Maurice B. Silverman

Born June 17, 1923, at 1424 Crotona Park East, Bronx, New York, to Roumanian

immigrants Meyer and Bessie Itzkowitz Silverman. He grew up in Bridgeport,

Connecticut, where his father, a bench jeweler to the trade, operated the

Royal Jewelry Shop, at 77 Plaza, until his death in 1949. Maurice's mother

moved to Washington DC, where her son employed her in the antique shop he

opened in 1958 and has run continuously (now Silverman Galleries Antiques &

Antique Jewelry, Alexandria, Virginia).

A survivor of childhood polio, in high school and beyond he was a naturalist

and protege' of Aretus A. Saunders. Concealing his medical history, he

enlisted in the US Army with the outbreak of World War II and qualified for

a program that sent him to the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), after

which he set up and ran medical dispensaries at prisoner of war camps

housing German and Italian soldiers throughout Virginia.

He completed an undergraduate and masters degree in psychology at the George

Washington University, Washington, DC, and was employed as a scientific

abstracter at the Library of Congress. He taught fencing, practiced

hypnotism, and became an avid chess player and swimmer.

In 1958, from his second floor desk at the Library of Congress, he spied a

storefront for rent, scrubbed off the “Fortunes Told” sign left by the palm

reader who was the previous tenant, and opened the antiques shop he has now

run continuously for 57 years. The shop's original name, Capitol Hill

Antiques, changed to Silverman Galleries when Maurice and the shop moved to

Virginia upon expansion of the Library of Congress (the Madison Building of

which now stands at the shop's original location).

By the early 1970's Maurice and the shop were in old town Alexandria, where

he was joined in 1981 by his partner for 33 years in love and life, learning

and business, his wife Angela, who will continue running Silverman Galleries

Antiques & Antique Jewelry, according to Maurice's wishes.

Through changing times, Maurice has continued to run the shop “hands-on”,

personally selecting and researching early and historical antiques and

several centuries of antique jewelry. He was active in the shop trough

January 2015, making new friends and enjoying return visits from decades and

generations of private and institutional clients.

Maurice is also cherished among many friends as a creative, innovative cook,

host and dinner companion, whose many lively interests, enthusiasms and

ideas invigorate everyone around him.

Besides his wife, Angela Silverman, survivors include his sister Edith Block

and nephew C. Joel Block, both of Iselin, New Jersey, and niece Shelli Block

of Rockville, Maryland. Donations to the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria.