Obituaries

Esther F, Alsen (Ravech) Of Milton, on April 1, 2011. Beloved wife of the late Samuel H. Alsen. Devoted mother of Neil, Cheryl & Eileen Alsen & the late Lenny Alsen. Dear grandmother of Michael, Mark & Tania Cubell, Tammy LaPierre, Brian & Steven Gordon, Cherished great grandmother of Jacob & Katriel Cubell, Olivia & Brady LaPierre. Loving sister of the late Max, Abe & Oscar Ravech & Yetta Guarino. Graveside services at the Beth El Cemetery, 776 Baker St., West Roxbury, on Sunday, April 3, 2011 at 12 noon. In lieu of flowers remembrances in her memory may be made to D4ASNT Trust, 90 Craig St., Milton, MA 02186

Natalie Rosengard-of  Newton ,on March 23, 2011. Wife of Morton I. Brenner. Step mother of Elizabeth, Charles and Emily. Step grandmother of  Shane, Sophie, Miriam and Freeman. Sister of Donald Rosengard and his wife Joan. Aunt of Karen , Alan and Cynthia. Great Aunt  of  Renee, Steven, Alicia, Thomas , Daniel, Samantha, Elyssa, Owen , Sarah and their children. Services at Temple Sinai , 50 Sewall Ave. Brookline on Monday March 28, 2011 at 11:00 am. Following interment at Newton Cemetery,  memorial observance will be at her residence , 250 Hammond Pond Parkway ,(Apt. 401N) Chestnut Hill,  Monday thru Wednesday 4-8pm.In lieu of flowers remembrances may be made to Museum of Fine Arts , Children’s Education Program,  465 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115. “She walks in beauty,like the night,”  Lord Byron.

Jack  Wolper MD  Of Scottsdale, Az. formerly of Quincy, on March 20, 2011 at age 74, after succumbing to a long battle with Hydrocephalus. Beloved husband of Salpi Rowinsky Wolper. Devoted step father of Eric Rowinsky. Survived by brother Howard Wolper and cousin Sandy Boyd and their families. Services will be held at Temple Sinai, 25 Canton St., Sharon on Friday, March 25, 2011 at 1pm. Burial will follow at Sharon Memorial Park, Sharon. In lieu of flowers remembrances may be made to Hospice of the Valley, 5111 North Scottsdale Rd., Suite 108, Scottsdale, Az. 85250.

Tarnower-Helen “ Grandma  “at age 95,  surrounded by her loving family ,on March 22, 2011 . of  Newton,  formerly of Teaneck, NJ .Beloved wife of the late Irving  Tarnower .Devoted mother of Ann Baum  and Howie Tarnower and his wife Pam Swift  all of Newton. Beloved grandmother of   Jeff Baum and his wife Gulson Gul , Alison Hook and her husband Erik , Holly and Lydia  Tarnower  and amazing great grandmother to Sam and Amanda Hook and Zack Baum.In lieu of flowers remembrances may be made to Creative Arts at Park 171 Goodard Ave. Brookline, MA 02445

Tarnower-Helen “ Grandma  “at age 95,  surrounded by her loving family ,on March 22, 2011 . of  Newton,  formerly of Teaneck, NJ .Beloved wife of the late Irving  Tarnower .Devoted mother of Ann Baum  and Howie Tarnower and his wife Pam Swift  all of Newton. Beloved grandmother of   Jeff Baum and his wife Gulson Gul , Alison Hook and her husband Erik , Holly and Lydia  Tarnower  and amazing great grandmother to Sam and Amanda Hook and Zack Baum.In lieu of flowers remembrances may be made to Creative Arts at Park 171 Goodard Ave. Brookline, MA 02445

