In old age, one wishes that the wisdom acquired throughout life was available to us when we were still children.  When I was born in 1935, Grace my sister was four years older, and in the succeeding few years, growing up as the youngest of four siblings, I was the brat who did a good job of tormenting her.  Whatever the actual sequence of the spat, our mother, Dora, typically blamed Grace as the instigator, or at the least, the responsible party.  Our mother's policy was that the oldest child was always the one at fault.  With me making Grace's life difficult from below, Eila, her sister four years older, strove to be the perfect daughter in our mother's eyes, and, in any case, superior to Grace.  Fortunately, the eldest child, Albert, eight years Grace's senior, offered Grace what comfort he could,  and our father, Ben, was also adoring.

My years of family closeness to Grace were relatively few.  She was not well understood by her parents (their comprehensive description with not much psychological nuance was that Grace was "artistic"), and rather than enrolling her in the local high school, A. B. Davis, at the age of fourteen or so Grace went off to a private school in Connecticut.  In other words, Grace was not living at home full-time by the time I turned ten or eleven. As a sister and brother we did not get to know each other well, missing out at living at home together throughout our adolescent years. I also went off to a private school.

We were hardly in touch until Renée and I had children, beginning in 1964, when Grace showed a loving interest in her new nephews, Ben and Jason, and niece, Cassie.  We lived in California and then in Virginia, and then in Rhode Island, never geographically near to Grace in White Plains or Utah.  Grace sent wonderful presents to our children, and at the family gatherings in White Plains, organized by Grace, our children got to know their distant aunt.  During that period, too, Grace and I warmed up . . .   (space limit)



Chapel Service

Riverside Memorial Chapel - Hawthorne

Grace Zuckerman

immediate need

Death has occurred or is near

plan ahead

Pre-plan a funeral or cremation

Plan a Funeral or Cremation Default Desktop

Find Obituaries and Services

Send Flowers

sympathy and etiquette

grief library

celebrations of life

What to Say When Someone Dies

Show Your Support

Sympathy and Grief

obituary

services

memories

Obit Detail

In the care of

share to facebook

share by email

share link

Share Obituary

ideas and resources

Sympathy and Grief Mobile

OBITUARY

Grace Zuckerman

October 15, 1931 – June 7, 2018

Riverside Memorial Chapel - Hawthorne

Show your support

Add a Memory

Share Obituary

Get Reminders

Services