Gertrude Michaels

Gertrude (Schneider) Michaels, age 99 ½, of Dorchester and Brookline, died peacefully in Needham on Thursday April 18, 2013. As a young woman she taught elocution and dance and sang on the Boston Yiddish radio station. She later married and had three children; Eileen Michaels Feldman of Needham, Stephen Dennis Michaels and Suraleah Michaels of Chicago, IL. She served as PTO President for the City of Boston for several years. A lover of opera, piano and the arts, she enthusiastically applied her love of learning well into her “senior” years, working in the Secretary of State’s Commissions Division until she was 75. Not satisfied to be just a retiree, she later tutored special needs students in the Milton Public Schools for several years. Charismatic and charming, Gertrude leaves behind a multitude of friends from all walks of life. In recent years, she took great pleasure in spending time with her daughter Eileen, granddaughter Lauren Feldman Goldberg of Needham, her husband David, and their children Jake, Nate and Ty; as well as with her grandson Rusty Feldman, his wife Sarah, and their children JD and Mitchell. The matriarch of a close-knit clan, she counted her niece Rena Potish Mirkin of Brookline, her husband Howard, and their children Elissa Oransky of Mission Viejo, CA and Samuel Mirkin of Brookline and their families, among those most dear to her. Funeral services will be held at the Levine Chapel, 470 Harvard Street, Brookline on Sunday, April 21 at 11:00am. Interment will follow at the Custom Tailors Cemetery, 776 Baker St. West Roxbury. The family will be sitting shiva at the home of Eileen Feldman after the funeral and on Monday and Tuesday from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. and from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. Recognizing Gertrude’s passion for politics and peace, in lieu of flowers, the family asks that any donations in Gertrude’s memory be made to the fund established for victims of Monday’s tragedy, The One Fund, either at www.onefundboston.org or One Fund Boston, Inc., 800 Boylston Street, #990009, Boston, MA 02199.