Sandra Pevsner

Sandra Joy Pevsner -- a longtime Dallas fashion executive and beloved mother, grandmother and friend -- died peacefully May 18, 2012, after four weeks of fighting complications from an unexpected and serious surgery.

A memorial service for Sandra Pevsner will be held Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 2:00 pm at the Chapel at Sparkman-Hillcrest Funeral Home at 7405 W. Northwest Highway in Dallas.

Pevsner, 80, began her career as a working mother in the 1970s at Neiman-Marcus and rose to positions of management for Neiman's, Sakowitz, Saks Fifth Avenue and other providers of high-fashion women's clothing.

Sandra was born November 22, 1931, a date she recounted proudly and without hesitation to a nurse at Presbyterian Hospital in answering pre-operative questions just before a final surgery the day before her death.

Sandra was born to parents Jules and Annabelle Sholdar and was raised in Chicago, Illinois with beloved sister Barbara Sholdar Glaser. As a young woman, Sandra met her precious husband Barry David Pevsner at a party in Chicago (although just weeks before their meeting, Barry had rejected Sandra for a blind date sister Barbara attempted to arrange, the rejection based upon a presumably poor photograph sister Barbara carried in her purse).

Sandra and Barry married in 1952. Both left the University of Illinois at Chicago when Barry enlisted in the U.S. Navy during the Korean Conflict.

In September of 1951, Sandra secured her first job, as the switchboard operator at Farley's Candies, a then-modest Chicago manufacturer of confections. No clear link has been established between the Company's presumably efficient handling of incoming calls in the early 1950s and Farley's later growth to one of the largest candy manufacturers in the world, including brands such as Brach's, Rain-Blo and Super Bubble. However, some association is suspected between this first employment and Sandra's lifelong fascination with sweets.

When her husband Barry was discharged from his service aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Wright, Sandra and Barry Pevsner moved to the Chicago suburbs and settled in River Forest, Illinois with their three children, Joseph, Naomi and Sara.

In 1966, the family moved to Dallas when Barry accepted a promotion to Southwest Director of Corporate Publicity at Sears Roebuck's then-new Southwest Territorial Office just outside downtown Dallas.

In the following years, Sandra and Barry succeeded in coaxing most of their close relatives Dallas, including Sandra's mother Annabelle Sholdar, Barry's Father Bernard Pevsner, Sandra's sister Barbara and her husband Dick and their four children Marcie, Paul, Stan and Danny, and Barry's sisters Sonya, her daughter Susie August and Susie's daughter Lauren Stanley, Barry's sister Maxine and her son David, and Karen Krell, the daughter of Barry's late sister Selma Krell. Family gatherings were lively and required participants to develop numerous conversational skills, including timing but mostly involving volume.

One year after arriving in Dallas, Sandra decided to re-enter the work force as a working mother once she became satisfied that her children were capable of preparing their own breakfasts and lunches before each school day, a conclusion that was the subject of some dispute by her children at the time. Thus in 1967, Sandra accepted a position as a greeter at the Neiman-Marcus couture department in Northpark. The following year she was promoted to couture sales.

Sandra left Neiman's in 1970 for a position in couture sales at the Lou Lattimore boutique on Lovers Lane in Dallas.

In 1972, she accepted a position as a buyer of couture fashions for Lester Melnick's.

In 1973, Sandra became Store Manager of the Yves St. Laurent Rive Gauche boutique operated in Old Town by Sakowitz, Inc. Her work with fashions from this French designer began Sandra's life-long fascination with all things French, resulting in business and personal trips to France and fluency as a speaker of French language.

While serving as Manager of the Yves St. Laurent boutique in Dallas in the mid-70s, Pevsner's efforts to secure income tax deductibility for high-end YSL clothing as a necessary business expense captured the attention of the SMU Law School Tax Clinic. Their efforts resulted in a significant U.S. Tax Court opinion, Pevsner vs. Commissioner, which is still included in law school textbooks such as Federal Income Taxation: Leading Cases and Concepts.

In 1975, Sandra was promoted by Sakowitz to manage three Sakowitz-owned boutiques on Lovers Lane: YSL Rive Gauche, Valentino's and Daring Days & Little Evenings.

In 1978, Sandra returned to Neiman-Marcus as Couture Manager of the primary Neiman-Marcus location in Downtown Dallas. In 1979, she moved back to Neiman's Northpark store as Manager of the Couture and Furs departments.

In 1982, Sandra helped open the Saks Fifth Avenue store in the Dallas Galleria as Manager of the exclusive Fifth Avenue Club, a collection of personal style consultants assisting customers, including outfitting cast members of the TV show Dallas during one of their local tapings.

In the month following her retirement from Saks in 1991, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. During that year, she completed her first of two successful battles with breast cancer.

