Sunday, May 24, 2009
Ruth - You were there!
For just a split moment - you were there! You 'woke up' and opened your eyes big and wide - like you always did in excited surprise. And i woke up feeling good!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
We Buried Dear Sanford on May 7th - This is the eulogy as read by Rabbi Dean Kertesz.
Sanford Plainfield Eulogy – Thursday, May 07, 2009
Sometimes something simple, a moment, an event, or a choice, provides us with a way of looking at someone’s life. Sanford’s last name, Plainfield, and how he got that name does just that. The family name, Plainfield, isn’t a very old name. Sanford’s grandfather, who everyone referred to as “Old Man Plainfield”, immigrated to the United States from the Ukraine with four sons in the late 19th Century. His name was Yaroshevsky. His oldest son Mark was a medical student and had a lot of problems because of that last name. No one could pronounce it. People teased him about it and one of his professors told him, if he wanted to practice medicine in New England he needed to find a more “American” sounding name. He was so fed up he decided to change it and said, “The first streetcar I ride home will be my new last name.” He rode home on the Plainfield Streetcar. His father, Old Man Plainfield, also changed his name. One brother shortened his name to Yarris, another changed it to Kolitz and one kept the original Yaroshevsky. After the name change, Old Man Plainfield, had a fifth son, Samuel, who was Sanford’s dad. As far as the family knows, they are the only people in the country with that name. I begin with this story because, as I spoke to Mark and Kim about their father, what became clear is that Sanford, in many ways, constructed his life as he wished to live it – much as his uncle and grandfather constructed a new identity as Americans with their new last name.
Sanford Plainfield was born in 1922 in Providence, Rhode Island, the oldest son of Samuel Plainfield and Esther Cohen. Sanford had one brother, Robert, eight years his junior. Family life was not easy or happy. Esther worked as a grocery clerk and. Samuel traded in wholesale jewelry. Neither one had much education. From a very young age Sanford’s father was never around for him. He, his brother, and his mother moved frequently – 25 times by one count, before Sanford graduated high school. But he had great memories of good times with his friends: ice skating adventures and sailing. One of his friends built a boat in his basement only to discover that it was too big to get out. So they took it apart, then reassembled it outside and took it down to the water for its maiden voyage where it promptly sank. Nonetheless this was a clue to Sanford’s lifelong love of the sea and sailing. Every summer Sanford would go to Kansas City to work for his maternal uncle, Max Coe to earn money for college. In fact Sanford began working very early on his life. He was compelled to learn self reliance and because of this grew to be a man that every one else relied upon. Despite his difficult family life, he supported his mother and father until their deaths.
He went to Hope High School in Providence and graduated in 1941. School was really important to Sanford and he excelled. Edna McDonald stands out among his teachers. She was his guidance counselor and taught English literature. She was a real mentor to him and Sanford stayed close to her until she died. I don’t know if she sparked his love of literature or nurtured it but Sanford was a voracious reader his entire life. Mark and Kim remember Sanford reading Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rudyard Kipling, Jules Verne and Mark Twain to them at night.
Sanford’s favorite uncle was Mark, who became the first Jew to be licensed as a physician in Rhode Island. He was a role model for Sanford. Sanford’s oldest son, Mark, is named after Uncle Mark and Mark Twain. Kim was named after Rudyard Kipling’s Kim the Jungle Boy from The Jungle Book.
It may be that Sanford’s tough early years inspired him to be a great father and a loving husband. He was determined to heal what was broken in his past.
Sanford wanted to be an artist. He earned acceptance and scholarships to the Rhode Island School of Design and the Pratt Institute in New York. Kim says that the summer after his graduation Sanford ran across a friend who he had known in high school, who he thought was a great artist, and he told Sanford he was having a hard time making it. Mark says that he may be confusing his dad’s decision with Summerset Maugham’s novel, “Of Human Bondage.” In that story the main character has the courage to ask his teacher whether he is truly talented enough to make it as an artist. The teacher tells the student, “you’re good but you’ll never be great”. In the story the student struggles on to find his true vocation as a doctor. It may have been a combination of the two, but we know Sanford chose to become a dentist and built a remarkable career. He continued to paint and sketch his entire life. He loved art – to make it and to study it, to find opportunities to see it, to integrate into his teaching and to share it with his family.
But first, the Second World War intervened. Sanford enlisted in the Army in October 1942. He tested high and qualified for Officer Candidates School .The Army sent him to Santa Rosa Junior College. That is where he met his beloved Ruth, where they courted, and became engaged. That marriage would last until Ruth’s death just two months ago. They had a passionate and loving marriage. They wrote love letters to each other every day while they were apart during the three years of their engagement. Here is a short passage from Ruth to Sanford on his graduation from dental school that gives you taste of that love, “My love for you carries every faith in your ability to succeed, to heal, to be kind, to understand, to see and hear even when others cannot – every faith that you as a man will be quite singular in your life because you see what is really there…”
Mark described his father as a complete romantic. Kim says that at Santa Rosa Junior College Sanford wore cavalry pants, riding boots, a leather jacket, a white scarf, and sunglasses. He came to his romanticism through his love of literature, his passion for nobility and service, and his urgent need to transcend the world out of which he had come. His favorite musical was “Man of La Mancha.” It spoke to his commitment to being a gentleman, to know that you may be pursuing an illusion but, none the less, you will go after it with great dignity. And Sanford was a great gentleman. He fenced, he rode, he sailed, and he treated everyone he met with gentility and respect.
Sanford originally wanted to be a doctor but a counselor suggested that there were lots of openings for dentists and dentistry was a way to combine his artistic ability with his interest in medicine. The Army and the GI Bill helped him through dental school and he became an oral surgeon. He enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War and served at Travis AFB as an oral surgeon. Casualties were flown directly to Travis from Korea. Sanford rebuilt the faces of wounded soldiers. It was a pretty tough introduction to his field. His experiences there turned him into a life long opponent of war.
Sanford was self-disciplined. He was fiercely committed to hard work and to doing things well. Hard work was a way out for him; a way to build his life. Here is one example. His college anatomy course was extremely difficult for him. He thought he was the dumbest student in the class, so he never spoke up fearing he would embarrass himself. He wrestled with his doubts alone and in private. At the end of the semester he had the top marks in the class. Far from being the dumbest student, he had the humility to become the best.
He was an excellent oral surgeon, at the top of his field. His son Kim had a keen interest in his dad’s work and Sanford did a lot of dental work on Kim. Kim has seen a lot of dentist since then – and none of them came close to matching Sanford’s skill or technique. He was also an innovator in his field. He developed a technique called tooth transplantation. On a trip to Northern California he met a lumberman in bar who showed him a tooth in his mouth that had been knocked out. The man had washed it off and put it back in and the tooth took root. Sanford took the idea, developed it, and applied it successfully to molars. Once, he went to Paris to give a lecture to a dental convention and a Seattle dentist asked him if he knew this crazy Bay Area dentist who developed tooth transplantation. With characteristic humility, Sanford said no, he hadn’t heard of him. He was also one of the early pioneers of implantology: implanting a permanent artificial root for a prosthetic tooth.
Sanford wasn’t just competent, he was compassionate. Kim remembers when he was four years old and Mark was doing summersaults off the arm of the coach. Kim thought he’d try and he fell and hit his head on the side of the table. He had a big gash – lots of blood. He remembers his dad taking care of him. Taking him to the hospital and staying with him in the operating room during the surgery. Kim felt great comfort in that moment – not just in Sanford’s presence and love for him, but he knew that Sanford knew what he was doing, and would take care of him and that gave Kim confidence. If you visited his dental practice you would have seen huge photo montages of his patients all over the walls. It was Sanford’s way of saying, “your treatment here will involve pain, but you are safe.”
He built a successful practice and then began teaching two days a week at UCSF. He was both a great dentist and a great teacher. He taught in the School of Prosthodontics. Because of the way he approached dentistry he became concerned that UCSF was turning out technicians, rather than doctors who cared about the whole patient. So, innovator once again, he created the School of Dental Psychology. Sanford went back to SF State and earned an MA in psychology. He then developed a curriculum in dental psychology and wrote the textbook for the program, “Totality in Treatment,” in 1965 which was published by UCSF. The program became a standard part of the dental school curriculum. He also founded a free dental clinic, staffed by students, to serve those who couldn’t afford dental treatment – the destitute, people on skid row. He wanted a place where his students could use their skills in service to others and where they could learn dentistry on real people, with tough cases, in the real world.
.He was a strong liberal committed to what he felt was right and what was just. When Kennedy ran for the Democratic nomination Sanford voted for Adlai Stevenson. He was a pioneer organizer of Negro History Week in the Berkeley schools. Maybe it was because he came from Rhode Island, the state of Roger Williams, who was important to Sanford, and his experience seeing the impact of Nazism. Kim says that Sanford never tried to be fair. He just was. Whatever he did was just and right. Mark says that Sanford and Ruth were both dedicated to public service, and they supported and fed off each other.
