A letter from Bobbie's daughter Claudia
My mom was not just a mother to me she was more like a wonderful and devoted friend. One of our favorite things to do together was eat. The more obscure the food the better. She would eat anything. I have fond childhood memories of her slurping bone marrow and licking her lips after cleaning and practically devouring a chicken bone. Food for my mom was a lot like her take on life. It could be delicious or it could be terrible but it was always worth experimenting with. I used to take the New Jersey Transit train in to Princeton from Penn Station in Manhattan. She’d pick me up at the station and as we drove home we’d try to come up with some good excuse as to how to tell my dad and brother why we were going out to dinner and they weren’t invited. They might intrude on our little ritual. Over the years, we ate so many wonderful meals together that it’s hard to isolate just one place or cuisine we liked best. But I’d say if I had to pick—we especially liked to eat Korean.
I had been a waitress at Soonja’s back when I was 18 so they always treated us like family when we went there. My mom and I would sip sake and eat Kim chi, and other pickled oddities, while mulling over the past and present events in our lives. The weirder the dish on the menu the more likely it would perk my mom’s interest. We’d sit for hours savoring our bimbimbop and bulgogi--usually the last two to close the place down.
I’d take the train back to NY the next morning feeling totally satiated from the experience ready for whatever challenges lay ahead. Although the food was delicious, it was really our time together that had nourished me and always left me feeling full after those meals. The love my mom had for food and cooking were emblematic of two of her most inspiring and charming qualities. Her appetite for life her inquiring mind, her desire to learn, coupled with her hunger to provide for and take care of others. She instilled in me a mischievous sense of adventure and curiosity for life and cultures other then my own and I’m so grateful for that. She was a powerful women who helped shape my life today in more ways then she might have ever even known—she encouraged me to grow strong and independent like I saw her be and truth be told, just like her--sometimes a bit too stubborn.
What I wouldn’t give to have just one more night with her at Soonja’s Korean restaurant. There are just so many more things to talk about so many more questions to ask. But I will keep talking with you moma wherever I go. I will keep on taking trips with you and trying new strange foods and learning about different types of people and places. I will take you with me moma, on every journey I take whether it is on a plane to a distant land or on a short trip to the local West Indian market on my block in Brooklyn. And wherever I go I will try my best to make you proud of the woman you raised. I feel honored to be your daughter. To me you were so much more than just a beautifully generous, fiery, bold, independent, loving, graceful, creative mother--you were my incredible friend.
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Dear "Cloud"-ia!*
Je suis desole. Sono sconsolata.
Ace emailed me with the heartbreaking news about your mother today. I hope those feeble attempts above, courtesy of Google language tools, will help to convey how I feel.
Having known Bobbie, and Ace and Chris, since grade school -- some 60 years! -- I was devastated by the news. (Our family lived across the street on Shadow Lane, in Oradell, NJ) It happened so quickly! She told me last fall, after a pause in our almost daily email correspondence, that she had breast cancer. But I knew nothing of the rapid progression of the disease, to the spine and liver.
Bobbie found our high school class web site a few years ago, quite by accident. I had tried, in vain, to track her down previously through Lake Erie College, which claimed to have no record of her. I didn't know at the time that she had finished up at Hunter College. Once she joined the online discussions, lots of people emailed me and said they were so pleased to see that she was now in touch. One friend mentioned that his older brother had always had a crush on her, which he did nothing about. They now will be very sad, indeed.
She was painfully shy in high school, but EVERYONE remembered how pretty she was and her "beautiful hair." Even the caption beneath her yearbook photo says "You can spot her by her hair."
Whenever I see fields of lavender, like the ones at the Mantazas Creek winery in Santa Rosa, I shall think of her. She had mentioned them a few weeks before the NY Times had a big photo spread on those exact same fields. I cut out the article and snail-mailed it to her. I heard nothing from her, which I found peculiar, so I called the number in Sebastopol. Eventually, she got back to me, explaining that she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. A good excuse to be out of touch, for a while. She asked me not to tell any of our classmates; of course I followed her wishes.
Ace told me that you would know the name of the charity in which donations can be made in memory of Roberta Getz Woloshin. Please let me know so I can pass that info on to others.
