Eulogy for Jessica by David
Good morning, and thank you all so very much for coming, and greetings and thanks to all of you tuning in on the live-stream as well.
My mother, Jessica Friedlander, made connections with people everywhere she went. Her lifelong dedication to education, music, Judaism, gardening were the latticework on which she continued to meet new people, maintain decades-old friendships, discover new ancestors as well as living relatives, and build communities.
She was born in Brooklyn on January 5, 1937 to Jack and Belle Kramer, where Jack was a buyer for the May Department Stores and Belle was a homemaker, joining older brother Arnold. Her musical ability quickly became evident, but she also excelled in school generally, graduating second in her class of 420. In high school she was principal flute in the band and orchestra, and was the piano accompanist for five different groups. For the musical theatre group, she led the preparation for two Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. She loved G&S so much that my parents created parodies of G&S songs for more than 40 years, for birthdays and special occasions for their friends in the university community and beyond.
Her parents did not have much money but they believed in education, such that Arnold attended MIT and Jessica won scholarships to the Eastman School of Music, from which she graduated with distinction in 1957 with a degree in harpsichord and piano. She went on to complete a master’s degree in music education from the University of Illinois a year later. She and my dad were introduced through a mutual friend, and family lore describes how they met for the first time under the clock at Grand Central Station in New York. After a whirlwind romance (she described that they only spent about 28 hours in each others’ presence before engagement), they married in July 1958 and she moved to St. Louis. Their 62-year marriage was a thing of wonder to friends and relatives, something to be admired and emulated.
Her early career was in music, starting with being a music teacher at the Conway School in the Ladue School District in the late 1950s and early 1960s. She took some time off when Rachel and I were born, but was also playing professionally with a few groups, most notably the Washington University Camerata, an original instruments baroque performance group. Because such groups rehearse where the keyboard is, we were fortunate enough to grow up with live chamber music in our living room. She sat in on my violin lessons for about eight years, chatting with my teacher when 9-year-old me would occasionally lay down on the floor to rest during those hour-long lessons. Later when I was a teenager we would play sonatas together, and she commented that it was uncanny playing with me, and unlike any other such pairing in her experience, that we would breathe, phrase, and musically understand each other innately.
Her second career was over 20 years as a preschool director (where she had started as a music teacher), first at the Temple Israel Nursery School and later at the Ethical Society Nursery School. She loved small children, but also found it immensely rewarding working with staff and parents. She also sought to augment her own knowledge, taking classes at the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute over several years. Even after retirement, she was sought out as an advisor to a dear family friend who was creating the first day care center in Missouri attached to an industrial site. She served on their board and even did a stint as the interim director of the center. And as always, she brought amazing music lessons to the preschoolers!
Her own continual seeking of knowledge she attributed to what she perceived as the narrowness of her conservatory training, and she was a voracious reader, especially of history, for the rest of her life. She tended to read many books on a single topic before moving on to others, such as Russian history or Civil War history (including its military history).
After she retired in 1999, her dedication to education continued as she as became a docent/interpreter for the Missouri Historical Society and the Missouri Botanical Garden. She studied the materials herself, and then found cogent ways for children to act out scenes to more viscerally understand the exhibits (the civil rights movement in St. Louis and many more).
My dad was a wonderful man who had no interest in organized religion. So Madre created an environment where Rachel and I could learn and thrive in our Jewishness. And it was my mom who led Passover Seders each year. After my Bar Mitzvah in April 1977 at the Wash U Hillel, my tutor suggested we try going to a small orthodox shul, Bais Abraham Congregation. Thus, for nearly 50 years, this was my mom’s Jewish community. She forged close relationships with the rabbis, starting with the legendary Rabbi Magence, who traveled to Maryland to be part of Sheryl’s and my wedding, as well as the brit milah of all three grandsons. She was a founding member of the Women’s Tefilah Group at Bais Abe, and designed and tended the flower gardens by the front entrance.
Indeed she inherited her green thumb from her father, and augmented by learning from a knowledgeable friend, she built a professional-level garden in her own yard, with carefully selected flowers and bushes. Even at The Gatesworth, her apartment abounded with plants, including a balcony overflowing with all sorts of flowers, tended with the help of a friend and master gardener.
My mom’s hospitality was known in every community of which she was a member. She showed love through cooking and especially baking, whether it was eminent visiting Physics Department colloquium speakers invited to dinner; many, many dinner parties with friends at our home during our childhood and for years beyond; or bringing fresh baked goods to new neighbors, either in their Alta Dena neighborhood, and continuing in her time at The Gatesworth independent living. Furthermore, my parents befriended numerous Russian families who had relocated to St. Louis, starting during the Refusenik era of the 1970s. Helping them polish their English and showing them about Jewish holidays (for which they had been persecuted but not allowed to observe, either), she was assisting them in acclimating to life in America. These all resulted in lifelong friendships.
Something not so obvious about my mom was that she was ahead of her time, computer-wise! In many ways she used computers in more diverse ways than my physics professor father. In 1985, someone donated a Fat Mac, essentially the second generation Macintosh computer, to the TI Nursery School. She learned about spreadsheets and word processing from that experience. They bought their own first computer a year later, as I was graduating from college. My parents were using email by 1989 and doing regular Skype video chats by January 2008, before the first iPhone ever reached the market!
Her comfort with the computer led her to doing extensive genealogical research on her Kramer family roots. She joined JewishGen, an online community where one could ask questions and learn about resources whether they were ship manifests or small town death records. She spent more than ten years on this project, and produced an 85-page monograph, bringing to life names on the family tree with stories and, oftentimes, photographs. This so well ties in with the fact that Madre was the glue that kept family members in touch. Her genuine interest in people came to the fore in keeping up with the lives of myriad cousins, a set of people which then expanded by the people that she discovered during her research. And it was not just on her side of the family, but on my dad’s side, too—writing letters and making phone calls—that is, simply, staying in touch.
For her grandchildren, she reveled in learning all about their lives. She was thrilled when Noah and Mary Nora just got engaged on February 9, and wrote to them with her excitement. She was always eager to learn about Rafael’s architecture projects in college, marveling at the detailed drawings and renderings. And she always wanted to know about their most recent performances, and would watch live-streams when they were available. One of her very last happy experiences was a Facetime video chat on February 15 at the end of my last visit, two days before the start of her final hospital stay, when Noah (in Chicago), Rafael (in Philadelphia), Sheryl (in Maryland), joined with Madre and me in St. Louis. We happily shared news and she thoroughly basked in it all.
Her love and caring for others rippled like concentric circles, with the rock-solid core of her more than 60 years of a very happy marriage to “her Michael”; to Rachel and me, and our families; to communities of friends, synagogue, neighbors—everyone she encountered. She lived a long and happy life, made better by her interactions with all of you. She is irreplaceable, but we all aspire to her strengths. I love you, Madre!