Sanford loved the sea and anything aquatic: the ocean, and the wind. He loved sailing and was always drawing waves and boats. He was deeply moved at being propelled by the power of the wind and the forces of the sea. He owned a series of sail boats and sailed on the Bay every week, as often as he could. He taught Kim how to sail. He was fascinated by the natural world and loved animals.
During the last part of Sanford’s life he learned to let go. He retired in 1994 because he could no longer keep up with the physical demands of dentistry. It was his fondest hope that he would sell his practice that he had nurtured and loved, to someone he could trust to sustain it and be true its spirit. But the dentist who bought it ran it into the ground. Soon after he left dentistry he retired from teaching at the University. The dental psychology program was dropped. Colleagues died off. When he was no longer physically capable of sailing, he had to give up his sail boat. But he bore each loss and separation stoically and with dignity. He volunteered as a docent at the California Academy of Sciences. He led school kids on tours of the museum. So he continued to teach and stay in contact with nature.
Sanford had physical problems for many years. They began with a bad hip replacement that caused him chronic pain and loss of balance. He suffered a mini-stroke and lost part of his vision. He thought he might be going blind and wondered how he could do art if he couldn’t see? In his dignified and quiet way he decided that if he could feel then he could sculpt. Later, he suffered from dementia. Near the end of his life his leg was amputated. But when asked how he was, Sanford always answered that he was fine. He never answered any other way. He was always just fine. Coming from a hard background, Sanford constructed a full and rich life founded on love, compassion, hard work and loyalty. At the end of his life, facing physical and emotional challenges, Sanford found ways to adapt, to see what he had, and what he was capable of doing, rather than complain or dwell on what he had lost and could no longer do. He was a brave man. Always the romantic, he was a compassionate gentleman. Sanford dignified everyone around him until the end of his life.
Sometimes something simple, a moment, an event, or a choice, provides us with a way of looking at someone’s life. Sanford’s last name, Plainfield, and how he got that name does just that. The family name, Plainfield, isn’t a very old name. Sanford’s grandfather, who everyone referred to as “Old Man Plainfield”, immigrated to the United States from the Ukraine with four sons in the late 19th Century. His name was Yaroshevsky. His oldest son Mark was a medical student and had a lot of problems because of that last name. No one could pronounce it. People teased him about it and one of his professors told him, if he wanted to practice medicine in New England he needed to find a more “American” sounding name. He was so fed up he decided to change it and said, “The first streetcar I ride home will be my new last name.” He rode home on the Plainfield Streetcar. His father, Old Man Plainfield, also changed his name. One brother shortened his name to Yarris, another changed it to Kolitz and one kept the original Yaroshevsky. After the name change, Old Man Plainfield, had a fifth son, Samuel, who was Sanford’s dad. As far as the family knows, they are the only people in the country with that name. I begin with this story because, as I spoke to Mark and Kim about their father, what became clear is that Sanford, in many ways, constructed his life as he wished to live it – much as his uncle and grandfather constructed a new identity as Americans with their new last name.
Sanford Plainfield was born in 1922 in Providence, Rhode Island, the oldest son of Samuel Plainfield and Esther Cohen. Sanford had one brother, Robert, eight years his junior. Family life was not easy or happy. Esther worked as a grocery clerk and. Samuel traded in wholesale jewelry. Neither one had much education. From a very young age Sanford’s father was never around for him. He, his brother, and his mother moved frequently – 25 times by one count, before Sanford graduated high school. But he had great memories of good times with his friends: ice skating adventures and sailing. One of his friends built a boat in his basement only to discover that it was too big to get out. So they took it apart, then reassembled it outside and took it down to the water for its maiden voyage where it promptly sank. Nonetheless this was a clue to Sanford’s lifelong love of the sea and sailing. Every summer Sanford would go to Kansas City to work for his maternal uncle, Max Coe to earn money for college. In fact Sanford began working very early on his life. He was compelled to learn self reliance and because of this grew to be a man that every one else relied upon. Despite his difficult family life, he supported his mother and father until their deaths.
He went to Hope High School in Providence and graduated in 1941. School was really important to Sanford and he excelled. Edna McDonald stands out among his teachers. She was his guidance counselor and taught English literature. She was a real mentor to him and Sanford stayed close to her until she died. I don’t know if she sparked his love of literature or nurtured it but Sanford was a voracious reader his entire life. Mark and Kim remember Sanford reading Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rudyard Kipling, Jules Verne and Mark Twain to them at night.
Sanford’s favorite uncle was Mark, who became the first Jew to be licensed as a physician in Rhode Island. He was a role model for Sanford. Sanford’s oldest son, Mark, is named after Uncle Mark and Mark Twain. Kim was named after Rudyard Kipling’s Kim the Jungle Boy from The Jungle Book.
It may be that Sanford’s tough early years inspired him to be a great father and a loving husband. He was determined to heal what was broken in his past.
Sanford wanted to be an artist. He earned acceptance and scholarships to the Rhode Island School of Design and the Pratt Institute in New York. Kim says that the summer after his graduation Sanford ran across a friend who he had known in high school, who he thought was a great artist, and he told Sanford he was having a hard time making it. Mark says that he may be confusing his dad’s decision with Summerset Maugham’s novel, “Of Human Bondage.” In that story the main character has the courage to ask his teacher whether he is truly talented enough to make it as an artist. The teacher tells the student, “you’re good but you’ll never be great”. In the story the student struggles on to find his true vocation as a doctor. It may have been a combination of the two, but we know Sanford chose to become a dentist and built a remarkable career. He continued to paint and sketch his entire life. He loved art – to make it and to study it, to find opportunities to see it, to integrate into his teaching and to share it with his family.
But first, the Second World War intervened. Sanford enlisted in the Army in October 1942. He tested high and qualified for Officer Candidates School .The Army sent him to Santa Rosa Junior College. That is where he met his beloved Ruth, where they courted, and became engaged. That marriage would last until Ruth’s death just two months ago. They had a passionate and loving marriage. They wrote love letters to each other every day while they were apart during the three years of their engagement. Here is a short passage from Ruth to Sanford on his graduation from dental school that gives you taste of that love, “My love for you carries every faith in your ability to succeed, to heal, to be kind, to understand, to see and hear even when others cannot – every faith that you as a man will be quite singular in your life because you see what is really there…”
Mark described his father as a complete romantic. Kim says that at Santa Rosa Junior College Sanford wore cavalry pants, riding boots, a leather jacket, a white scarf, and sunglasses. He came to his romanticism through his love of literature, his passion for nobility and service, and his urgent need to transcend the world out of which he had come. His favorite musical was “Man of La Mancha.” It spoke to his commitment to being a gentleman, to know that you may be pursuing an illusion but, none the less, you will go after it with great dignity. And Sanford was a great gentleman. He fenced, he rode, he sailed, and he treated everyone he met with gentility and respect.
Sanford originally wanted to be a doctor but a counselor suggested that there were lots of openings for dentists and dentistry was a way to combine his artistic ability with his interest in medicine. The Army and the GI Bill helped him through dental school and he became an oral surgeon. He enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War and served at Travis AFB as an oral surgeon. Casualties were flown directly to Travis from Korea. Sanford rebuilt the faces of wounded soldiers. It was a pretty tough introduction to his field. His experiences there turned him into a life long opponent of war.
Sanford was self-disciplined. He was fiercely committed to hard work and to doing things well. Hard work was a way out for him; a way to build his life. Here is one example. His college anatomy course was extremely difficult for him. He thought he was the dumbest student in the class, so he never spoke up fearing he would embarrass himself. He wrestled with his doubts alone and in private. At the end of the semester he had the top marks in the class. Far from being the dumbest student, he had the humility to become the best.
He was an excellent oral surgeon, at the top of his field. His son Kim had a keen interest in his dad’s work and Sanford did a lot of dental work on Kim. Kim has seen a lot of dentist since then – and none of them came close to matching Sanford’s skill or technique. He was also an innovator in his field. He developed a technique called tooth transplantation. On a trip to Northern California he met a lumberman in bar who showed him a tooth in his mouth that had been knocked out. The man had washed it off and put it back in and the tooth took root. Sanford took the idea, developed it, and applied it successfully to molars. Once, he went to Paris to give a lecture to a dental convention and a Seattle dentist asked him if he knew this crazy Bay Area dentist who developed tooth transplantation. With characteristic humility, Sanford said no, he hadn’t heard of him. He was also one of the early pioneers of implantology: implanting a permanent artificial root for a prosthetic tooth.
Sanford wasn’t just competent, he was compassionate. Kim remembers when he was four years old and Mark was doing summersaults off the arm of the coach. Kim thought he’d try and he fell and hit his head on the side of the table. He had a big gash – lots of blood. He remembers his dad taking care of him. Taking him to the hospital and staying with him in the operating room during the surgery. Kim felt great comfort in that moment – not just in Sanford’s presence and love for him, but he knew that Sanford knew what he was doing, and would take care of him and that gave Kim confidence. If you visited his dental practice you would have seen huge photo montages of his patients all over the walls. It was Sanford’s way of saying, “your treatment here will involve pain, but you are safe.”