After beating breast cancer, Sandra returned to work part-time in 1991 as a specialist in store opening for Bed Bath & Beyond and served part-time as a Bridal Consultant for Bed Bath & Beyond in Sakowitz Village.

Sandra's husband Barry, after years of struggles with end-stage heart disease, was blessed when he became Baylor Heart Transplant Recipient No. 118, receiving an extraordinary and anonymous gift of a transplanted heart donated by the family of a young man killed in an automobile accident in Odessa, Texas and grafted by gifted Baylor transplant surgeons Dr. Peter Alivizatos and Dr. John Capeheart.

In the months following this successful transplant, which ultimately gave her beloved Barry an additional 17 years of life, Sandra continued her decades-long role of supporting her husband's health. She did confess that she found the rehabilitation exercises provided to Barry after the surgery to be somewhat humorous, because they involved showing Barry how to remove food items from cupboards and basic food preparation, neither of which Barry ever engaged in at any time irrespective of his health.

In 1992, Sandra began work part-time at Kid Biz, a shop created by a former Neiman-Marcus couture buyer, featuring designer clothes for children and infants. Later she assisted her daughter Naomi part time in her jewelry business, Naomi Designs.

In 2009, Sandra coped with the loss of beloved husband Barry, who died on Memorial Day at Baylor Hospital after a final battle with common complications from years of anti-rejection drugs and despite decades of some of the finest health care in the State of Texas. The day before his death, Barry prevailed upon a Presbyterian Hospital nurse to discreetly secure a Hallmark card from the gift shop for him, which he gave to Sandra in recognition of their 57th wedding anniversary that day.

Two weeks after her husband's death, Sandra was diagnosed a second time with breast cancer, again beating the disease with strength and poise.

Not long after beating cancer a second time, Sandra was on a trip to a grocery store when she noticed a sign reflecting the building of a facility called The Tradition, billed as "resort style living for seniors." After one meeting with salespeople, she decided to sell her garden home to reserve an apartment in the complex. Even before the complex was built, she walked her children and grandchildren through the construction site, pointing out the future location of the dining room, the bistro, the movie theater and her future apartment. Thus began a new phase of her life in which she made many new friends and connected with old ones who also joined The Tradition.

As Sandra's new phase of life was beginning, daughter Naomi persuaded Sandra to register for an online seniors dating site, a remarkable development on several levels, particularly since Sandra found computers both amazing and alarming. A lovely and cultured gentleman named Elmar Brock, whose loving daughters had also persuaded to join the site after the death of Elmar's wife, struck up a correspondence with Sandra, ultimately beginning a romance.

Sandra and Elmar were both healthy, active, interested in life and greatly appreciative of humor. Elmar ultimately took his own apartment in the Tradition, and the pair traveled together to Napa Valley, Carmel, Santa Fe, Paris and elsewhere. They both exercised daily in the gym and discovered a joint interest in painting in The Tradition's art studio. Some believed that Elmar was somehow a gift sent with the help of Barry’s spirit to accompany Sandra in her later years.

In 2011, management at The Tradition asked Sandra to participate in the Ms. Texas Senior Pageant to benefit charity. In the talent competition, Sandra performed stand-up comedy, an endeavor that was well-received, although some questions remain about her children's participation in preparing Sandra's material.

Although Sandra and Elmar looked forward to many happy final years together, fate intervened when a digestive problem suddenly turned serious on April 14, requiring Sandra to be rushed into difficult emergency surgery. The complicated nature and extent of the surgery made infection likely and ultimately impossible to control.

After the heroic efforts of Sandra's internist and good friend Dr. Jeffrey Phillips of Dallas, three complicated surgeries by dedicated surgeon Dr. John Downs, and loving care from some very special nurses at Presbyterian Hospital for 26 days, Sandra survived one final night on May 17 and died the morning of Friday, May 18, a date with a number viewed by some as having special significance and one that seemed to recur throughout her life.

Sandra retained close friendships with friends from high school, with friends made from her early days in Dallas in the 1960s, with her co-workers in the fashion industry, her "Rag Ladies" monthly lunch group of Dallas fashion icons, and all those whose lives she touched in all phases of her 80 years.

Sandra is survived by son Joseph Pevsner, a Partner at the Thompson & Knight law firm, his wife Debra Pevsner, and grandchildren Haley Pevsner and Paige Pevsner, by daughter Naomi Pevsner, a Dallas jewelry designer, Naomi's husband, attorney Richard Fogel and granddaughter Marissa Lynn Caspary, and by daughter Sara Pevsner Lindsey and her husband Roy Lindsey. She is survived as well by all of the family members mentioned above, and by the many other family members and dedicated friends who loved her and will miss her deeply.

As indicated, a memorial service will be held Tuesday at 2:00 pm at Sparkman-Hillcrest. The Pevsner family has designated Southwest Transplant Alliance, www.organ.org for any memorial contributions.