Obituaries

Irwin Michael Sallen, “Mike” died on April 18, 2023, in the presence of his daughters, Judith and Amy. He is predeceased by his wife Irene and his son Roy. He is survived by his children Judith, Bruce, and Amy, by his nephew Matthew Salovitz, by his grandchildren Harry and George, George’s wife Ceira, and by his children’s spouses and partners, James, Desiree, and Judy.

Mike was born Irwin Michael Salovitz in Boston on January 5, 1924. He was an excellent student, loved music and books, and grew up in the West End of Boston in a vibrant Jewish and Italian community. As a teenager, he enlisted in the US Army Air Core and served as a radio operator during World War II with the 449^th bomber group. His plane was shot down over Romania and he was the only member of his crew to survive. He was captured and spent 11 months as a prisoner of war. He was decorated with a purple heart for his service.

Mike attended Harvard University on the GI bill and majored in history. He reunited with his childhood sweetheart, Irene Shirley Freedman, they soon married, and had four children. They raised their family in Stoughton and Brookline MA.

Mike worked in education for all of his career. He started as a history teacher in the Boston Public Schools, where he was one of the first Jewish teachers hired. He then worked as an administrator. He was a popular assistant principal at the Curley School in Jamaica Plain, and a well-respected principal at the Agassiz School, now the Margarita Nunez. He was president of the BPS principal’s association and served as editor of the Principal’s Newsletter for Harvard University. He also taught religious school at Temple Israel in Boston and was an active member of the synagogue, especially in the Torah study groups.

Mike will be remembered as the writer and host of “The Fun Show,” one of Brookline cable’s longest running shows. He could often be found writing scripts in a notebook, reading several newspapers, or digging into a history book. He enjoyed playing the piano, especially Passover songs and “Goodnight Irene” for his wife. He was known for his love of slapstick, his wit, his intelligence, his appetite at the Chinese Buffet, and for a good argument about politics. His family is grateful for his long life and his many adventures.

Services will take place at 2:00 pm, Friday April 21 at the Kaminker Cemetery, 776 Baker St., West Roxbury MA. Shiva will follow at the VFW, 386 Washington Street in Brookline.

Beverly Sherry Karp, age 83, passed away with her son Barry and daughter- in- law Cathy by her side on Friday, April 14, 2023 at Newton-Wellesley Hospital.  She was born in Pittsburgh, PA, the daughter of Helen and Benjamin Sherry.

Beverly attended the University of Pittsburgh. She was a lifelong teacher and loved working with children. She left a lasting impression on the students she taught with some of them reconnecting as adults later in life. Beverly and her husband enjoyed entertaining, making sure friends and family felt welcome in their home and was always friendly with their neighbors. Most recently she lived in the Avenu apartments in Natick. She had many great friends there with whom she enjoyed socializing, going out to eat and playing mahjong.

She married her best friend, Don. They were truly in love, spending time together, traveling together and being devoted parents.

Beverly was a loving wife to the late Donald Karp. She is survived by her son Barry Karp (Cathy) of Sutton. She is also survived by cousins and her best friends Carolyn and George Rosen whom she dearly loved.

Graveside service at the Framingham-Natick Hebrew Cemetery, 40 Fairview Ave., Natick, MA on Thursday, April 20, 2023 at 11:00 am. Donations in Beverly’s memory may be made to your favorite charity.

   Leonard S. Hartog:    April 5, 2023

Leonard S. Hartog of Southborough passed away peacefully in his sleep on April 5, 2023. Proud son of the late Harry  and Charlotte Hartog. Beloved father of Douglas and Peter (Traci) Hartog. Devoted grandfather of Benjamin and Noah Hartog. Loving brother of  the late Howard, Stephen, and Robert Hartog.

Born in the Bronx before the Stone Age, Leonard remained an avid, if misguided New York Yankees fan. Despite his terrible taste in baseball teams, he also loved the Celtics and Patriots. Leonard proudly served in the Army for three years before spending much of his professional career in the hospitality services. He played softball, enjoyed the occasional drop of Canadian Club, and maintained an intense interest in both stamp collecting and Japanese culture.

Those who knew him best would agree—Leonard lived life his way. He was a man of character. And he also appreciated character. He never missed a chance to dole out pearls of valuable life lessons to anyone who would, or cared to listen. He proudly gave to a variety of charities, including the New England Aquarium, the Shriners Hospitals for Children, the Paralyzed Veterans of America, and the Wounded Warrior Project. While you won’t find his name on Wikipedia, in the Guinness Book of World Records or in a Who’s Who of Interesting People, Leonard left his indelible mark upon every person he met.