He built a successful practice and then began teaching two days a week at UCSF. He was both a great dentist and a great teacher. He taught in the School of Prosthodontics. Because of the way he approached dentistry he became concerned that UCSF was turning out technicians, rather than doctors who cared about the whole patient. So, innovator once again, he created the School of Dental Psychology. Sanford went back to SF State and earned an MA in psychology. He then developed a curriculum in dental psychology and wrote the textbook for the program, “Totality in Treatment,” in 1965 which was published by UCSF. The program became a standard part of the dental school curriculum. He also founded a free dental clinic, staffed by students, to serve those who couldn’t afford dental treatment – the destitute, people on skid row. He wanted a place where his students could use their skills in service to others and where they could learn dentistry on real people, with tough cases, in the real world.
.He was a strong liberal committed to what he felt was right and what was just. When Kennedy ran for the Democratic nomination Sanford voted for Adlai Stevenson. He was a pioneer organizer of Negro History Week in the Berkeley schools. Maybe it was because he came from Rhode Island, the state of Roger Williams, who was important to Sanford, and his experience seeing the impact of Nazism. Kim says that Sanford never tried to be fair. He just was. Whatever he did was just and right. Mark says that Sanford and Ruth were both dedicated to public service, and they supported and fed off each other.
Sanford loved the sea and anything aquatic: the ocean, and the wind. He loved sailing and was always drawing waves and boats. He was deeply moved at being propelled by the power of the wind and the forces of the sea. He owned a series of sail boats and sailed on the Bay every week, as often as he could. He taught Kim how to sail. He was fascinated by the natural world and loved animals.
During the last part of Sanford’s life he learned to let go. He retired in 1994 because he could no longer keep up with the physical demands of dentistry. It was his fondest hope that he would sell his practice that he had nurtured and loved, to someone he could trust to sustain it and be true its spirit. But the dentist who bought it ran it into the ground. Soon after he left dentistry he retired from teaching at the University. The dental psychology program was dropped. Colleagues died off. When he was no longer physically capable of sailing, he had to give up his sail boat. But he bore each loss and separation stoically and with dignity. He volunteered as a docent at the California Academy of Sciences. He led school kids on tours of the museum. So he continued to teach and stay in contact with nature.
Sanford had physical problems for many years. They began with a bad hip replacement that caused him chronic pain and loss of balance. He suffered a mini-stroke and lost part of his vision. He thought he might be going blind and wondered how he could do art if he couldn’t see? In his dignified and quiet way he decided that if he could feel then he could sculpt. Later, he suffered from dementia. Near the end of his life his leg was amputated. But when asked how he was, Sanford always answered that he was fine. He never answered any other way. He was always just fine. Coming from a hard background, Sanford constructed a full and rich life founded on love, compassion, hard work and loyalty. At the end of his life, facing physical and emotional challenges, Sanford found ways to adapt, to see what he had, and what he was capable of doing, rather than complain or dwell on what he had lost and could no longer do. He was a brave man. Always the romantic, he was a compassionate gentleman. Sanford dignified everyone around him until the end of his life.
From Friends.....
......"I never went to visit Ruth & Sanford without feeling like a better person for having been in their company, and I will cherish the memory of each of them - as well as the memory of them together - forever. I am grateful that iI can hear their voices in my head, imparting words of wisdom or sharing a funny anecdote, and I know that all of us will carry them in our hearts, memories - and ears! - as we carry on with our lives and do our best to emulate their example.".....
Betsy F.
....."I wanted to take this time to let you know what special people your parents were to Tom & I. As an employee of your dad's I can tell you my nine years with him were the best of all my 35 years of working - I worked with a man I respected every day and one who created class in his surroundings and we also had an element of fun in each day. -------They were both such a class act. We will miss them so very much.".........
Tom & Karen
For Ruth & Sanford.....In your honor a tree is being planted in a National Forest.
With fondest memories,
Toni
In Memory of Ruth Ed & Claire Liska made a contribution to Doctors without Borders
In memory of Ruth a Ulla & Phil made a contribution to Southern Poverty Law Center
We are happy that we had the chance to be with Ruth in the summer of 2007 in Gau Bickelheim.
Franz Maus
On behalf of the YWCA Board I extend our deepest sympathies. Ruth's commitment to the Berkeley YWCA as well as our YWCA was a true gift. Moreover, her dedication to improving the lives of the underserved was remarkable. In Sympathy, K.K.
Just wanted to say how sorry I am to hear of Ruth's passing. She was such a stalwart in the Berkeley Community YWCA and her deep commitment to supporting women alwasy evident. I appreciated her support of our programe at the University YWCA in Berkeley and her willingness to share 'secrets of success' . She was indeed a fine lady. J.W.
...........Ruth was always so kind and thoughful to me and I loved her very much. I have so many happy memories of being at your house for special occasions. Your mother was a great entertainer and she always made every get-together an occasion filled with joy and laughter........Barbara
.....Your mom had a special place in my life and she meant a lot to me. My wife D. also fell in love with her the moment she met her on a visit to Berkely, long ago, shortly after we married. Ruth was special that way. When I first came to Berkeley at the age of 4, we lived on Woodmont Drive, in a rented house your mother found for my parents. Shortly after we moved there I had my 4th birthday party and since we had just moved there, the only other child I knew was my sister B. Ruth came over, all festive, and turned a potentially sad and longely birthday into a rousing success. Ruth also gave me a toy car, what more could a young boy want? But it was not just any toy car - it was a Schuco car, with a steering wheel that turns the front wheels, doors that opened, a trunk that opened and a wind-up motor - it was a work of art, the ultimate toy car of its day. It was probagly the best present I received in my entire childhood, and I treasured it always until I left for college and forgot about it.
My parents were not so much Jewish, as they were profoundly not Christian. So no Christmas trees, no Easter eggs, etc. Enter your Mom: I still fondly remember going to yuor house for Easter egg hunts, which I loved: running around your garden, finding chocolate and goodies. It is funny how these events which seem minor now that we are adults and parents, were so important and influential in our childhood. I know make sure that every year around this time my own daughter gets a chocolate bunny to eat - and it is good Swiss chocolate, too, another influcence of your Mom. The loss of Ruth is indeed a real los to you, to us and to the world.
P.P.
It is impossible to put into words how sorry I feel about the loss of your parents.......T.L.
"We find our soul when that which is most precious is taken away" Thomas Moore
Sutter VNA & Hospice
Betsy F.
....."I wanted to take this time to let you know what special people your parents were to Tom & I. As an employee of your dad's I can tell you my nine years with him were the best of all my 35 years of working - I worked with a man I respected every day and one who created class in his surroundings and we also had an element of fun in each day. -------They were both such a class act. We will miss them so very much.".........
Tom & Karen
For Ruth & Sanford.....In your honor a tree is being planted in a National Forest.
With fondest memories,
Toni
In Memory of Ruth Ed & Claire Liska made a contribution to Doctors without Borders
In memory of Ruth a Ulla & Phil made a contribution to Southern Poverty Law Center
We are happy that we had the chance to be with Ruth in the summer of 2007 in Gau Bickelheim.
Franz Maus
On behalf of the YWCA Board I extend our deepest sympathies. Ruth's commitment to the Berkeley YWCA as well as our YWCA was a true gift. Moreover, her dedication to improving the lives of the underserved was remarkable. In Sympathy, K.K.
Just wanted to say how sorry I am to hear of Ruth's passing. She was such a stalwart in the Berkeley Community YWCA and her deep commitment to supporting women alwasy evident. I appreciated her support of our programe at the University YWCA in Berkeley and her willingness to share 'secrets of success' . She was indeed a fine lady. J.W.
...........Ruth was always so kind and thoughful to me and I loved her very much. I have so many happy memories of being at your house for special occasions. Your mother was a great entertainer and she always made every get-together an occasion filled with joy and laughter........Barbara
.....Your mom had a special place in my life and she meant a lot to me. My wife D. also fell in love with her the moment she met her on a visit to Berkely, long ago, shortly after we married. Ruth was special that way. When I first came to Berkeley at the age of 4, we lived on Woodmont Drive, in a rented house your mother found for my parents. Shortly after we moved there I had my 4th birthday party and since we had just moved there, the only other child I knew was my sister B. Ruth came over, all festive, and turned a potentially sad and longely birthday into a rousing success. Ruth also gave me a toy car, what more could a young boy want? But it was not just any toy car - it was a Schuco car, with a steering wheel that turns the front wheels, doors that opened, a trunk that opened and a wind-up motor - it was a work of art, the ultimate toy car of its day. It was probagly the best present I received in my entire childhood, and I treasured it always until I left for college and forgot about it.
My parents were not so much Jewish, as they were profoundly not Christian. So no Christmas trees, no Easter eggs, etc. Enter your Mom: I still fondly remember going to yuor house for Easter egg hunts, which I loved: running around your garden, finding chocolate and goodies. It is funny how these events which seem minor now that we are adults and parents, were so important and influential in our childhood. I know make sure that every year around this time my own daughter gets a chocolate bunny to eat - and it is good Swiss chocolate, too, another influcence of your Mom. The loss of Ruth is indeed a real los to you, to us and to the world.
