Ruth Gessner Schocken
Ruth Gessner-Schocken, musician, mother and champion of peace between Israel and Palestine, died peacefully at home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 6. She was 97.
Born in Berlin, Germany, in 1914, into an Orthodox Jewish environment, Ruth Weinberger studied piano at an early age and appeared to have a promising concert career ahead of her. Amongst her well-known Berlin teachers were Prueher and Roediger. But her favorite was Michael Taube who was an influence on her well after she left Berlin.
On a vacation trip to Palestine in 1935, Ruth met Charles Gessner – also on vacation – and they married in New York in 1937. Ruth, along with her brother David, mother and father, had managed to escape Germany before the escalating Nazi crackdown on German Jews. Their escape followed the Nazi confiscation of Ruth’s father’s business – the largest butter and cheese wholesale operation in Berlin.
From 1937 to 1954 Ruth Gessner lived in Escanaba, Michigan, a small town in the Upper Peninsula, and the location of her husband’s family retail business (The Fair Store – “Upper Michigan’s Shopping Center”). During those 17 years in what Ruth’s friends subsequently called her exile to “Elba”, Ruth and Charles had three children: Charles, David and Lenore. Despite abandoning her piano career to become a wife and mother, Ruth still practiced piano four or more hours every day on her beloved Bechstein – brought from Berlin, and wowed the small Michigan community with a number of concerts. Over that period she also became an advocate for Planned Parenthood – and developed a close relationship with many of the small town’s Christian clergy, despite their differences on what at the time were very forward thinking concepts. Escanaba’s Jewish community consisted of 13 families – out of a population of 15,000.
In 1954 Ruth’s husband, after year’s as a silent partner, joined the management of her father’s shoe company – Oomphies – headquartered in Lawrence, and the family moved to Cambridge, thus joining the vibrant greater-Boston arts and intellectual community. A new life began for Ruth, as she developed relations with many musicians in the area. Their new home, featuring a large music room with two grand pianos, became a hub of musical entertainment and a very successful fund raising venue for favorite charities.
In 1968 Charles Gessner died suddenly of a heart attack, and at age 54 Ruth was a widow at what turned out to be close to the midpoint of her long life. Thus began another chapter in that life, one that paradoxically brought her great joy over time. On another vacation trip to what was now Israel, Ruth met a former schoolmate from Berlin, Wolfgang Schocken. They married in Cambridge in 1970 and moved to Tel Aviv, Israel, another community with a vibrant musical life. Mr. Schocken was a viola player and teacher and had two daughters from a previous marriage.
Returning to Cambridge in the early ‘70’s, both Wolfgang and Ruth started new careers, joining the faculties of music departments at MIT, Tufts, BU and the Longy School. Ruth concentrated on coaching singers in German, French and Italian diction, and she developed a group of singer-friends who benefitted from her musical training and her discipline and drive. Many musical events in the music room on Traill Street celebrated the success of this new chapter in her life.
Ruth was widowed again in 1995 when Mr. Schocken passed away. At that time she established an annual concert series at the Longy School – the Gessner-Schocken Concert Series – honoring her two husbands and presenting to the Cambridge music community up and coming artists from across the globe.
For the past 15 years she has continued to participate actively in the vibrant musical life of the greater-Boston community. She sat in the same seat for BSO concerts for 57 years, and sometimes attended more concerts – Celebrity Series, Longy presentations and others – in a given week than most people would attend in a year
Ruth Schocken is survived by two sons, Charles Gessner and his wife Susan of Marblehead and David Gessner of Somerville, her daughter Lenore Travis and her husband George of Lincoln two stepdaughters, Rachel Eshel and Ayala Sacharov living in Israel; and nine grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Services will be held in the Bigelow Chapel, Mount Auburn Cemetery on Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 11:00 am.Following interment at Mount Auburn Cemetery a memorial observance will be held at her residence until 8:00 pm Thursday, Friday 3-5pm and Sunday 12-2pm , 4-7pm.
In lieu of flowers donations can be made to the Gessner-Schocken Concert Series at Longy School of Music, 27 Garden Street Cambridge MA 02138.