But most importantly, Leonard adored his family. He especially loved chatting up his grandchildren, hearing about their misadventures, trying (and failing) to turn Benjamin into a Yankees fan, and listening to Noah play the piano. He will be dearly missed.

Graveside service at New Hand in Hand Cemetery, 2659 Centre St., West Roxbury, MA on Friday, April 14, 2023 at 11 am. In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to The Wounded Warrior Project at https://support.woundedwarriorproject.org/

Diane Joy Ceder-Of Framingham, on April 3, 2023.Services private.

Of Boston, formerly of Wellesley, on Thursday, March 30, 2023.  A healer extraordinaire.  Cherished husband of Phyllis (Goldberg) London.  Loving father of Jack & his wife Diane, and Jon & his wife Anne, all of Wellesley.  Adored grandfather of Emily, Julia, Benjamin, Emma & Jenna. Dear brother of Sara Libby Seletz.  Services were private.  In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to the Abram M. London, MD Fund, Tufts University School of Medicine, 80 George St., Medford, MA 02155.

A recording of the funeral service can be found here.

Henri-Ann Simon Sussman of Lincoln, MA, age 80, passed away peacefully in her home on April 1, 2023 after a period of declining health.  Born on February 7, 1943, Henri-Ann was the beloved daughter of Edward and Selma (Bacon) Simon.  Raised in Marblehead, she often spoke fondly of treasured days with her family on north shore beaches and in Ogunquit, ME.  She graduated from Marblehead High School in 1960 and earned a degree in Government from the University of New Hampshire in 1964.

A devoted wife and a mother, Henri-Ann will be remembered by her extended family and friends as someone who was always there.  She loved a full house and a full table on any day of the year.  She was passionate about antiques, buying and selling, and was known locally for her remarkable yard sales.  She thoughtfully filled her home with meaningful pieces of art, antique furniture and cultural relics acquired during her trips around the world with her beloved Joe.

Henri-Ann was often found in schools, theaters, poolside, game fields and in places of worship, watching her children, grandchildren, and extended family pursue their passions.  Henri-Ann’s open heart made friends easily that she kept for life.  She was a mother to all, and she will be remembered for her willingness to listen and her love of family, bunnies, and a good book.

Henri-Ann was predeceased by her husband of 54 years, Joseph M. Sussman and her daughter Kerri-Jae Sussman.
Henri-Ann is survived by her sister Jane Stricker and her husband Robert of Boston, MA; her sister-in-law, Toby Manke and her husband Terry of Fort Lauderdale, FL; her daughter-in-law Kimberly Coppenrath of Windham, ME; her son Andrew Sussman and his wife Kristina of Westford, MA and her son Craig Sussman and his wife Nadia of Lincoln, MA.  She was a proud Nana to Taylor, Leda, Ryan, Hailey, and Owen.  She was a beloved “Auntie” to her nieces and nephews – Eden (Bill), Trevor (Luba), Dan, and Jamison (Billy) and great- nieces and great- nephews – Sydney, Charlie, Jamie, Levi, and Sam.  Henri-Ann was cherished by her extended family with whom she spent countless hours.

We would like to extend gratitude and acknowledgement to all those who lovingly cared for her in her last years, especially her beloved caregivers, the “Sussman Team.”

The funeral will be held graveside at 2pm Monday April 3, 2023 at the Town of Lincoln Cemetery, 38 Lexington Road, Lincoln, MA.  Following interment, observance will be held at the home of Craig & Nadia Sussman from 3:30 to 7pm.  Shiva will be held at the home from 3pm to 7:30pm on Tuesday April 4, 2023.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Joseph and Henri-Ann Sussman Book Fund at the Lincoln Public Library, 3 Bedford Road, Lincoln, MA 01773.

Eleanor Budd-Of Boston, on April 1, 2023. Services are private.

Norton Fishman, a pioneer in Geriatric Dentistry, was born in Dorchester during the depression, in 1928. He attended public schools in Dorchester, until he enrolled in Boston Latin School in grade 7, graduating in 1945.

He attended Boston University, majoring in chemistry and pre-medical studies, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1948, at the age of 20. Too young to be accepted to medical school, he went to Northeastern University for two years, as a teaching fellow in chemistry, and earned a Master’s Degree in 1950. He was accepted at Harvard School of Dental Medicine and, after two years at the Medical School and two years at the Dental School, he graduated in 1954 with a D.M.D. and a prestigious silver medal.

Immediately after graduation, Uncle Sam called and Dr. Fishman spent two years during the Korean War at Sampson Air Force Base on Lake Seneca, in upstate New York. During that time he had the good fortune to meet his wife to-be, Carol, and they married in June, 1957. They bought a house in Norwood and converted it into a home-office.