P.P.
It is impossible to put into words how sorry I feel about the loss of your parents.......T.L.
"We find our soul when that which is most precious is taken away" Thomas Moore
Sutter VNA & Hospice
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Reunited....
Sanfordaddy - you left our world this morning at 3am and are now reunited with Ruth. That is the most consoling and wonderful thought that helps ease our losing you now too. I thank you both for having embraced me and loved me next to Kim so unconditionally. I will always remember our singing together - "that's amore" has taken on a special meaning - it's your song now.
Your forever "daughter-in-love",
Maureen
Your forever "daughter-in-love",
Maureen
Friday, April 10, 2009
dear ruth....i miss you something terrible. sebastian's birthday was this week and i so missed our routine. the birthday picture i'd share with you first thing...the phone calls - at least 3 back and forth....for a birthday. well...here's seb's picture....sixteen! i can feel you all around us....i sense you all the time but i sure wish you could blog from heaven...
love, love, love,
m.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
What Ruth Meant to Me
Ruth is mourned by many people, not the least of which is her extended family and circle of friends. She leaves behind two sons and their families, who remember her as being tireless in her support, love and compassion throughout their lives.
The last time I saw Ruth was just a few days before her graduating out of this life. She was in the hospital, in terrible pain. What moves me so deeply, is that Ruth, in excruciating pain, and knowing she is at the very end of her life because she made the choice to terminate dialysis, found the time and energy to give me her support. In her last conversation with me, I heard not a mention of herself, not a mention of her pain. She was saying good-bye to me; she was taking her leave, for all time. She told me: “You are a good woman; I am so glad that Craig found you.” She told me that the important thing in life is to enjoy life to the very fullest.
10 days later at her funeral and wake, both of her sons, Mark and Kim, stood to speak to us of their beloved mother, Ruth. Kim captured the essence of Ruth in explaining that she had the ability, and she did this on a regular basis, to look into the very depths of your very soul. She would see where you were hurting, and she would tell you what you needed to hear, in order to heal your life, to resolve your current difficulties. You would come away amazed at the insight of this woman. A great example of this is when my husband, Craig was in rabbinical school in
This brings us with what we are left with today….which is the loss of Ruth. There are no words adequate to describe what Ruth meant to each and every one of us, her family members. Ruth was the heart of compassion. She was a lion in the cause of Justice. Her departure leaves a tremendous hole in our lives.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Biography of a Spring - Berkeley 2003
It's Friday, January 3, a sunny afternoon, which registered 67 degrees Fahrenheit for the out of doors on my car's interior thermometer, as I stepped out unto multicolored leaves still falling from wonderful, gigantic trees on McGee near Hpkins Street, just a few steps from the entrance to the Berkeley Horticultural Nursery. As i came around the trunk onto the sidewalk I noticed a rose Camellia hidden on a very low branch of a bush at the realty office. Down the street after having bought some chicken for our dinner, there was a baby in a buggy on the sidewalk watched over by its father. I guessed the must have been strolling in this lovely air because the baby's cheeks vibrantly matched the color of the recently discovered Camellia blossom. Getting back into my car, I thought about the lone question I missed yesterday on the Department of Motor Vehicles license renewal exam: Which road is likely to be more icy: at an intersection, or through a tunnel, or over a bridge? Not an experience to be had here on such a spring like day!
On the way home up marin Avenue I again looked for my trusted first sign of spring, a Flowering Quince (Chaenomeles) on the corner of Shattuck avenue, but there was no blossom. An then, just a few feet away from Marin and Euclid Avenues, there was a Quince covered with tomato red blossoms. I had never discovered this bush on the Euclid side of the Bernard Maybeck house in previous springs.
So the New Year, quietly as always, holds such abundance of hope and promise of all I can not know. In contrast, there is my fear of war and the mpact of inequity of income for people in our land and elsewhere, alsmost wherever I pay attentin. But today I am filled with the hope and promise of our future which in its inevitable course shall also bloom.
On the following morning when I got up from a very long newspaper reading breakfast, discouraged as I frequently find myself shaking my head during the last year, I saw one very full, ruffled pink Camellia on a bush which we call Mona,, after the person who gave us the little plant over forty years ago. One blossom on a bush now twenty five feet tall.
These days have been unusually warm and clear. The strong winds have made for this clarity having the past two sunsets going from a softly colored horizon to a deep orange and red quickly fading into darkness with a sliver of a new moon in the western sky. While working a bit in the patio just now, I began to see many buds of blossoms to come. Somehow the sound of the German equivalent for bud, 'Knospe' feels more promising to my ear; it suggest a forthcoming because its sound comes from deep in the throat, deep inside of me. The deciduous Magnolia plant put into the ground over forty years ago and now grown into a very good sized tree, shows three softly pink beginnings of blossoms. Just a few weathered brown leaves are left after the wind had blown the remaining fall leaves into the swimming pool.
It's Wednesday, the eight. I noticed three Star Magnolias in full bloom on my way down to Solano Avenue and a n additional one on that street. And now at home just across the pool the three blossoms have not opened more since yesterday. The sky is filled with thousands of small clouds - the Bay not visible because of a covering of fog or mist. So it's grey today and it feels as thought it might rain soon. The bright, bright yellow oxalis is beginning to be evident at edges of various gardens. It is so beautiful. I don't know how it became to be designated as a weed urging to be removed at the height of blooming.
No, no! It does not look like spring, but the promise is offered in very small doses. There is a Hebrew prayer of gratitude to be said at the first sign that year of anything in nature. I can't say it. I no longer know it. Perhaps my awareness of the new and the first has been sharpened by the practice of that oft repeated prayer of gratitude when I was young. The new, the first is still astounding.
On Hearst Avenue, half a block west of MLK Way, the following morning I saw a narcissus with five stocks of several blooms in a patch of unkept grass just next to the street. These were white with a yellow ruffled center and dark brown stamen at the heart of things. So pure and so perfect and so robustly clear in form, this flower of spring. Regrettably I could only imagine the sweet odor I would take in had I not been afraid to bend down losing my balance with both of my hands full so I could not hold on to a fender of a parked car. Just a foot away there was a discarded Christmas tree ready for the special pick up the city provides every year in early January. The cut where the tree had been severed from its roots looked absolutely fresh, as did the tree no longer of human use.
Later at my favorite Westbrae Nursery, Bbby and the others agreed with my observation that spring is very early this year. And still later on the local television news they explained that the warmth of El Nino is raising the termperature in our area and will continue to bring rain, off and on, probably into march.
On this Sunday morning we awakened to sunlit tops of all the huge pine and redwood trees in our neighborhood their dark green tops were painted with the gold of morning. And when I moved close to the north windows of our bedroom, there was the first large light, pink Camellia visible from its back, the face turned away from the house toward the light. This blossom reminds me of Sanford's Edna McDonald's visit here so many ears ago. She and her sister were on theiir way to Hawaii coming from their winter Rhode Island. This Camellia was covered with blossoms then; they both spent many minutes again and again just looking and taking in the beauty. Since then, I can no longer take these blooms fro granted.
A sun drenched January 15, Wednesday morning! Out of my study window the first three star magnolia blossoms are all rained out bu t now there are almost too many to count looking more robust.
Yesterday's discovery was the first plum tree filling with pink blossoms on Monterey Avenue near Hopkins street. The only one so far. Soon Berkeley will be filled with these flowering trees. in early February 1945 when I firs came here for a day's visit at International House where I would be living, I saw a row of them new Dwight Way and Piedmont! Many years later, jokingly, I began to call their prevalence "Berkeley Pink" also referring to the left orientation of Berkeley politics. When in full bloom, thse flowering trees are almost too much to behold - often have I attempted to photograph them in many of their locations, but their brightness always faded into with on the photographs.
What I meant to say is that I fell in love with Berkeley that day: With the blooming plum trees, the ups and downs of the strets, with the colorful people all walking on them, the great architectural variety and size of homes, the lack of perfected gardens, the new views of th Bay from every street corner. I was on my own. And in my own.
During the last intervening weeks I sincerely hoped spring would hold back. I could not get myself to the computer. I recall that Thursday 2 weeks ago: driving down Marin Avenue the Bay was blue, Angel Island was blue, Mount Tmalpais was blue, San Francisco and the ocean beyond were blue and the sky was a lighter blue. All blue and very clear as I was driving in the bright morning sun. The following morning Sanford lost his balance and fell on his back on the very blue tiled floor of our bathroom. For days from then, we were able to get an Xray of the hip and the pelvic area. Nothing is broken, but his replaced hip joint is badly bruised causing a terribly intense pain. Time is on his side, so is excersizing and moving frequently with his walker. And his is much better by now.
