers share a bedroom, each with her own crib. “They get up at 7 every morning and go down at 7 at night and sleep straight through. They take two naps a day. When you’re raising three who are essentially the same age, you do your best to keep to a structured schedule.”

Both women say that one of the “surprises” from their surrogacy arrangement was how they have been able to help other couples.

“What has been really a great gift out of all of this, aside from knowing that I was able to help Kati and Gerome become the incredible parents they are, is that we’ve become resources for other people,” said Nikki, who flew to Florida from St. Louis in November to help celebrate London’s first birthday. “Kati and I have talked to other couples together and are able to walk them through the process and hopefully make it a little less intimidating and overwhelming. We love being able to share our experience.”

Added Kati: “That’s why we chose to be open about our story and tell it. We kind of embraced the opportunity to build audience around surrogacy.”