Dr. Fishman taught part-time at Harvard Dental School as an Associate Clinical Professor and established his private practice in Norwood, Massachusetts, thereby allowing him to teach half time, see private patients, and be more available to family over the years.

Dr. Fishman was elected as a Fellow of the American College of Dentistry (FACD).

As one of the early founders of the American Society of Geriatric Dentistry, and a pioneer in the field, Dr. Fishman developed and directed dental clinics at both Hebrew Senior Life and New England Sinai Hospital. He organized the first international conference on geriatric dentistry and the subsequent publication of the Proceedings of the Conference on Dentistry and the Geriatric Patient.

He was an avid gardener, birder, world traveler, and amateur orchidist. He was a recreational skier and tennis player who had, more recently, taken up snow shoeing and bridge. He was always a voracious reader, but his greatest love was his family.

Dr. Fishman leaves behind his loving wife, Carol (Lowenberg) Fishman, as well as his children, Scott Fishman, Robin Borgestedt, and Lauren Petrie, as well as his most cherished grandchildren, Alexander, Sarena, Noa, Hanna, Jonah, Eliya, Solomon, and Bobby, and his great-grandchild, Elizabeth. He was preceded in death by his life-long friend and brother, Harrison Fishman, and his beloved son, Jeffrey Neil Fishman.

A graveside service at Sharon Memorial Park on Sunday, April 2, 2023 at 1:45 pm. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Jeffrey Neil Fishman Endowment Fund at Boston Children’s Hospital

To view the service  recording please click here.

Margot Stern Strom, 81; with Facing History and Ourselves, taught students worldwide to reject bigotry and hatred

By Bryan Marquard Globe Staff,Updated March 28, 2023, 11:56 a.m.

Margot Stern Strom cofounded Facing History and Ourselves, the school curriculum that teaches students to reject bigotry and hatred.

To create Facing History and Ourselves, a curriculum that has helped millions of students around the world confront moral dilemmas while learning to reject hatred and bigotry, Margot Stern Strom drew inspiration from her Memphis childhood.

As a Jewish girl in a segregated southern state, she was told to not drink from water fountains marked “colored.” And in her classrooms, everyone seemed to know what could and couldn’t be said.

“There was a powerful silence about race and racism and no mention of antisemitism or the Holocaust,” she once wrote. “ ‘Bad history’ was best forgotten. The Civil War was the War Between the States and we were taught how the South won the major battles. In my Tennessee history class I did not learn who lost the Civil War.”

Ms. Strom cofounded Facing History in Brookline’s schools in 1976 and led the nonprofit for nearly 40 years while it expanded into classrooms in all 50 states and more than 100 countries. She was 81 when she died Tuesday in her Brookline home of pancreatic cancer.

In an era when violent acts of antisemitism and racism are increasing, and some politicians want to ban books and curtail courses that teach about bigotry’s history, Ms. Strom pioneering work is seen by many as more relevant than ever.

Margot had a drive and a vision to become a leader for teachers and students in a world in which too many people don’t acknowledge that there are patterns of hatred and prejudice that range from the playground to civil war,” said Martha Minow, a former dean of Harvard Law School who had served on the governing board of the nonprofit Facing History and Ourselves.

Nearly a half century ago, Ms. Strom and a colleague in the Brookline school system first discussed teaching students about the Holocaust, and that conversation led them to launch Facing History and Ourselves.

Throughout the nonprofit’s history, the organization and teachers have faced resistance from some educators and elected officials who want to ignore or barely mention certain disquieting historical subjects for political reasons, or simply because they worry about the impact the subjects will have on children.

“We’ve suggested in this curriculum and with this particular history and with the methods that we’re using that we have to allow for discomfort in the classroom,” Ms. Strom once said.

She believed that by studying how bigotry affected people in the past, and examining how hatred still roils today’s world, students could learn to make ethical and moral choices that will improve their lives.

“It’s scary to walk in someone else’s shoes,” Ms. Strom said in a 2015 interview with Harvard Ed., the alumni magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “But you can imagine it if you’re taught about it. There’s a need for truth telling and widening perspectives.”

Born in Chicago on Nov. 10, 1941, Margot Stern was 5 when her family moved to Memphis, where her parents — Lloyd Stern and Fannye Wener Stern, who was known as Fan – ran a furniture store.

“My mother brought priests, poets such as Randall Jarrell, lectures on Shakespeare, and books from college into our home,” Ms. Strom wrote in a history of her nonprofit. “My dad, an author and an artist, clipped and saved articles about people and topics that would inspire his children. He gardened, made scrapbooks about

Fan Stern, who had been a top student at the University of Alabama, was the household’s scholar and guiding light.