So now I can tell that the quince is blooming on the corner of Shattuck and Marin. The pink plum trees are to be seen in the most marvelous places each day becoming more fully pink. The snowdrops in our neighbor's untended garden are flourishing. There is a yellow narcissus on the corner of marin and Creston. And directly out from the study window our own Star Magnolia is moving into a completely vain spectacle with hundreds of blossoms. All other pink-purple Magnolias everywhere are in full bloom while ourse, true to the colder location on top of the Berkeley Hills, has one first blossom today. The gigantic, three story trees of that kind in front of the modern office builindg on Martin Luther King Way and Center street are magnificent, especially since a hideous 'modern' metal sculpture in front of them was luckily removed. In our patio are patches of perfuming Violets; and in the deer proof garden the Wallflowers (Erysimum) are blooming from very strong plants which came from English seeds, planted in memory of my grandmother's garden.
All of the above while children are playing soccer in the center of the Martin Luther King Junior High School track looking like lovely blossoms themselves in their colorful shirts as I slowly walk around them - and while my president hurries toward a war in Iraq. e is 'sick and tired of waiting' for Saddam to comply. Waiting is what most of life is about: waiting and perhaps, altering expectations. And noticing ever present change. And receiving the unexpected. As I walked out from the track onto the sidewalk, a stranger said to me 'Isn't this the most beautiful spring day' with a smile just beaming on his face. At the end of January, I was thinking a silent thank you. Talking in the warm sun, I reflected on the bitter cold that very moment in New York, so far away, where Kim and his family live. He surely must have run this track in the late sixties during the time the school changed its name from Garfield to Martin Luther King in memory of him and his assasination. hat tumbles my thoughts to a late spring day 198 iin Tel Aviv, Israwel when I saw a photo of Martin Luther King onthe front page of a Hebrew newspaper for sale at a stand on a busy street. I of course, could not read Hebrew text and was thrilled because I imagined that President Johnson had sent King to Vietname for peace negotiations. Soon I would learn to discard my optimistic mood and know of Referend King's murder, and later that evening I walked to the American Embassy where we all sat together for a long time in horrified silence. Just the previous day, my mother and I had walked by fields of spring wild flowers in Northern Israel boding for happier days ahead in this land now at peace. And in the world.
On this last January morning driving along Euclid Avenue, the pink plum trees had exploded into bloom; eometimes one, then two or three in a row along the street or in hidden corners with pine trees which are lusciously green or near barren trees or gracing a worn, old house. Or two young trees just planted. Later on Rose Street almost near San Pablo Avenue there was one full bloom adjacent to a maple, I think, which was fully covered with dark, reddish brown fall leaves, giving witness of our very mild winter.
I musn't forget to note how green it is; on the dirt road below our house and our lawn and in every old crack in our streets. And in Tilden Park with it's two gigantic Acacias in full sharp yellow bloom just north of Sunset Lane. And just beyond on a very green slope down from Wildcat Canyon Road I saw the first white, wild Plum tree in full delicate glory. Into February now, the third, up from our garbage can in back of the house the white Plum tree put into the earth after our house was built is just beginning to show its blooms. All the trees which we planted from one gallon cans are so wonderfully formed and big and strong. Even nw I can see mark at eight and Kim at six carrying these tiny, staked, straight trees to Sanford to dig into our very barren, empty hill property all around our newly built home in the fall of 1960.
So much is touched by spring but still it looks like winter because of the large, old, deciduous trees everywhere have not sprouted this year's light green leaves. But the pines are blooming! I can tell by the fine, yellow dust on the tables and chairs outside - and a few extra sneezes. The light of day begins earlier and goes away in a marvelous blaze a little later now. Tonight from our bedroom window I was almost encircled by the hues of glowing red to softer and softer shades of pink and orange from the southwest Peninsula to norhteast above San Pablo Bay.
I cannot say
which is which:
the glowing
plum blossom is
the spring night's moon.
Iumi Shikibu
I did not really forget: forget-me-nots; I just did not expect to see them this early and in an entirely new place by the big rock which keeps cars from driving over that corner of our lawn. So clear and blue surrounding the stem of the Redbud (Cercis) which as struggled, bend over the rock and is still in winter's rest. Small plants of Forget-me-nots are all over this garden; they are the offspring of two plants we brought home many years ago from a visit tothe Calvin's ranch in the hills east of Healdsburg. When these bright blossoms go to seed, they stick to one's shoes and clothing and skin, so they get a free ride to other areas: not to be forgotten.
Half of February I have spent in anxiety over the impending ware. Half of February the Berkeley soil and the gentle weather have spent bringing blossoms ever more in greater abundance. The Forsythia in our garden has been blooming for more than two weeks. Not nearly as fully as the ones will in New York a month and a half later. At the end f March in 1986 I saw a Forsythia shrub completely covered with its small yello blossoms on its bare branches on a corner of Kim and Maureen's Pacific Avenue in Broklyn. So I think of it as Joel's birthday flower because it bloomed when Joel was just a few days old.
Looking out of our bedroom window from the study I see masses of the pink Camellias now. The are crowned by a few, giant Camellia Reticula Chang Temple blossoms with many buds ready to open any minute. And waking this moring through the west window I found the pink-purple magnolia and white, tinged in soft pink blooms of the wild Plum tree having opened during the night. I wait for this generous beauty all year and now observe too greedily. The wild Plum tree is now taller than our hosue. When i was buying plants at the Thornhill Nursery in 1960 for our barren garden, the owner asked me whether I wanted a wild Plum tree. I gratefully accepted this little tree, no taller than my hand, which he dug out of the middle of the path where we were walking. I planted it far too close to the edge of our driveway where it has thrived for all these years also bearing fruit from which I made a great, tart jelly, in summers past.
On some streets it looks as though the pink plums are like a contagious disease - they appear in one garden after another. Sometimes tumbling a whole block or two. I have never seen so many in neighboring sities like Albany or Oakland or Alameda. If Ii recognize it as a tree which does so well here in early, early spring - surely, others do too and have kept planting them over the many years. A new neighbor has planted a little one a half blck from the end of our driveway on Sunset Lane. Often the blackish brown trunks of older trees are gnarled and their blooming crown is always an interesting shape.
In the patio, the rain made the King Alfred Daffodils bent down to kiss the violets; these showy daffodils come back year after year. They are not my favorite by far but they always return.
On this President's day weekend there have been demonstrations for peace all over Europe and in the US. in our coastal, large cities. The british ambassador to the US commented that Tony Blair is a leader and not a follower of his people; yet, the mayor of London welcomed this largest political gathering in two thousands of years of the city. And our president affirmed the right of people to demonstrate in our democracy without addressing the substance of the demonstrations ("like listening to a focus group to form policy"). Oh, the contrast between the constant beautiful gifts of my early spring and those who govern me.
I think often about the commnt which Jonas Solk made: From now on evolutions will be by the way of human beings. How careful and caring we must be: in our intended consequences and all those we did not or, perhaps, could not intend.
There is a big snow storm back east; the family's driveway was cleared but White Birch Drive, their street to rest of the world is not passable. Kim was playing in Massachusetts and then planned to teach at Berklee School of Music; I don't know how he will get home in the aftermath of the blizzard. And here the Star Magnolia is letting go, ant its tired blossoms have completely covered the walk by the pool - our 'snow'. The old Santa Rosa Plum is in bloom today, while the Satsuma, usually earlier, seems to be showing leaves with blossoms this year. That is a new. An it is also new and so welcome, Sanford walked all day without the use of his walker - to the day, one month after he fell!
Global warming is here if not under two feet of snow on the east coast. Azaleas, very large ones, are in complete bloom on Vistamont and elsewhere in these Berkeley Hills. The pink plums are dropping their blossoms rapidly to be replaced by the dark reddish brown leaves of these flowering trees. I picked some narcissus today for the living room. And looking at the masses of wallflowers in the deer proof garden, it occurred to me that these flowers bloomed in my Grandmother's garden in warm summer days; here they have been going right ahead since the middle of January. In the heat of summer they had a stronger perfum, I remember now. No garden is sweeter for me then - and now.
The past weekend our deciduous magnolia - sometimes called tulip tree - came into full bloom beneath the wild plum. Mark, who was here for three days mending the south side of the hose, stood under the magnolia and looked up into the blossom and said it is like having a surreal experience. It is so beautiful. The driveway is now bordered with 'brides' of white blossoming plum trees. And after a light rain during the night, the skies are very blue.
I have alwas liked Scotch Broom and spent many years thinking it was a native plant. It is showing its bright yellow color here and there throughout Berkeley gardens, sometimes cut into a hedge, other, as a freely shaped shrub. Some people have totally eliminated the Broom from their garden and others actually plant it or let it grow when it migrates onto their property. It is so prevalent in California, that is might be called a native, but some very particular botanist knew it was brought into the state years and years ago.
Inevitably, both my Berkeley spring and my administration's ware plans with Iraq move on: I find it hard to keep the beauty of spring in mind when I see my adopted country losing its soul. As if called by the certainty of nature, the Bush administration moves ahead as surely as spring. Yet spring is not governed by advise and consent nor by International law and associations. Bush may believe his views are right b the laws of nature. Or God, on whose side he believes himself to exist: "We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them. God is at work in world affairs calling for the United States to lead a liberating crusade in the Middle East; this call of history has come to the right country." Before February passes, I want to remember The New Yorker magazine's Valentine cover of a United States GI sitting in full desert colored garb on a similarly painted tank with guns and planes pointed. All is the color of sand. He holds in his hand a card of a red heart.
