Rolaine A. "Rollie" (Abrahams) Hochstein

Rollie Hochstein loved life and lived a life of the mind and the heart. She relished in-depth conversations with family members spanning generations and continued to make friends of all ages from all walks of life throughout her 94 years. She had a passion for culture of all forms. She frequented theater, dance, opera, and music performances, loved going to the movies, insatiably read literature (including Proust in French); and enjoyed visiting art galleries and museums until her heart gave out in her beloved Berkshires—where she was visiting daughter Bess—on September 11, 2023.

Rollie began her career as an advertising copywriter before becoming a freelance writer of features and celebrity profiles for newspapers and magazines including Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, Ms. Magazine, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, and the Toronto Star. She wrote three books with psychologist Daniel A. Sugarman: Seven Stories for Growth, The Seventeen Guide to Knowing Yourself, and The Seventeen Guide to You and Other People. She then turned her hand to fiction, publishing two novels: Stepping Out (Norton, 1977) and Table 47 (Doubleday, 1983). She gained acclaim for her short stories, publishing more than 40 in magazines and literary reviews. Her work has been translated into French, Hungarian, Chinese, and Spanish (including four stories published in La Revista magazine in Colombia) and anthologized in two O. Henry Prize collections and a Pushcart Prize anthology.

Having earned a mid-life MFA at Columbia University, Rollie taught writing in schools, mentored writers young and old, and was awarded fellowships from Yaddo, MacDowell, and the New Jersey Council on the Arts. Born in Yonkers, NY, daughter of Sara (Weinberger) and Martin Abrahams, she married her Syracuse sweetheart Morton (Hocky). They raised Eric (Linda), Kate (Juan), and Bess (Kipp) in Tenafly, NJ, moved to Manhattan, and traveled the world. Proud grandmother of Matthew, Claudia, Jeffrey, Joshua, Jacob, and Brian, and great-grandmother of three, Rollie believed in equality and justice for all, and was active in progressive politics. She was an enthusiastic participant in the LongGenity Study at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, an initiative to search for longevity genes that may slow the aging process and protect from age-related maladies such as cardiovascular disease and decline in cognitive function. She will be remembered for her intellectual curiosity, gregarious nature, optimism, wit, sense of wonder, outstanding memory, emotional generosity, determination, and joie de vivre.

Rollie’s life will be celebrated at Riverside Memorial Chapel, 180 West 76th Street, New York City, on October 1, 2023, at 2pm.

In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to Planned Parenthood, Girls Write Now, or Doctors Without Borders