Mavens make comeback

Monday, Aug. 30, 1999 | 11:42 a.m.

On Aug. 20, 1998, five of Southern Nevada's top Mah Jongg players left town for a California mountain retreat to hone their skills for an upcoming major local tournament.

"After a week of this we'll beat the heck out of everyone," 76-year-old Sheila Silinsky told her friends before the trip. They were known collectively as the Mah Jongg Mavens -- maven is Yiddish for a know-it-all -- and had played together three times a week for several years.

The women packed Myra Weisman's car with the bare essentials -- their luggage, bagels and a chocolate pastry -- for the long trip to Weisman's Lake Arrowhead summer home in the San Bernardino mountains and a marathon session of the ancient Chinese tile game.

"Sheila suggested we get away so we could really concentrate on our game," said Weisman, 66, a resident of Boulder City for 11 years. "We were a group that really clicked. I'll never have friends like that again in my life."

While Weisman and Ida Cowan, 74, had never won major Mah Jongg tournaments, they were considered as good at the game as Silinsky, Joyce Miller, 67, and Sandra Feather, 69, who had several tournament championships under their belts.

"Luck has a lot to do with it," said Feather, a Las Vegas resident of nine years who won two 1996 Travel Wizard Marjorie Troum Tournament West tour events, one in Las Vegas and another in California. "I got the key tiles when it counted. I was lucky."

On that day, luck ran out for the Mah Jongg Mavens.

Weisman's 1997 Lexus flipped on Interstate 15 about 15 miles southwest of the Nevada-California border about 5 p.m., throwing Feather, Miller and Cowan from the vehicle and trapping Weisman, the driver, and Silinsky in the front seat.

Other motorists stopped to help the women from the tangled wreck. A man cut Weisman's seat belt and dragged her out. A young woman consoled a critically injured Feather until paramedics arrived.

"I knew Sheila was dead because I saw she wasn't moving," Weisman said. "I can still hear Joyce screaming 'help me, help me.' "

Weisman and Feather, each suffering from numerous injuries, were taken by emergency helicopter to the University Medical Center.

Paramedics also prepared Cowan for the flight, but she died at the scene as did Miller and Silinsky.

"I don't remember the accident," said Feather, who was in the hospital six weeks. "No one would tell me anything. When I was in the convalescent home, my brother Harold told me they had died. At first I refused to believe him."

Weisman was in the hospital just short of a month. While her physical wounds healed with time, her deep psychological wounds probably will never fully heal.

"My doctors believe I had a heart attack, which caused me to black out when I was driving," she said. "I went through therapy, but I could not get over the tremendous guilt. I felt for so long that their deaths were my fault."

Weisman's rabbi consoled her by saying that the deaths of her close friends were not her doing but rather God's decision. Still, it took the better part of the last year for Weisman to begin to forgive herself.

As the two women recuperated, their friends were buried. In September at the Las Vegas Wizard/Troum tournament, Troum called for a moment of silence for those who were killed and a prayer for the survival of Weisman and Feather.

"It was such a tragedy to lose those fine ladies in such a terrible accident," said Troum, the daughter of the late Dorothy Meyerson, who wrote the first standardized rules for Mah Jongg in the United States and ushered in the game's golden age of the 1940s and '50s.

"Mah Jongg is not just a competitive game, it is a social event. The players have a bond. They feel for each other, especially those who play in regular groups."

Weisman and Feather have played together just one time since the accident. They are both signed up for the 11th Annual Travel Wizard Marjorie Troum Mah Jongg Tournament West starting Wednesday at the Monte Carlo hotel-casino. They will bring with them the memory and spirit of their lost friends.

"I'm not angry at Myra -- I have never been angry at her for the accident," Feather said. "And I think that if Joyce, Ida and Sheila had survived they would not be angry at her either."

The Mah Jongg Mavens were all single women. Silinsky was a divorcee. Cowan and Miller were widows, as are Feather and Weisman.

To console Weisman about Silinsky's death, one friend reminded Myra that Sheila was in the final stages of a lengthy battle with leukemia and was facing a slow and painful death in the coming months.

"I was told it was a blessing that God decided to take Sheila in such a quick way," Weisman said. "But I have no comfort when it comes to Joyce and Ida who were healthy and had productive years ahead of them.

"I've had my share of tough times the last five years. I lost my husband nine months after losing a son to cancer. We are taught in the Jewish faith that our lives go on and we must live them to their fullest. And that is what I finally decided to do."

Feather has similar feelings.

"I often ask myself why me -- why was I the only passenger to survive and not my friends?" Feather said. "When people ask me about the accident I just say my late husband turned me away (at heaven's gate) shouting: 'We don't want her here yet.'

"I have become more religious than I was before the accident. I go to temple a lot more often. I had never been religious that way before."

Feather and Weisman say they are not looking forward to a big fanfare for what many will view as an inspirational return to top-level competitive Mah Jongg.

They said they agreed to be interviewed as a means of closure, to explain what they went through to the curious and to finally lay to rest the incident so they can get on with their lives.

In addition to this week's tournament, Weisman and Feather are looking forward to competing in the Marjorie Troum Mexican Riviera Mah Jongg Cruise in late October.

Weisman and Feather both lived to see important events. Weisman got to enjoy the birth of a grandchild late last year. Feather saw the marriage of her son this past spring. Feather also made her fifth trip to Israel in June.

Feather now plays Mah Jongg just once a week. She has taken up ceramics and has other interests. Weisman still plays at least three times a week in other groups. During her recovery she learned to use a computer and now plays Mah Jongg on the Internet.

While both Weisman and Feather still drive cars, Feather says she will not drive long distances and definitely will not go on I-15 by car. Weisman also prefers to travel by surface streets instead of the highways.

"It's hard to escape the memory of the accident or the loss of my friends," Weisman said. "Other players tease me by saying innocent things like, 'If you play that hand that way Sheila will get after you.'

"But I have always been an optimist. To me, the glass is always half full, never half empty."