Natalie F Snyder

Natalie Snyder LCSW

Sept 18, 1933 - March 8, 2025

Miami, Florida

Mother, Grandmother, Therapist, Community Leader 


Natalie Snyder passed away on Saturday March 8 at age 91, after many decades of service to the South Florida mental health community. 


Natalie grew up in downtown Baltimore, working part time in the small pharmacy owned and operated by her parents. The family lived upstairs. She attended public school, then Goucher College where she studied psychology and was Phi Beta Kappa.

At a Goucher mixer with Johns Hopkins University, Natalie met Gilbert Snyder, a medical student at Johns Hopkins. They married in 1954. Natalie and Gil lived in Baltimore while Gil was a surgical intern at Hopkins. They then traveled to Boston, Denver, and Paris for Gil’s surgical training, then moved back to Baltimore in 1962 for Gil’s fellowship in plastic and reconstructive surgery. 


In 1964 Gil was asked to be the University of Miami's first Chief of Plastic Surgery. Natalie and Gil packed up their three small children, settled in Miami, and never left. They fell in love with South Florida and became deeply committed to the Miami community. Natalie served for years as a volunteer with Miami’s Channel 2 Public Television station, and in the early 1970’s she served as Chairman of Channel 2’s live TV Auction. She volunteered for many years with Planned Parenthood and received Planned Parenthood of South Florida’s Margaret Sanger Award for distinguished service.

In 1977 Natalie received her MSW degree from Barry University. She spent several years working in institutional and group practice settings, then in 1984 began solo private practice as a psychotherapist. She continued in practice for the next 40 years, still seeing clients until shortly after her last birthday, when declining health forced her finally to retire. Natalie was a lifelong student of counseling psychology; an active supporter of the Florida Psychoanalytic Center; and a valued long-time member of the South Florida mental health community, where she was known for her wisdom, compassion, and skill with clients. 


Natalie had a broad range of other interests as well. She collected modern art and greatly enjoyed Miami’s growth as a center for the arts. Natalie and Gil served for several summers with the Navajo and Hopi communities in Arizona through the Indian Health Service, which led to a lifelong interest in Native American crafts. Natalie was an avid reader, on subjects ranging from naval history (she was reported to have read all twenty volumes of Patrick O’Brien’s Master and Commander series) to modern fiction. Natalie was the anchor of several local book groups, and she and Gil were early attendees at the Key West Literary Seminar. 


Natalie and Gil were also fitness buffs, long before it was popular. They hiked all over Europe, rafted through the Grand Canyon, and after Gil’s retirement in 2000 became gym regulars. Natalie and Gil lived for many years in a house surrounded by a tropical hammock, and Natalie often spent hours ankle-deep in muck, exploring the plants that grew wild there. Unfortunately she was never able to convince anyone else in the family that plants were worth getting sweaty for. But she loved her backyard hammock nonetheless. She was proud of having worked with Fairchild Tropical Gardens to restore genuine native plants to her backyard wilds and remove invasive species. 


Natalie’s greatest interest and love, though, was her family. She took great pride in the lives her children built for themselves; her daughter Hillary's many years of service as an attorney for the U.S. Dept. of Justice; and her sons Stephen and Michael's careers as doctors and authors. She took particular pride in her five grandchildren’s growth into the unique individuals they would become. She was a “boots on the ground” grandmother who knew all the day-to-day details of her grandchildren’s lives, and she heroically kept up with the latest electronic technology to make sure they could contact her through any medium they chose.

Natalie is survived by her children Stephen, Hillary, and Michael; her daughters-in-law Bluma and Jessica; her son-in-law Deane; her sister Rozzy; and her grandchildren Eli (Caitlin), Sage, Julian, Lily (Shai), and Peyton – all of whom recall with deep gratitude her extraordinary gifts of time, energy, and attention. We know our appreciation of her will only grow stronger with time.

Services will be held on Monday, March 10 at 10:00 AM at Mt. Nebo Memorial Gardens, Kendall – 5900 SW 77th Avenue, 33143. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Planned Parenthood or a charity of your choice.