Eulogy for Dorothy Wilbur
Devorah Bat Aharon Ha-Levi
(d. 23 Tamuz, 5759)

by Sandra & Joshua Cypess, July 8, 1999
Sherman's Flatbush Memorial Chapel



We are here today beneath our own Alon Bakhut, for our own Devorah, Devorah Bat Aharon Ha-Levi, Devorah bat Gittel -- a name many of us have burnt in our memories after weeks of steady and fervent prayer.

The Devorah mentioned here in the Torah is called the "nurse" of Rivka, but as Rashi indicates, Devorah was synonymous with our matriarch Rivka -- the mother of Israel.[1]

Dorothy Wilbur, Devorah Bat Aharon Ha-Levi, my mother's mother's sister, was truly a mother in Israel. The maternal role was her role and she was a mother to everyone in this large, extended family.

Devorah, as Rivka, had a difficult motherhood with family spread wide.[2] Dorothy Wilbur was known, especially by those outside Brooklyn, as the linchpin of the family -- she kept everyone informed about everyone and everything.

She was ready with unconditional love, and food, for the entire family -- my mother talks about how we could always call Dorothy and tell about accomplishments and she'd never be jealous. For instance, if you were going to Japan, she would have such pride! She'd never get on the plane, but she was happy that you would go.

Dorothy's legacy, the watchword of her life, was "family should be there for one another." Whenever there was a birthday or anniversary there was a card from Dorothy and Louis with the familiar handwriting (and maybe some money).

This ability to keep the family together cannot disappear with Dorothy gone. We must make the special effort to take over her duty. That is our inheritance.

I'm speaking here as an emissary of my mother. Dorothy always had joy with the skills of her children, even as extended as they were, and I think of myself as her child.

But my mother's words are better than mine -- and I want to read them here:

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Devorah bas Gitte--As I would say those words, naming my dear Aunt Dorothy in a prayer for her recovery --I would always think of another phrase that sounded similar and also named her well--Devoted daughter of the Good. She was after all, a devoted daughter to her beloved mother Gitte, marrying and starting her own family only after having cared for her ailing mother. She was always devoted and dedicated to her family. --perhaps it is not out of character that she married, Louis Wilbur, the brother of the husband of her own older sister Roslyn, of blessed memory. And even before her marriage to Lou, she had helped her eldest sister Sara Feigal of blessed memory, by working in the Messinger candy store, so that by taking off some on the burdens of the store, Sara Feigal was free to have a child, and when I was born, Dorothy was always there as a second mother, helping and working for the family.

We were a close family--living all together at one point in an apartment on Avenue S. Uncle Hymie, Aunt Roslyn, Marilyn and Diane in one bedroom, Morris and Florence and baby Shelly in another, and the third was reserved for the father of the three sister, the patriarch Aaron Levine. So that left Dorothy to share a daybed with her niece Sandra. --conditions that today would seem uncomfortable, but we were family and did what we could to help one another.

Dorothy Levine got married in September 1950 and went to start her own family; first Garry and then Dennis arrived, but she never stopped offering unconditional love to her nieces and nephews, then grand nieces and nephews, and of course, to the light of her life, her grandchildren. Her children, her daughters-in-law Faye & Francine, and grandchildren were sources of great pride and nachas.

She was a woman truly devoted to family and to the house. She was a famous worrier, too, A WARRIOR OF WORRY, one could say. But that concern was motivated by her love, and her fear that it was a dangerous world out there, which was not too far off the mark in regard to her own early childhood. Soon after she was born, remember, her father and eldest sister had to leave the family in Europe and go off to America, and they never were fully reunited ever again. Even when Dorothy and Roslyn with their Mother Gitte traveled to America, they were forced to leave behind two siblings, Rochel Etta and Yale, who perished in the Holocaust.

So Aunt Dot was a concerned parent and relative. She preferred to be at home --in safe surroundings. Her sister Roslyn lived downstairs with her family --and Marilyn and Diane grew up with Garry and Dennis, as if there were two mothers, since the sisters were so close and cooked together for the holidays and for every day, too; there were set menus that they both followed, although each had her specialty. While some will choose her chopped liver, Dorothy and her gefilte fish was especially noteworthy and when she would make it she had enough to send to every family member in Brooklyn.

And she always had on hand for any visitor a selection of cakes --Jelly Royals, Drakes Cakes, since she knew those were favorites with the children. I am sure Benjo and Yosef, Sammy and Hayley also enjoyed those goodies as did her children and nieces and nephews.

And even when she traveled she and Uncle Lou would go on extended car trips in the summer, it was as if she hadn't really left home, since Garry and Dennis would of course be with them, but almost always, so too would be her sister Florence, Morris and Cousin Shelly, all of them in the same car, the trunk packed with food from home as well as some clothes. So Dorothy did leave her Homecrest Address, and she would go off to explore the US. But always incorporating in the itinerary visits to family. She and Lou and the entourage even visited the peripatetic Cypesses in almost every one of their various homes, and were there as representatives of the family for each bris, of Aaron and Josh.

Dot and Lou also visited Cousins in Pittsburgh, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania; Faygie and Sam in Manhattan Kansas, Cousin Danny in Atlanta, Georgia, Mims in California, Wilbur cousins in Buffalo. They visited family along with the tourist sights, for family was so important to Dorothy Levine Wilbur. Devorah bas Gitte; Now she in on her final journey.

May her memory be for a blessing and may we learn from her devotion and dedication to Good, Devorah bas Gitte.

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FOOTNOTES

[1] = Rashi states that when Devorah died, so did Rivkah. And Devorah's death was treated with the same sorrow as Rivkah's since Devorah was the surrogate mother of Jacob and his entire family.

[2] = Rivka/Rebecca had one son (Esau) at home, and another (Jacob) with her brother (Lavan) in a faraway land. Rivka never saw her son Jacob after he left home to find a wife. Rivka is thus the paragon of the mother of a dispersed, and even warring, family.