Author: Pamela Goldstein

Testimonials

Why do we say May Her Memory Be for a Blessing?

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Pamela Goldstein: Dear Mark & Marjorie, Ken & Kari, Scott & Rachael, Steve AG, Rachel, Steve B, and the whole mishpocha, My deepest condolences on the loss of Alice. I think that burying our elders (or, in Alice’s case, fulfilling her wish to donate her remains to science) is one of the hardest parts of being mortal…. The permanence of not-seeing, not-touching, not-speaking one more time is painful, sad, poignant, and in some also beautiful, in how we embrace the totality of the person who was, when their earthly journey of body has come to an end. I think often of

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When It Was Alice’s Time

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Cousin Steve Adler-Golden:  That Friday morning when Alice woke up and the woman came to help her with her pills, something was not all right. The woman left and came back with a nurse who found Alice in her bedroom on the floor. There Alice was when the phone call came in to Mark, and we all went to her apartment and said goodbye to her body. The staff had wrapped her neatly in a blanket, like a gift. We sat quietly.  Mark washed her hands, feet and face. Alice would have approved, I thought. Though she would have asked

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You probably thought Alice was an only Child…

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Ken Schafer: You probably thought Alice was an only Child…  and yet… Watch the video above, then, if you think you can handle it, click the button below. This video was from a Forensics class at Lasel College where she and several other “villagers” (residents of the Lasel Village) put together a crime scene, a murder in fact, which the class had to solve. Or at least that’s what she claimed!…!

Two circles closed: Alice and Chick

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Mark Schafer: Alice, who was quite tone deaf—see Annika’s post with Alice singing her own, unique melody to “Happy Birthday”!—loved jazz. (She also somehow was able to pick out a pair of stereo speakers that had such great sound that I promptly went out and got a pair of the exact same speakers for myself. Go figure.) At some point in the mid-late 70s, Alice and Bert got a upright piano—I think because Scott was going to take piano lessons. (Photo to come). Ever the quirky (or practical) pair, they put the piano in the the kitchen. I never took lessons,

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Alice inspired me

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Susan Tordella-Williams: I met Alice in the twilight of her life, through First Church Unitarian in Littleton. We shared a passion for social justice. Around 2012 or so we took a class together on White People Challenge Racism at Cambridge Adult Ed, and  drove together to the class each week. I got to know Alice better. She told me about her career, that in the 1950s, she trained as a computer programmer, which was expected to be “women’s work” because of the keyboarding required !!! I love that she was a pioneer on what must’ve been a difficult journey. I often

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Alice and the UUUM

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Larry Lickteig: Alice joined me and other FCUers on several Saturdays at UUUM  in Roxbury, MA, where we were volunteers doing projects or trips with about 30 kids, 6 to 11 y/o. She loved it, but thought the kids’ energy might overpower her. So she arranged with The Discovery Museums and Not Your Average Joe’s restaurant in Acton and the UUUM to provide an excursion for the kids. They would arrive at the large interactive science  museum on a bus, have NYAJ’s pizza and soda, and have an amazing time interacting with the exhibits for hours. This went on for several

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Memories from a granddaughter

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My grandma Alice: On Friday morning, February 19th, the day after my 22nd birthday, my grandma Alice died of a heart attack at 87 years old. Some of my friends might remember her visiting Wellesley campus: an unassuming woman, energetic, lively, just under 5 feet tall (not including her wild white curls), equipped with plastic Ziplocs full of Black Lives Matter pins to give to me and my friends. That’s how I remember her. When I got the news, I risked a Lyft (she refused to use Uber because of the company’s questionable ethics) to Lasell Village, where she lived

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A portrait of Alice’s apartment, as she left it on Friday, Feb 19 (self-portrait of Alice)

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Mark Schafer:  These are photos I took of Alice’s apartment when we got there on Friday morning, the day she passed on. I barely touched anything: it is as she left it. As I looked around, it seemed to me that her apartment reflected so much of who she was/is: plants; sculptures everywhere—including nested in the sofa and even in the kitchen sink!—just dusted?—; cats everywhere; Black Lives Matter buttons all over; Gay Pride flags in several rooms; family photos not just on the fridge by over the stove too; files labeled “Nature”, “Play”, “Racism”, “Soul Matters”. And as we

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Alice

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Cynthia: Alice is an inspiration to me, another guide. Stay curious, choose compassion, savor joy- laugh a lot. I saw her apartment when she moved in. I loved the way each space reflected the personal. I’ve known her, and Bert, since my children were tiny. She always greeted the children with joy, surprise, kindness. My children and the child within the adults.