It is february 27th. early this morning i discovered we had a light rain during the night and the plum blossoms covered the driveway. A very small rivulet of the rain had run through the blossom snow leaving its mark on the dark asphalt. And the Redbud still in winter sleep had caught lots of descending plum blossoms on its barren branches. The sun rays were coming through the trees as I went to the mail box to get this morning's newspapers. All was beautifully serene. Ant I was grateful, still and again.
In the bright noon sun after I let my poetry class, on Rose street below Martin Luther King Way, I noticed that a several block long row of pink plums were leafing until I passed the last two still in full bloom. Everything looked just washed by last night's rain. So did the bakers and sales clerks at the ACME Bakery on San Pablo.
Every plum tree at our 800 Woodmont Avenue is blooming except one. It shows not a sign of life. On the first day of March, two days ago, we cut a few branches which would normally show blossoms. The branches were dead. Last summer the tree was filled with wonderful plums. No hint of its impending demise. I planted the little bare root tree more than twenty years ago. Now the tree has turned into wood, dead wood. How sad. In more than forty years here we have taken part in the coming and going of nature. And still it is sad to witness life ending for a loved tree.
On the way across town, my eyes received several new spring gifts. Clumps of Call Lilies are blooming everywhere, especially in spots not touched by gardeners' hands for a long while. The same holds true for patches of old fashioned, cream colored Freesias. in a front yard of an older house, I saw a combination of California Poppies and Freesias. narcissus and Daffodils are everywhere now. Ceanothus, deeply blue or lighter are flowering here and there. And on the way up toward the Lawrence Hall of Science, there is a lot of Lupin in full bloom on the hills already. All these are early markers of a mild winter and sunshine more intense every day. It is almost impossible for me to belie e that our family back east is still dealing with a cold winter - I want to send all our glory to them right now!
It does look like spring now! The tall trees along many of our streets are sprouting bashful, light green leaves. And some trees are fully green already covering the sky and giving that block a very new look.
And a thousand feet down from our house there is a Redbud, a California native, in full magenta bloom on its bare branches. On coming home, our Redbud looked as though it was about to burs; as noted previously, we are late in everything up here.
On Thursday of this past week our president held his well rehearsed, somber press conference. is bemused, condescending smiles were gong - so was his quick temper. As senator Byrd said the following morning " He looked like someone who isn't listening anymore." He showed what he decided forever ago, that we will declare war on Iraq. Besides bombs, we'll drop food and medical supplies. H has deprecated the suffering of those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001 by connecting that terrorist attack to his administration's dreams of changing the Middle East to its vision how those states should be governed. And he will execute that vision by force and power.
And the apple trees began to show the tips of leaves today, heralding the coming of its blossoms. Sanford and I sat in the gazebo for our first time this year listening to music and taking in all the fresh beauty around us. The rosa Banksiae fully covers two of our bedroom's tall windows and it is starting to show its light yellow blossoms near the roof.
March 12 today, was foggy this morning and then turned into a very clear, warm day before noon. I went down into the deer proof garden to finish some weeding and planting I had begun yesterday. The Wallflowers had a sweeet odor today as the sun shone directly on all the blooms. Even the Sweet Pea plants had grown overnight showing some mature leaves and tendrils. Columbine, grown from seed Ulla brought back from Sweden, are robust and some are showing the stems which will become those delicate flowers. The Chrysanthemums clumps which were left after being cut back are growing good, healthy leaves. I reminded myself to take some cuttings in the beginning of May. All the grandchildren gave me a yellow Rosebush almost three years ago; it looks strong and healthy in its corner by the entrance. Some Pincushions are already blooming a little. I planted Bachelor Button, Coreopsis and Variegated Lupin. Along the path, it is exciting to see once again how the Fern develop new fronds surprisingly quickly by uncurling from tight, snail like beginnings. So I report from my garden safe from the grazing deer all around it. However, we hadn't counted on the gophers which like the good, loose soil, to pull in plants of several varieties to their underground dining table!
I realized today what i personally miss in the present administration of my government. Its rhetoric and actions never reinforce my beliefs, my way of dealing with life. I find no echo of myself there.
We are expecting rain. Strong winds have almost totally cleared the Plum trees of their blossom. Many a year when the rains come again at that stage of the trees' development, we get very few plums. As these blossoms disappear, I tend to feel that nature is settling in for months of growth and fruit and seed. Fewer surprises now every day. However, I discovered many purple Wisteria vines around town this morning. And the Camellias are quickly dropping their flowers by the hundreds, or so it seems. And the Star Magnolia is all in leaves now only showing a very few blossoms; come to think of it, it has been blooming for over two months right there across the pool where I can watch it from the window over my desk.
This afternoon, March 19, I took some new Larkspur and Marigold plants down to the garden to dig into the soil before the expected rain and discovered the Bing Cherry trees in bloom just beyond the lower fence. Daisies were to be spotted in patches on our lawn. It was a chilly afternoon.
Later on that evening, President Bush announced he had given the order to begin the ware against Iraq.
At home on this first calendar-official day of spring, there was a blossom on the Japanese Cherry tree and another on one of the Apple trees. The Pear tree, the Rhododendrons and the very late Redbud show their buds of more blooming to come. Driving down Marin Avenue the thousand feet to the Fountain at the Circle, thee trees were getting very green until the sky overhead was no longer apparent when I reached the Fountain.
And with anticipation of more beauty to be revealed, I close having described the lif of our Berkeley spring as I was privileged to be part of its steadfast promise - once again.
From Ruth Plainfield, with love.
Photos of young Ruth with her family
(Click the image to enlarge.)
Ruth, 4 months old in the courtyard in Gau Bickelheim
Always loved this photo
I believe this was in Santa Rosa and Ruth is not in the picture - but it gives me a glimpse of a good time when Ruth was a teenager.
Monday, March 16, 2009
From Dieter
Dear Maureen,
thank you for a message I would have preferred not to read. At least she has her peace now and no pain anymore. My condolences to you all, in thoughts I am with you. At least I can say that I had the occasion to know a person like her, and the gift that I could call her my friend. I have attached a text you may use in any way you like, as a whole or in parts. Or not at all - just do as you wish. I have passed some lines to the local newspaper. They called me and said that they are going to print an obituary for Ruth.
I wish you strength,Dieter
To know Ruth was to admire her love for the region where her roots were. And for its people, in spite of all what had happenend.The past was in her present, and she fought for years to make sure that her family would not be forgotten. Finally she achieved what she had wanted. Everybody who saw Ruth in her beloved Gau-Bickelheim in 2007 could see how satisfied she was that – finally! – the names of her grandfather and her aunt had found a place in the pavement right in front of the house which once belonged to the family. Her grandfather and aunt were both deported and murdered in the camp Theresienstadt, a crime and a loss which had the greatest influence on Ruth’s thinking. She wanted her hometown to remember what had happened, and she had been asking for restlessly for something which seemed more than justified.
Ruth was born in the family’s house on “Der Römer” – “The Roman” in English, as her town’s marketplace is called. She had a lucky childhood, she felt as a part of the town and its population, just like her whole family did. Even half a century later, Ruth still had that strong remembrance of the cozy rural town and the happy days she had had there. She particularly admired her grandfather Isaak, a proud Jew and a German citizen who wrote in his prayer book the names of battles in which Ruth’s father Kurt had fought during World War I in France.
Ruth’s family remained part of the town even when the whole country had begun to follow a government led by extremists. The town’s catholic population held its faith above anything else, the new ideology included, and did not follow the regime’s condemnation of some citizens because they had another confession. Ruth sometimes told the story how she went up the Wiesberg (“meadow mountain”) right behind the town with her friend Katharina. The girls talked about the often repeated accusation that the Jews had murdered Jesus Christ. “How could I believe this”, Katharina said, “my Jesus was Jewish himself”.
Gau-Bickelheim gave protection in a sea of violence and racism, but young Ruth had to travel every day to the elementary school in Sprendlingen, the next town just some miles away. There she learned what it meant to be Jewish. She was isolated by inhuman teachers and fanatic students, and she had to accept that someone like her could not earn better grades than the worst “aryan” children. It is hard to imagine the humiliations under which the girl had to suffer, with sadistic teachers punishing her and making clear that she now belonged to an inferior kind of human beings.
The family could not stay in Gau-Bickelheim, where they still had little to fear. The regime destroyed the businesses of the Jews, watching the trade between farmers and Jewish traders, and using pressure against this kind of commercial relations. The family had to go to Mainz, where they started to prepare their emigration. A first attempt to go to South Africa failed. But then the family was able to leave the region they had loved and which expelled them. They went to the United States, where they had to make a difficult new start - Ruth’s father learned to earn the family’s living as a welder. Finally he found the possibility to work as a wine-grower in California, where Oppenheimers found a new home.
