Miriam was born in the Bronx to Bertha and Abraham Levine on October 27, 1923. From childhood, she aspired to become a professional pianist (and was an accomplished amateur musician throughout her life). She attended Hunter College as an undergraduate student and then received a master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University in early education. She met her future husband Seymour Shifrin while he was studying composition in the Music department at Columbia University. They launched a life together full of music-making, literature-loving, travel, cooking, art and laughter. Miriam gave up her teaching career to become a full-time mother and wife, though periodically entertaining the dream of going to law school. She ultimately earned her license as a real estate broker. She was a devoted wife and attentive mother, a woman known for her culture, intellect and for her plain speaking (friends and family alike remember Seymour’s famous quip at a dinner party that he and Miriam were hosting when she suggested that he eat more salad because he was in need of roughage and he responded with a twinkle in his eye, “with you in my life, my dear, I have no want of roughage”).
Miriam struggled to regain a sense of meaning in her life after Seymour’s early death in 1979 after a decade-long illness (he was 53 and she was 56). She moved from Cambridge, MA, where she lived in the years immediately following Seymour’s death, to Athens, GA, then to Radnor and finally Bryn Mawr, PA. She ultimately found purpose in activism with the League of Women Voters and local politics, both in Cambridge, MA -- where she lived in the years immediately following Seymour’s death – and later in Radnor, Pennsylvania, where she lived during the 1990’s. One of her proudest moments was being chosen as a Pennsylvania delegate for Democrat Paul Tsongas in 1992 and going to the national convention.
She was diagnosed with dementia in 2002.
Miriam was fluent in Russian (her first language), French, German and Italian. Her children will always remember that even as she experienced increasing aphasia in her later years due to the onset of dementia, she continued to be able to read aloud to all of us, almost never hesitating on word pronunciation, whether in English, Russian or French. Her death was due to complications relating to dementia.
Miriam is survived by her son Ted, her daughter Susan, and her son-in-law Michael (Angelo).
Donations in her memory may be given to ARTZ Philadelphia (https://www.artzphilly.org).
Her family wishes to extend most sincere thanks to the staff at the William Breman Jewish Home in Atlanta, who cared for her with patience, attentiveness, good humor and much love during the final ten years of her nearly twenty-year battle with dementia.
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