Below is the eulogy I wrote and mostly said:
Emily was born in Poland and is part of the greatest generation. At 12, she came to the US via ship and arrived at the port of Newark.
Even though she should have been in the 7th Grade, she was placed in the 4th. She excelled in school. As she learned English when she was here, she was an excellent speller, the chagrin of her classmates. She attended NJ State Teacher’s College and was the first in her family to graduate college.
Emily Achieved a BS in health education and an RN in 1945. She answered her nation’s call and was a member of the US Corps of Nursing (sort of an ROTC program). WWII ended before she graduated in August 1945. She would have been commissioned as an Army 2LT in the Army Nurse Corps.
After the war, she married Moe in 1947, and if you ever see the pictures, you can see how beautiful she was on the outside. She and her sister Bea, who passed, had sibling rivalry over their appearance, though I think Emily was prettier.
She worked as a nurse at Beth Israel Hospital while living in Marine Park, both in Brooklyn. Eventually, they moved to their home in Windsor Park, which is where so many family events were held, both before grandmother status and after, once again, biased to the latter half.
This is where she had her precious poodle, Brandy, who I heard was really smart from Ellen. It also cost Emily extra money because she needed to double park by Brandy’s salon. She hosted mahjong games with her friends and continued playing even in the digital age.
My memories of Emily are of her love of family. Whether parading me around at the beauty parlor on the weekends as a kid - I think my parents appreciated it as much as I did - or coming to take care of me when I was home sick from school to fun road trips up to CT to visit Ellen Gary, Erica, and Jon.
In addition to love, there was food, which may be the same thing. While she kept a kosher home, she did not have a kosher stomach. When we went out to breakfast, she would get two eggs, bacon, and sometimes sausage. She would also bring bacon, egg, and cheese when she babysat when I was homesick. And yes, she would share.
In her retirement, she traveled the US and overseas, visiting her children and grandchildren. She also played a lot of slots in AC and shared her winnings with her grandchildren. I remember always saying she was squandering our inheritance.
As she got older and found it more challenging to go up three flights, she moved to Manlius. She was closer to Ellen, Gary, Erica, and Jon. I know that they enjoyed the convenience of having their grandmother close by. Grandma also made new friends in Manlius, a wonderful woman named Pearl, with whom Erica hit the nail on the head, saying they were like the golden girls.
Emily lived just shy of a century, and even as she aged, her heart kept growing. She welcomed all new members to our family: my wife, Jon’s wife, and Erica’s husband.
GM was never able to spend away her inheritance, no matter how much she joked about it, because her inheritance to us is her love of all of us, and we will have that forever.