Harold L.CHALFIN,  Of Newton, on March 21, 2011. Beloved husband of Rose (Kramer) Chalfin. Devoted father of April Chalfin and her husband Preston Dortch of Lee MA, Mark Chalfin and his wife Beth of Long Beach CA, Beth Ravech and her husband Bruce of Needham. Cherished Pa of Jared Ravech, Lexie Ravech, Timothy Dortch, Lila Chalfin and Sadie Chalfin. Loving brother of Arlene Grusby, Barbara Ochs, Morton Chalfin and his wife Gerda and many loving nieces, nephews and friends. Services at Congregation Mishkan Tefila, 300 Hammond Pond Pkwy, Chestnut Hill on Thursday, March 24 at 10 A.M. Following the interment in Sharon Memorial Park, Sharon, the family will return to Congregtion Mishkan Tefila until 4 p.m. Memorial observance will continue at his residence on Friday 2-5 p.m., Saturday 7-9 p.m. and Sunday 12-5 p.m. Remembrances may be made to Parkinson’s Disease Assoc., 720 Harrison Ave., Boston, MA 02118 or to American Cancer Society, 30 Speen St., Framingham, MA 01701 or the American Heart Assoc, 20 Speen St. Framingham, MA 01701.

by Bryan Marquard  Boston Globe

Brookline may now be a Democratic stronghold, the place Michael S. Dukakis began the first of many campaigns that led him to become a presidential nominee, but it was not always so. Until Sumner Kaplan came along, the town was solidly Republican.

• When Mr. Kaplan took his first step toward the State House in 1954, his victory was noted almost in passing, 15 paragraphs into a Globe roundup of election news: “For the first time in the history of Brookline, a Democrat was elected to the House of Representatives, the feat being accomplished by Sumner Kaplan.’’ Among the young reform-minded Democrats working on his campaign that fall was Dukakis.

“If it hadn’t been for Sumner, I never would have gotten actively involved in politics, and I’m not alone,’’ said Dukakis, who was elected to fill the same House seat eight years later when Mr. Kaplan ran for state Senate. “He was very much a transformative figure in state politics. And certainly for people like me and others who were touched by him and got deeply involved in his campaigns, he was everything.’’

Mr. Kaplan, who also served as a Brookline selectman, a brigadier general in the Army Reserve, and a probate and family court judge, died March 20 in Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston of complications of congestive heart failure and lymphoma. He was 91 and had moved to Jamaica Plain 11 years ago after living most of his life in Brookline.

Rent control was Mr. Kaplan’s primary focus initially, but his approach to campaigning was just as important to his election. He went door to door and straphanger to straphanger, changing one voter’s mind at a time.

“Nobody had ever done that in Brookline,’’ Dukakis recalled. “This guy shows up at 7 in the morning at every one of the T stops in town. This was so different than anything this town had ever experienced, and it was a lesson for the rest of us. He was the mentor for us younger fry who were part of his crew, and in the course of moving Brookline out of the Republican column, he was a great role model.’’

On Beacon Hill, Mr. Kaplan did not shy from taking stands that bucked the prevailing mood. In the mid-1950s, when US Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin turned the red scare into something of a national obsession, the Massachusetts House passed a bill calling for public school teachers to be fired if they refused to say if they were Communists.

In an unsuccessful attempt to get the bill reconsidered, Mr. Kaplan questioned its constitutionality and said it turned teachers into “second-class citizens.’’

When the House debated capital punishment, Mr. Kaplan told the Globe that “only the poor man goes to the electric chair, because he cannot afford an expensive lawyer

• US Representative Barney Frank, a Newton Democrat, said that because of his military background, Mr. Kaplan “was a guy who showed that patriotism and liberalism are not contradictory.’’

“He also was able to be a very forceful advocate without being nasty,’’ Frank added. “We lament the lack of civility. He was the perfect example of somebody who was passionate and civil about issues. He was the opposite of a scary figure. He was a warm, open guy who had a lot of appeal.’’

Born in Boston, Sumner Zalman Kaplan was the youngest of three children and grew up in Dorchester and Roxbury until his family moved to Brookline during his senior year at Boston Latin School, from which he graduated in 1939.

He graduated from Massachusetts State College, now the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in 1941. During World War II, he rose to colonel while serving in the Army Corps of Engineers, then served for many years in the Army Reserve.

In 1944 he married Eleanor Fisher, with whom he had been fixed up on a date when she was 15 and he was 16.

“As a young boy, his reputation was of being very mischievous,’’ said his daughter Ruth of Brookline. “I think that would be a good way to characterize him his whole life, because there was a part of him that just enjoyed mischief.’’

Mr. Kaplan graduated from Harvard Law School in 1948 and worked as a lawyer, first in a firm, then in a practice with his brother and a friend. He also served as a Town Meeting member in Brookline and was on the Board of Selectmen for a dozen years, three as chairman.

In 1983, Governor Edward J. King appointed Mr. Kaplan to the probate and family court bench, and he served for a decade as a judge, including some years on a recall basis.

A service has been held for Mr. Kaplan, who remained active in political circles into his 80s and easily connected with people decades younger, whether they be aspirants for elective office or his five grandchildren, who called him Pal. The sobriquet originated when Mr. Kaplan was spending time with his first grandchild and said, “You know, we’re pals.’’

The nickname was appropriate for all he met, among them author Doris Kearns Goodwin. Mr. Kaplan helped officiate at her 1975 marriage to author and presidential adviser Richard Goodwin, who gave an emotional Town Meeting speech of his own about rent control in the early 1950s while working with Mr. Kaplan on that contentious issue in Brookline.

“You just fall in love with the guy,’’ she said of Mr. Kaplan. “You can’t help it.’’

She called him one of the rare public officials who combined a closeness with his family with devotion to the larger worlds of politics and the judiciary.

“If he’d never been involved publicly,’’ she said, “he still would have been an extraordinary man in the eyes of those who knew him, because he exerted that kindness and warmth.’’

For years after his best friend and former law partner, Howard Katz, moved to Israel, Mr. Kaplan visited every year and called every Sunday. The two discussed everything from politics to personal lives to the biblical passages read at weekly services.

“He wasn’t a guy out of sight, out of mind; he was always in mind,’’ Katz said. “I used to say of him, ‘Sumner had a compulsion to do good.’ He didn’t just do good — he had a compulsion, and he would never do anything to hurt anybody, even when he had a reason to be angry.’’

Because of his public roles and unfailing good nature, Mr. Kaplan was an emotional and intellectual resource for generations of people he encountered.

“So many people relied on him for help and guidance and support,’’ said his daughter Marjorie of New York City. “He was probably the most optimistic, enthusiastic, positive human being I and many other people will ever know. It was all about giving. . . . He never said no.’’

“My mother told me the other day, ‘I don’t think he ever tallied it up and measured the full impact of his life,’ and she’s right, he was never keeping count,’’ Ruth said. “Nobody was.’’

Nathan Glick- of Norwood , on March 21, 2011. Beloved husband of Marilyn( Rosen) , Devoted father of Elizabeth Berkowitz and her husband Marc  and the late Samuel Walter .Adored grandfather of Benjamin and Max . Loving brother of Leatrice Dubester . Loving uncle  and greatuncle of Bonnie, Paul, Jonathan and Samantha .Brother in law of Myles Israel and the late Helen Israel. Graveside services at The Bourne National Cemetery Connery Ave.
Bourne, MA  on Thursday  March 24, 2011  at 11:15 am.Memorial observance at 20 Chapel  St. Brookline Thursday afternoon and Evening.Remembrances in his memory may be made to The American Lung Assoc.460 Totten Pond Road, Suite 400  ,Waltham, Massachusetts 02451

Bazoll-Beatrice of Brookline, on March 17, 2011. Loving sister of the late Sara (Henry) Gibson, Ida (Joe) Auerbach, Goldie (Irving) Geltman. Beloved aunt of Richard, Edward, Ken, Joani Geltman and Eleanor Linde and Amy Remer. Services at the Brezniak-Rodman Chapel, 1251 Washington St.(Corner of Chestnut Street) West Newton on Sunday, March 20 at 9 am. Following burial in Melrose, a memorial observance will be held at the home of Joani Geltman and Greg Graynor in Natick through 5 pm on Sunday only. Remembrances may be made to the American Heart Association, 20 Speen Street, Framingham, MA  01701.