*Your Mom spoke lovingly of your trip to Italy together. I remarked that you should now pronounce your name accordingly, as in the salutation of this email. She replied, "She already does say it that way...from time to time."
Please convey my deepest sympathies to your Dad, Galia, Dan and the grandchildren. We've all lost a dear person, but one of whom we shall have wonderful memories forever.
John Hauter
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Quite a shock! I know I told you John that in 1972 I saw a bit of Bobbi back in 1972 when Galia was born (we shared the same obstretician). She was living in Washington Square Village and I was by then in Soho, where I continue to live. This is such sad news.
Carpe diem.
Susan Orzack Posen
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I’m sorry to hear this news. My memories of Bobbie go back probably as far as first or second grade in Oradell. Although we were never well acquainted, I will remember her as a gentle and peaceful individual.
Rick Lindquist
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Follow up letter from John Hauter
My dear friend Bobbie quietly slipped away after a relatively short bout with cancer. She had only found out about her condition last fall. Bobbie "self-diagnosed" herself with a hip problem and by the time she found out it was really breast cancer, the disease had metastasized into her spine and liver. Her three children, Galia, Claudia and Dan, her husband Jerry, and the grandchildren, all had been with her before she left us.
Many of you didn't know Bobbie well, since she was painfully shy in high school, something I never quite understood. I had known her for 60 years, from the time the Getz family moved in across the street from my family on Shadow Lane in Oradell, when I was in first grade. But I knew her as a vivacious, outgoing, fun-loving, smart and loving person.
Bobbie and I lost touch in the early 80's, after I had visited her and her husband in their apartment in Washington Square Village, part of NYU housing, for a lovely dinner one night. Their first daughter, Galia, was a little child at the time. (Bobbie and Susan Orzack shared the same obstetrician and even met in a children's playground nearby, quite by accident.)
I made several attempts to find her for our class web site, to no avail. Luckily, several years ago, she found it quite by accident, or so I think. One of the joys of my recent years had been my almost daily email dialogue with my childhood "sidekick." Remember the days when kids just "played"?
Our neighborhood, separated from the rest of Oradell by the Blauvelt estate, was somewhat insular and all kids, of all ages, just played together. Sure, there was some "organized" sports activity in the neighbors' all-purpose empty field, abutting the Blauvelt carriage house, now a museum, but mostly we just made things up! And we used every inch of that wonderful neighborhood. Behind my house, up on the hill leading to the Hackensack Golf Club, before the "new" houses were built up there, we had a mysterious "Vine Forest," consisting of some kind of tall weed that grew over everything, including the trees. It created rooms, caves, etc., for us to use for our own make-believe games. We imagined we were part of Flash Gordon's gang, hiding out from the evil Emperor Ming.
Or we would visit the "Pine Forest," an isolated stand of fir trees on Kinderkamack Road, just east of Keppel's Field, that seemed to belong to no one we knew, so we claimed it as our own. Bobbie's younger brothers Ace and Chris were part of this crew, of course. Age didn't matter, until hormones kicked in during teenage years.
And of course our respective lawns stood in for imaginary ballrooms, billiard rooms, libraries or conservatories. I fear we had all played the board game "Clue" a few times too many...and we imagined that everyone's houses had those regal extras. If not the world, then the 'hood was our oyster, if you will.
In recent years, Bobbie and I talked of art, music, religion, politics; you know: grown-up stuff. But always with a sense of wonder at how far we had come. And how little had changed.
Bobbie finished her bachelor's degree at Hunter College in Manhattan and, I believe, got an advanced degree in library science. I know she worked for years at libraries in the greater neighborhood of Princeton, NJ. Jerry had gone from NYU to Princeton to study and teach and Bobbie did her part for literacy by working in local libraries. Several years ago, they moved to the west coast, Sebastopol, CA, in Sonoma County, to be precise. Bobbie became a docent at the Luther Burbank House and Gardens in nearby Santa Rosa. She loved showing people around that historic property.
I miss her very much and always will. But I "speak" often now with her wonderful daughter Claudia, via email. I feel she is a kindred spirit...and a direct link to her dear mother.
For those of you who would like to get in touch with the family or make a memorial donation to the American Cancer Society in Bobbie's name, please feel free to contact me and I shall pass on the details.
John Hauter