But her grandfather and her aunt had to stay in Germany. That they could not be saved and become victims of the nazi government’s extermination policy was like a wound in Ruth’s soul. For years and years she fought for their remembrance, against an indifference which kept hurting. When a table was placed at the wall of the townhall in 1990, right in face of the family’s house, a new deception followed: there were words about the victims of terror, but no names. It took nearly another twenty years before the town council decided to allow “Stolpersteine” (“stumble stones”) to be placed in the pavement, small brass plates with the names of her beloved ones. One for Isaak Oppenheimer, another one for Klara Lazarus. Now Ruth could be sure: they would not be forgotten in the town where they had lived.
Anybody who has known Ruth could only admire her utter love for the region of her origins, and her awareness of any injustice. She brought both to California and kept it during her life with Sanford, her loved and amiable husband. Our life has become poorer without her.
From Elke Fischer
Mir tut es unendlich leid, daß so ein besonderer Mensch wie Ruth war, uns verlassen mußte. Ich war mit Ruth
nur wenige Male zusammen, aber diese Zeit hat gereicht, sie gern zu haben und sich an ihrem herrlichen Humor
zu erfreuen. Es war wunderbar, wie toll sie deutsch und besonders den rheinhessischen Dialekt sprach.
Katharina hat mich heute am Abend noch angerufen, weil sie es immer noch nicht realisiert hat. Sie wird Ruth
sehr vermissen, denn die beiden haben sehr viel zusammen telefoniert.
Nun hoffe ich, daß Sie meine Mail noch erreicht.
Ich wünsche Ihnen, allen Trauernden, die sie gern hatten, und besonders ihrem lieben Mann Sanford alles
erdenklich Gute.
Mit stillem Gruß
Elke Fischer
nur wenige Male zusammen, aber diese Zeit hat gereicht, sie gern zu haben und sich an ihrem herrlichen Humor
zu erfreuen. Es war wunderbar, wie toll sie deutsch und besonders den rheinhessischen Dialekt sprach.
Katharina hat mich heute am Abend noch angerufen, weil sie es immer noch nicht realisiert hat. Sie wird Ruth
sehr vermissen, denn die beiden haben sehr viel zusammen telefoniert.
Nun hoffe ich, daß Sie meine Mail noch erreicht.
Ich wünsche Ihnen, allen Trauernden, die sie gern hatten, und besonders ihrem lieben Mann Sanford alles
erdenklich Gute.
Mit stillem Gruß
Elke Fischer
From Betsy
I wanted to send my condolences and let you know that my heart and my thoughts are with your family right now. Ruth was a very, very special person to me and to all who knew her. I will feel her friendship like a benediction for the rest of my life.
Betsy F.
From Ruth's dear friend Dieter in Mainz, Germany
Dear Ruth,
the local newspaper has published an article about your family in Gau-Bickelheim:
the local newspaper has published an article about your family in Gau-Bickelheim:
http://www.allgemeine-zeitung.de/region/serie/ juedischesalzey/objekt.php3? artikel_id=3584434
I hope you feel better than you did last week. We still have the "Russian" cold here. Incredible.
The best wishes from Galina,
your friend in Mainz
Dieter
I hope you feel better than you did last week. We still have the "Russian" cold here. Incredible.
The best wishes from Galina,
your friend in Mainz
Dieter
Die Serie ist auch im Internet zu finden unter: http://www.az-alzey.de/region/serie/juedischesalzey
Eulogy
Ruth Paula Opper Plainfield Eulogy
Rabbi Dean Kertesz
Sunset Cemetery, El Cerrito, Ca
Ruth Plainfield wrote, “I am in a constant state of remembering the past and only addressing what is said at the moment. I am burning with the abrupt, devastating losses of the past and lightheartedly participating in present, everyday conversations. And I choose not to talk about what is gong on inside me. I choose it because there is no point. Talking about it gives no newer truth, no relief.” Ruth Plainfield lived a life that exposed her to the worst cruelties a human being can experience and out of that experience she chose to build a life dedicated to love, friendship, commitment, and justice. She felt an urgency to speak the truth, often felt her words were inadequate, and had to act to make the world a better place.
She was born in her family’s home in Gau Bickelheim, Germany, on January 27, 1925, the only child of Kurt Opper and Gerda Oppenheimer. Gau Bickelheim was a small village surrounded by vineyards, about 40 minutes southwest of Mainz. It was and still is wine country.
She came from a family of wine makers, lawyers, and art dealers. Her family was part of the German-Jewish gentry. They had a good life, but money wasn’t the critical value. Being honorable and having a good name were what mattered. A life well lived meant focusing on people, on friends and family, on entertaining guests. All the women in her family were excellent cooks. Her father made wine and wine was a part of life. Like most German Jews of that time her parents were proudly Jewish – religious practice and respect for the tradition was very important to her father Kurt. But they were also proudly German. Kurt served in the First World War and was seriously wounded, more than once. He had the scars to prove it. His father, Ruth’s grandfather Isaac, recorded the names of the battles in which Kurt had been wounded in the family bible. When signs first went up in the 1930’s saying, “Jews Get Out,” Kurt would go out with a hammer every night and take them down.
At that time the family lived in the city of Mainz, but they moved back to Gau Bickelheim because they thought the anti-Semitism, that had become official government policy, would be less virulent there. The strong Catholic faith of many of the villagers kept them from obeying the racial laws of the Reich. But the impact of the official anti-Semitism of the Nazi regime was unavoidable. Ruth had to attend the regional school Sprendlingen, a nearby town, which was run by the Nazis. For four years, she was the only Jewish girl in the school and she really suffered there. Just one example: Every morning she was made to stand in the classroom while the other students sang anti-Semitic songs. She, like all Jewish children, was not allowed to associate with non-Jews. As she put it, “The overwhelming changes that came into my life in Germany transformed me from a child delighted with living to one who doubted her right to exist.” But, in the midst of that orchestrated darkness, there was a light of human compassion. She had one friend, Katrina a devout Catholic, who snuck out every night to play with Ruth. Ruth asked her, “How can you still be a friend to me?” Katrina responded, “How can I love my Jesus and not love you?”
In December 1937 her father was shown a Nazi newspaper and said it reminded him of the funny pages. He was arrested the next day and imprisoned. Upon his release the family was told that should he ever show any resistance or disobedience against the Nazi regime again he and all his family would be imprisoned for life. A month later, January 1938, the family left Germany. Leave taking was heart wrenching, because they knew they would not see many of their relatives again.
This is some of what we know about what happened to members of Ruth’s family who stayed behind. Caroline Metzger, a survivor of Theresienstadt, told them later about Ruth’s grandfather Isaac’s death in Theresienstadt in February 1943, “In the first few weeks he portrayed great courage. He looked like a ship’s captain in his dark blue suit and captain’s cap. He was admired for his tidy appearance, especially since most men of advanced age no longer cared for their appearance. He always cared for himself. Only sometimes he complained of the small ration of daily bread. I am sorry that I can’t tell you that it was January or February 1943… Mr. Oppenheimer is reported to have died quietly in his sleep without pain or suffering. Generally, it was fortunate among all that tragedy that death came softly without people’s consciousness of the approaching end. Aunt Klara and Aunt Berta also died in the same way in 1942.”
They left Germany in 1938 on the SS Manhattan of the U.S. Line. A cousin in New York, Ilse Herz, sponsored them and brought the three of them to New York. They stayed there for a few days and went to Chicago to visit a cousin before heading to San Francisco. Her uncle, her mother’s brother, Max Jonas was already there and he sponsored them. Ruth’s maternal grandmother was able to get out of Germany after Kristallnacht in 1938 and joined them in San Francisco.
Life was not easy for them here, as new immigrants. Her father was 46 years old. Before emigrating he had studied to be a mechanic and welder because he thought he might never work as a wine maker again. He worked at those trades in San Francisco, but didn’t like the climate. He took a job recapping tires to move to San Jose for better weather and started looking for work as a vintner. He got a job offer from Fountaingrove Vineyards near Santa Rosa in 1941. So the family moved to Sonoma County and lived in one of two houses on the property, surrounded by 400 acres of grapes. It was an eden-like setting and Kurt oversaw the entire wine making process from growing the grapes to bottling the wine. The house they lived in is now gone, but the winery still stands behind a chain link fence, surrounded by an industrial park. It was terribly important for Ruth to lose her German accent. Because of her experiences in Germany she was suspicious of assimilation but assimilated in her own way.
