Roselind Schwartz – Quite A Life

By Arthur Schwartz

On December 7, at 11:02 p.m., my mom, Dr. Roselind Shirley Schwartz passed. She was 103 years, 7 months and 14 days old. She spent 15 of those years as a Villager, living on West 11th Street, working at her second career as a travel agent, arriving at age 70 and leaving at 85, still going strong.

Her life was extraordinary and inspiring. She was the one who instilled the concept of public service in me. She grew up near Fordham Road in the West Bronx, daughter of an English immigrant mom, and a dad of Russian stock, who had been born here. The family name was Grant, bestowed on my great grandfather at Ellis Island by some immigration agent who couldn’t understand his multi-syllable Russian name. Her mom didn’t spell well, hence the unique spelling of Roselind. She was known as Roz.

Roz went to all-girls Walton High School and NYU Washington Square. There weren’t very many women at NYU, or any college, in 1940. She met my dad, Herman Schwartz, at NYU, also of the north Bronx, a first generation son of a “Russian” family, who was in a seven-year U.S. Army paid-for B.S. –M.D. program. My mom graduated in 1944 and they got married. She could have gone to medical school too – she was summa cum laude – but chose to go to podiatry school because she could have a practice at home. There were only two women in a class of over 60.

They both graduated in 1947. My mom always insisted on being called Dr. Schwartz, not “Mrs.” During my dad’s Army travels, they had a son, Joel.

Joel, at age 1, developed a brain tumor, which in 1949 required literal removal of a large chunk of skull and brain tissue. He survived and my parents bought a brand-new attached two-bedroom house in the north Pelham Parkway section of the northeast Bronx, now called Allerton. My mom opened her “by appointment” podiatry practice in the basement.

But things didn’t go well with Joel. He stopped learning, had seizures, and acted out violently. My mom didn’t work much. My dad, who was a staff anesthesiologist at Presbyterian Hospital and taught at Columbia Medical School, became depressed. But when Joel was 5, they tried again, and I was born. I flourished, even in a very chaotic setting, so they tried again when I was 1. This time, during my mother’s pregnancy, Joel would repeatedly punch her in the stomach. He understood what was happening. My mom’s pediatrician, the famous Virginia Apgar, told her that if she wanted two normal kids, she had to institutionalize my brother. So, at age 8, with the classification “retarded” (a word not used any more except by imbeciles like Trump), Joel had been unable to learn to read and could not attend school, so he was placed at Letchworth Village in Rockland County.

We visited Joel every Sunday. I remember listening to Giants football or Yankees baseball on the radio. It was a confusing place, some “Mongoloid kids,” some adults still called children, and some normal-looking kids like my brother. My mom became the champion of the institution. She helped create the Welfare League for Retarded Children, and each year chaired a luncheon at the NY Hilton, which raised $50,000 or more to help fund programs ($50,000 in the late 50s, early 60s was like $250,000 today). She got celebs to MC the event: Jackie Robinson, Mike Wallace (many times), and Joan Kennedy (wife of Senator Ted Kennedy, who had a disabled sister). And the event would always feature Letchworth Village residents who would sing or read poetry. The money from the luncheon made sure that there was a school, with trained teachers. Her work made sure that it was a far cry from Willowbrook. And on a number of occasions, she joined RFK as he toured other institutions, including Willowbrook, and denounced New York state, especially Governor Nelson Rockefeller, for the horrific conditions created by underfunding. When these large institutions were finally banned in 1975, my mom worked hard to find my brother a group home in Orange County, which was fully staffed and funded.

At the same time Roz didn’t leave me and my brother behind. She was always the class mother, then the parents’ association president. She was also president of our synagogue’s sisterhood, organized a youth program, and made sure we had mandolin lessons, tap dance lessons, and got our homework done, all while she had a thriving neighborhood podiatry practice. And her car dominated the neighborhood – a pink and white 1959 Olds 88, with huge fins.

In 1972, with my brother and me at Columbia, my dad, who was not thriving, got an amazing job offer at UCLA. He had a California license, she didn’t. So, at 50 years of age, they left NYC, ultimately landing in a house in Bel Air with a pool. It was thousands of feet up, with a view of the LA Harbor. My mom decided to become a travel agent and joined a shop in Beverly Hills. They took annual month-long trips to Africa, China, India, and Europe.

Eight years later my dad, only 58, died of a massive heart attack. By 60, my mom had had a face lift, sold the house, and moved to sea level. She started dating a jazz musician, and befriended a guy down the hall, whose feet she worked on, named Marvin Gaye. I got off a plane to visit her one day, and she greeted me first with news that she had scheduled me for a flying lesson, and then told me she had tickets to see the Talking Heads at the Hollywood Bowl. Once there, she had no problem joining in the audience festivities.

In her 60s she had a scare with cancer, and her sons started having grandchildren, so she came back to NYC, and lived upstairs from me on West 11th for the next 15 years. Three years after that, with travel agents becoming dinosaurs, I asked if she wanted to work with me at my office, at the front desk. She immediately said yes. She was 89, and had moved to Atria Assisted Living on 86th Street. For the next eight years she was best friends with all of my clients (who heard lots of stories about me), kept our office running like a clock, and kept the books. She learned the Access-a-Ride system and was never late. She finally called it quits at 96 (!) after a medical scare.

She continued to go strong until she was 100, when an elevator door hit her walker, knocked her down, and she broke her pelvis. The next three years were trying, and she eventually lost mobility, as her vision and hearing faded. When she died, she was living in Gateway Plaza in Battery Park City.

She left behind six grandchildren and four great grandchildren. One granddaughter is a lawyer, one is starting medical school, and another is headed there. She was a pioneer as a medial professional, and her eyes sparkled when I told her that her granddaughter, Jordyn, had gotten into medical school. She was a pioneer in the world of women in medicine. In 1944 she would have never imagined that more than half of medical school students today are women.

Roz Schwartz, Villager, lived a rich life.She will be missed.