Gerald Stern, who was an attorney with the civil rights division of the US Justice Department under then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, said Ms. Strom “was very close to our mother, who led us: This is what you should be doing, this is what you should be reading, this is how you should be feeling.”

The middle child of three siblings, Ms. Strom went to Central High School in Memphis and studied history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, graduating in 1964 with a bachelor’s degree.

While registering for classes with students lined up alphabetically, she met Terry Strom, who was standing next to her. They married in 1964, and he became a renowned researcher in organ transplant immunology.

“To know him was to adore him,” she said for his Globe obituary in 2018.

After college, Ms. Strom initially taught in Skokie, Ill.

“I knew that I did not want to be another link in a conspiracy of silence,” she wrote. “I wanted to honor my students’ potential to confront history in all of its complexity, to cope, and to make a positive difference in their school, community, nation, and the world.”

And in an approach that continued for the rest of her life, “I quickly discovered that although I was officially the teacher, I was learning about adolescents and myself from my students.”

After the Stroms moved to Brookline in 1970, she began teaching eighth-grade language arts and social studies at the Runkle School, and received a master’s from Harvard University in 1977.

In the early 1970s, some Brookline residents asked if the school system taught about the Holocaust.

Troubled by gaps in her own knowledge about the Holocaust, and by memories of how that history wasn’t mentioned when she was young, Ms. Strom and Brookline social studies teacher William Parsons launched Facing History and Ourselves in 1976.

Parsons, who later was chief of staff at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, died in 2016.

For Ms. Strom, “history was not something to be memorized. It was something to be ripped apart and fought with. The complexity was important, and not to be ducked,” said her son, Adam Strom of Brookline.

He worked with his mother for many years at Facing History and is now executive director and cofounder of the Boston nonprofit Re-Imagining Migration, of which Ms. Strom was a founding board member.

As a founder and the guiding force of Facing History for nearly four decades, until stepping down several years ago, Ms. Strom “was both a visionary and an incredible listener,” Adam said. “She got so engaged in everybody’s ideas, whether they were mine or my sister’s or anybody’s at work.”

At work and home with her children and four grandchildren, Ms. Strom “was the most present person in every aspect of what she was doing,” said her daughter, Rachel Fan Stern Strom of Brooklyn.

In addition to her son, daughter, brother, and grandchildren, Ms. Strom leaves her sister, Paula Stern of Washington, D.C., who formerly chaired the US International Trade Commission.

A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday in Temple Israel of Boston. Shiva will be held at her residence Thursday 4 – 8 p.m.

Friday 3 – 7 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be made to Re-Imagining Migration.

Working alongside and becoming friends with Ms. Strom “certainly changed the trajectory of my life and my career,” said Minow, who counts herself among those inspired by her friend’s drive, compassion,

and ability to guide people of all ages to confront the complex ways bigotry and hatred have been powerful forces in history

At 100 years young.

Beloved wife of the late Louis Spero, formerly of Chestnut Hill, on March 28, 2023.   Devoted mother of Nathan (and Shelli) Koenig, Janet (and Steven) Kouroubacalis, Marjorie Spero, and Louise Becker. Cherished grandmother of Natasha Lohrer, Marisa and Michael Kouroubacalis, and Hope Umansky. Loving great-grandmother of Machia and Seth Lohrer and Molly Umansky.

Shirley grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut where she attended business college and worked in the family business. After moving to Boston, she became involved in numerous charitable organizations as a dynamic leader. She was the guest of honor at the Greater Boston Israel Bond luncheon, a member of the Board of Directors of the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center (currently Hebrew Senior Life), the Beth Israel Hospital Women’s Auxiliary, and former vice president of the Brookline Hospital Women’s Auxiliary, and sisterhood of Temple Ohabei Shalom in Brookline. She was a lifetime member and contributor to New England Sinai Hospital, Hadassah, Boston Aid to the Blind, Brandeis University, and Jewish Memorial Hospital.

Shirley was known for her positivity, humor, generosity, and infectious smile.  She was a world traveler, avid bridge player, golfer, and horseback rider.  She enjoyed decades of summers at The Balsams in New Hampshire, playing golf and spending time with her family.

Graveside service at Sharon Memorial Park, 40 Dedham St., Sharon, MA, on Friday, March 31st, 2023 at 11:45 am. Memorial service will be held in the Chapel of Brooksby Village, 300 Brooksby Village Drive, Peabody, MA on Saturday April 1, 2023 at 1pm. Remembrances may be made to the Brooksby Staff Appreciation Fund. 100 Brooksby Village Drive, Peabody, MA 01960.