Ruth met her husband, Sanford, at Santa Rosa Community College in 1943. She was studying social work. He had enlisted in the Army and had scored so high in his aptitude test that the Army sent him to the college to continue his education. They first saw each other in the library. The next time he came looking for her he whistled “The Blue Danube” to get her attention. It worked. Their first date was a picnic with her family at Fountaingrove. Let’s just say that Ruth took one close look and knew that Sanford was the man with whom she wanted to make a family and a life. They were engaged and had three years of courtship, while Sanford was stationed at different Army posts around the country. They kept into touch by writing to one another daily. They were married at Fountaingrove in 1946 and first lived in Kansas while Sanford finished dental school. They returned to California in 1947 and settled in Santa Rosa. Ruth worked for Sonoma County Social Services. The family moved to Berkeley in the late ‘40’s and Ruth went to graduate school in psychiatric social work at Cal. Sanford established his dental practice in Alameda. Their first son Mark was born in Berkeley in 1951 and their second, Kim, in 1954. They moved to Montclaire and hated it. It was the McCarthy era. Montclaire had a right wing atmosphere. In 1960 they moved back to Berkeley to the house they had built at 800 Woodmont Ave.
Ruth worked as psychotherapist at UC Berkeley’s Cowell Hospital which became a national model for caring for college students. She said she liked her work because she loved helping people. Ruth and Sanford were actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement. They were part of the effort to desegregate the Berkeley public schools in 1963, the first school district to integrate voluntarily. She started a program at Berkeley High, “Philosophy for Senior Girls” She was deeply involved in her son’s lives. She came to know many of her sons’ teachers.
In the early ‘70’s Ruth founded the first shelter for battered women in Berkeley at the YWCA. She worked with the Traveler’s Aid Society for the homeless and while serving on the United Way executive committee in the 1980’s she worked hard to have the national United Way draft a statement of purpose that it, “was committed to fighting racism by any means necessary.”
Kim remembers that Ruth and Sanford were highly sensitive to racism, oppression, or unfair treatment of any type. He speaks of their constant encouragement not only for himself, but for all who touched the family. He recalls the great efforts she made to become friends with his friends and to know the world in which he moved. She was deeply interested in whatever interested him and did all she could to help him grow in the path he chose for himself. He says that she was always his “greatest fan”
Mark recalls that Ruth intuitively identified with anyone who was oppressed and was quick to make her stand beside them. She was driven to help lift them up, to help them in whatever way she could to become more self reliant and speak with their own voice. She mourned when she saw ties broken and people left behind. He uses words like these to describe his mother: self reliance, justice, loyalty, fidelity, nurturing. He says that she infected him with her power of empathy; that she was incapable of condescension; that her concern and care for people was always a close and very personal thing. She took people to her heart.
Except for the period from 1938 – 1941 she lived well. She kept the family tradition alive of cooking, entertaining, and hosting friends and family. She loved people coming to the house, especially young children. The dining room table in her home in Berkeley was always beautifully set with a table cloth, place mats, cloth napkins, silver napkin rings, and candles. The Jewish ritual that meant the most to Ruth was the Passover Seder with its celebration of liberation and its focus on family and friends joining together in a meal.
Another important part of Ruth’s life was reclaiming her past and demanding recognition of the crimes that had been committed against her family and German Jews in general. Kim once asked her, “How many or our relatives died?” Ruth replied, “They didn’t die. They were murdered.” She returned to Germany for the first time in 1967. She wanted to see it. She wanted to know if anything was left of her childhood. She went for a week on her own while the family stayed in Paris. On the plane she was visited by her father, who died in 1965. She heard him say, “you’re finally going back home.” After she returned from that trip she had difficulty speaking English for a few days. It was a profound experience. Gau Berkelheim was still intact, much the same as it had been in the ‘30’s. And Ruth was reunited with her brave and loving friend Katrina. From that point on her determination to connect with her past, honor her family’s memory and ensuring German accountability drove her.
In 1999 she was interviewed as part of the San Francisco Holocaust Oral Project. Her interview was sent to Germany. A group of 11th Grade students at her former school in Sprendlingen, where she had been tormented 35 years earlier, saw it and invited her to come and talk about her experiences. She accepted the invitation. That meeting was taped and broadcast on German television, closing the circle that had been opened so many years before.
Ruth worked to establish a memorial to the Jews of Gau Berkelheim. Due to her effort the town put up a memorial plaque on the main square, opposite her family home. But the plaque had no names on it; just a general mention of the victims. That wasn’t good enough for Ruth. She kept pushing for complete recognition and true memorial. In 2007 she went back to Germany with two of her grandsons, Samuel and Joel, to see memorial cobblestone markers bearing the names of her grandfather, Isaac Oppenheimer, and her aunt Klara Lazarus placed on the walk in front of the family home she was forced to leave 69 years earlier.
Ruth lived a long life. She experienced the worst humanity has to offer but chose to seek the best in people. She built a beautiful life and made a difference in the world and in the lives of all the people she touched. Ruth leaves behind her husband Sanford, her two sons, Mark and Kim, her daughters-in-law, Vicky and Maureen and her grandchildren: Fernando, Samuel, Joel, Julian and Sebastian. They share her hatred of oppression, her commitment to social justice, to helping others and her love of adventure, philosophy, culture and art of all kinds. They carry on her life. May her memory be an example and a blessing to us all.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Ruth's 80th Birthday Party Photos and her Thank You Poem
Click HERE to see Ruth's 80th Birthday Party photos at the Plaza Hotel in San Francisco in 2005.
This is a poem that Ruth wrote to thank all at her 80th Birthday party:
When her mother passed away, our darling Berta said,
Some of us are alive and some of us are dead
So, I come to celebrate my 80th birthday with you, my "us"
Because us" is where it's at!
"Deep roots and far reach" from Esther Maccmenken
Ruth Hart's open hand and heart
Our children who entrusted me with their babyhood,
and theirs who give me continuous wonder:
Fernando, Samuel, Joel, Julian and Sebastian
My Oma whose absolute kindness and constant blessing
last my whole life and beyond
My Opa murdered in ways not to fathom
Stands erect and proud and clear
Their children: my mother and father
Lived their lives without shirking, always sharing
My Onkel Franz and Tante Irma whose generous interest
Flowered my youth and young adult years
My cousin Bernie whom I followed like an adoring puppy
Kicked around by history in young years
Created with his Marianne a great family
The little brother Bob who became the brother I never had
And with Virginaia brough a new family into my life
rince, Princie, Gulliver, Rapearl, Pixie, Fred, Wesleigh and Columbus
and all the wild which grace our garden daily
Every tree, shrub and flower with Allison
Who, in my place, tends with care and delight
Margaret, my brilliant and funn friend forever
Emily alwas there with her young voice and clear head
And Gen, gone too, whose generous, bright spirit lives on
Hello, to Charles, our friend by way of young Mark and Kim
In 1945 I tutored Sanford's beloved young cousin Phyllis the math I loved and she hated
And now with her Hershey she can count all these wonderful grandchildren!
Our daughter-in-love as Sanford named her: Maureen
What fortune b way of Kim brought you into my life?
Beyond our surgeries, accidents and falls:
Peggy heals and teaches us gift wrapped in great politics for our joy
Their hose was there when we built ours: Beverly and Alan
And so we shared our lives for more than forty years
Becky, you came to work and help
When you broke a cup and your employers down in Mississippi did not pay,
Your mother "came and carried me home" - That is Freedom!
When she was six, she said "I need you"
So I became Roxie's godmother for good and forever
Toni fashioned beauty everywhere into my life
Ruth and Murray came West to join the Berkeley California styloe
and brought sense of family and the familiar to us
Ed and Claire and theirs with us for almost all our married life
All those beginnings and continuings experienced and enjoyed together
Scrubbing floors and now securing them against earthquakes
In five languages Wendy remains that wonderful total woman
Irma and I laughed through all that Cowell upheaval
and her long lingering sickness
Through social work and Jazz and watching tennis and poker in Glen Ellen
Sally's and my friendship grew until the last moment
mary and Bob, our dear friends
and their six children are the great Alameda remnant
Now in Durango with her new family, dear Betsy
traveled the world over in her mind and on her bike
Dr. Jeanette Payne, the woman with the wrong name
Held my hand as our children grew
Kathleen - such a good name to go with Stewart and Moore
So different, yet steadfast evermore
Grace White who graced my learning social work
by helping me form discipline for my sensitivity
as a continuation of his father Max, teenager Maxie came
And visited as a friend year after year and taught me the use of the computer
I dreamed with Bob every trip and adventure
He guided us in some of the best moments of our life.
Und meine libe Katharina:
So weit und immer nah
Da vom Anfang und noch heute!
(and my dear Katharina:
so far and always near
there from the beginning
and still today!)
Ulla, and now her Phil, so much fun
and talk and thought and being together
A truly noble young man, Scott, worked in the garden with me
until he went to DC, and Guatemala, Belize and Mexico
to prevent the spread of HIV
Dear Dieter, my young friend, sharing years
of letter writing across the Atlantic
about so much held in common
Norman and Lorna, with you we shared all our important beginnings
"He drew a circle that shut me out -
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that drew him in." (Edwin Markham 1915)
Sanford's 'little' cousin Joan and Laurence are supreme practitioners of the above!
Noel after years finally brought Mary to my dawn Gulliver walks
And she stayed delightfully in our hearts.
And so dearest Sanford, my life's sponsor,
Than you once again, for sponsoring yet another birthday party for me!
And to all of you:
thank you more than I can say
for being my "US" and for being here today!
Ruth
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