Grace Kaufman

April 16, 1916 — December 25, 2012

Like most college students, Grace Kaufman went to class and did her homework every night for the past 12 years. But unlike most of her classmates, she earned her last academic degrees from Cornell and Columbia when FDR was president. Kaufman lived at Lasell Village in Newton, MA, a retirement community whose residents are required to do hundreds of hours of coursework each year. Retirees attend classes with traditional-aged students at nearby Lasell University, which owns the complex. “I’m not a person who just sits around and plays cards,” said Kaufman. She loved the arts, visiting museums and amassing a collection of modern art of her own. She loved music and attending concerts with friends and family. She had tickets to the Boston Celebrity Series into her nineties.

Mrs. Kaufman moved to Newton from Long Island, following the death of her husband, Theodore M. Kaufman, whom she met during freshman orientation at Cornell in 1933. They moved to New York City after graduation, and married in 1938.

She started her career as a buyer for B.Altman department store in New York City, managed real estate in Manhattan, and ran an advertising agency with her husband. Grace was an active volunteer in her community throughout her life. Facile with languages, she learned Braille and translated books so that visually impaired people could read. She worked as a lay nurse at local elementary schools screening young children for vision and hearing loss, and later became a full time volunteer at South Nassau Community Hospital. A breast cancer survivor, she became a spokesperson for the American Cancer Society and a volunteer visiting other women in the process of recovery in the ACS Reach for Recovery program.

“Mom was an incredibly giving person,” said her daughter, Alice Kaufman.

“She is one of those who would literally give you the jacket she was wearing if she saw you shivering at her side.”

“She had a love of life and the arts well into her 90s. She was active in the Lasell Village community, made many new friends, chaired many committees and served on the Village’s Board of Directors,” said her son Marc Kaufman.

Together, Grace and Ted travelled the world for business and pleasure. They have been to every continent except Antarctica. For her ninetieth birthday, Grace walked the South Rim of the Grand Canyon with her children. Commenting to the Cornell Alumni Magazine about this trip she said, “Here I am, ninety years old, but I still have dreams.”

Grace suffered the loss of two of her children, Barbara Ellen at age 35 and Kathy Jill at 57. Her husband, Ted Kaufman passed away in 1999.

Grace is survived by her children Marc Kaufman (and Susan Bartlett) of Newton, MA and their two children, Michele and Jonathan; Alice Kaufman (and Michael McAteer) and their 2 children Jarred and Emily, of Concord, MA. She is also survived by her grandchildren Karen Pleasant (and Tod) of Greenfield, MA, and Cheryl Snyder (and Darren) of Juneau, Alaska and their daughter, Grace.

In lieu of flowers, donations would be appreciated at Life Choice Hospice, 469 Totten Pond Road, Suite 390, Waltham, MA 02451 or the American Cancer Society NE Division, 30 Speen St, PO Box 9376, Framingham, MA 01701 or online at acs.org