Irwin Theodore (Ted) Powers

Ted was born in the Bronx, New York and grew up the child of a single mother during the depression with his brother Mel. He excelled academically and graduated at age 16 (having skipped two grades) from Stuyvesant High School, known to be the best in New York.

After graduation, Ted promptly took a job as a mail clerk for Shell Oil Company. He spent 11 years attending night school, receiving his bachelors degree from City College of New York and an MBA from Baruch College (City University of NY). In 1955, he married Myrna Kaufman from Brooklyn, and that same year in the middle of college and immediately following the Korean War, he enlisted in the army. He was a machine gunner and gunnery instructor in the 4th Regimental Combat Team that left to fight the Russians in the Hungarian Uprising of 1956. “When my kids asked, ‘what war did you fight in?’ they were puzzled, never having heard of the Hungarian Uprising,” Ted recalled. “While we were airborne to Hungary, President Eisenhower decided not to intervene, and we returned to our home base. Unfortunately, 50,000 Hungarians were killed.”

Returning to Shell after serving his country, Ted had many professional assignments and his career brought him to Houston when the company moved their head office here. While at Shell – for a total of 40 years (remember he started when he was 16) – Ted was involved in a lot of writing, from audit reports to financial manuals. Knowing he would retire in a few years, he began writing fiction. While his first novel, “A Hellish Thing” was never published, it did win First Place in the Manuscriptors Guild’s Guilded Quill Writers Competition in horror fiction. Ted recalls that his late wife of 54 years, Myrna, “was frightened as she typed this story about a Houston serial murderer and he finally had to hire a private typist.”

In 1993, two years after Ted retired from Shell, Myrna saw an ad in the Jewish Herald-Voice for a food editor. Since he was a good writer, a good cook and loved to eat (a taste for Eastern European foods was cultivated while he shopped for and helped cook with his Russian grandmother), she suggested he apply for it. “At the end of my interview with Vicki Samuels,” Ted laughs, “Vicki said ‘can you start tomorrow?’” He did and the rest is history.

Ted loved his second career – writing for the Herald. He did this for more than 25 years. He was invited to all restaurant openings, wine and food events and traveled around the country attending shows and competitions and visiting Herald advertisers’ out-of-state locations. He gained the respect of the food community. In fact, he was the senior food editor, writer and restaurant reviewer in all of Houston. Ted served as a judge at many events, from chicken soup cook-offs to latke and Mandelbrot contests to the Annual Caesar Salad competition and many others. He served on the Culinary Awards committee for My Table magazine.

For the Herald, Ted wrote the “B’Tayavon” (good appetite) column where he covered subjects like foods for Jewish holidays, kosher foods, new foods, kitchen equipment and food events around town. He also wrote over a thousand restaurant articles and published at least two recipes every week from mostly Jewish cookbook authors. “Does he test each one?” he was often asked. “I’ve been a cook for years and have more than 1,000 cookbooks in my collection, including many Jewish ones. If I can’t visualize the results, I will test it,” he said. Over the years, Ted also wrote for other newspapers and magazines.

Despite eating out much more than the average person, Ted was very fit and trim. “I play a lot of tennis, 4 or 5 times a week,” Ted bragged humbly. “I have placed first, second and third in the Media Coca-Cola tournament over a 10 year period.” He also was a docent at the Houston Zoo for almost 15 years. He showed animals like snakes and alligators and taught third and fourth graders about animals and the reasons they were endangered.

Myrna passed away in 2009 and it was difficult living without the love of his life. He said of Myrna, “This I will remember, when the rest of life is through: the finest thing I’ve ever done was simply loving you.”

Ted is survived by children Marcy (and Rabbi Stuart Federow), Steve (and Jackie), Bonnie (and Jeffrey Levin), and Amy (and Dr. Jason Powers); grandchildren Jared Powers (and Kaytlyn), Chelsea Loose-Mitchell (and Will), Tyler Powers, Zachary Powers, Sarah Powers, Danyel Powers and Mia Powers; and three great grandchildren.

The Powers children want to thank our caregivers for their committed and loving attention to our father, treating him as their own during his illness with Parkinson’s Disease. With gratitude to Princhelle Taylor, Pat Taylor, Roslyn Rhodes, Anne Oluwasile and the other wonderful caregivers and staff who helped care for our dad.

The family requests those who wish to express sympathy to consider making a donation to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society https://www.lls.org or Parkinson's Foundation https://www.parkinson.org/ in memory of Irwin Theodore (Ted) Powers.

* The majority of this obituary was written by Ted himself in May 2010, a selfless act of pure altruism so that a long way down the road his children would not have to worry about such a difficult task. In fact he titled it "Future Obit (way in the future!).”

A private service will be held. Information for the livestream can be found below.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared below for the Powers family.