David Silver, 1926-2018, and Edna Louise Silver, 1928-2018, Derby, Vermont [Obituaries]

[David and Edna Silver were vital in Congregation Beth El in the 1980s.]

This obituary for David Silver ran in the December 21, 2018, Newport Daily Express. 

 

David L. Silver, 92, Resident of Derby, Vermont, died peacefully with his family on December 17, at North Country Hospital.
    He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, January 29, 1926, the son of Morris and Sarah (née Niceberg) Silver. 
    David was married to his wife of 63 years Edna L. Silver on June 5, 1955 in Long Beach, California.  They have two children Morris L. Silver (b. 1958) and Claire S. Silver (b. 1964). 
    David was a Naval Pharmacist mate 3rd Class; a 1st generation American who volunteered to serve in World War II, stationed at the Naval Hospital at Guam from 1944 to 1946.
    David earned a Bachelor and Master of Science Degree in micro-bacteriology from the University of Minnesota  in 1953. From 1953 to 1979 he was a resident of Seal Beach California.  He started his professional career as a researcher under the direction of Dr. David Imagawa at the UCLA Virology Laboratory in Long Beach, California. He also worked for the Paramount Unified School District for over 25 years with a career including teaching, counseling and public administration.
    David moved to Derby, Vermont with his family in 1979. He and his wife Edna purchased the Newport Health Care Center where he served as the administrator.
    David was always close to his staff whom he loved like extended family. David was many things to many people.  He touched many and gave so much to others.
    David enjoyed the study of history, public service, and spending time with his family and friends. His heroes were Moses and Lincoln. He was a vociferous reader and enjoyed travel, photography, and men's fashion. David was involved in many community organizations including the Rotary Club, the Greater Newport Area Chamber of Commerce, Aquafest, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the VFW, the Masonic Lodge and Vermont Make A Wish. He also served as the President of Northeast Kingdom Mental Health Services and was a Justice of the Peace in Derby.
    David is survived by his children Morris and Tobi Silver of Benson, Vermont, Claire Silver and Namu Moulton of Derby Line, Vermont, and his grandchildren Jacob Silver and his fiancé Sarah Forster of Brookline, Massachusetts, Benjamin Silver of Waltham, Massachusetts, Emily Corbitt of Stowe, Vermont, and David Moulton of Coventry, Vermont.  
    A graveside funeral will be held at 11:00 am on December 23rd at the Hebrew Holy Society Cemetery in Burlington, Vermont.  The family wishes to express a special thanks to the staff of North Country Hospital, and members of the greater Newport health care community.
    Should you wish to honor the memory of David Silver,  in lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to:  
Make-A -Wish Vermont
Attention: Jamie Hathaway
431 Pine street Suite 214
Burlington, Vermont 05401

Here is the obituary for Edna Silver, published in the Newport Daily Express in the August 31/September 1, 2018, issue.

Edna Louise Silver, 90, Resident of Derby, Vermont, died peacefully surrounded by her family on August 25, at North Country Hospital.    
    She was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, July 11,
1928.
    Edna was married to David L. Silver on June 5, 1955 in Long Beach, California. They have two children Morris L. Silver and Claire S. Silver. From 1950 - 1979 she was a resident of Southern California. She worked as a Surgical Nurse, a Pediatric Nurse and Director of Nursing Services for the Beverly Manor Convalescent Center in Seal Beach California. Edna is a graduate of San Diego State College and the Mount Zion School of Nursing in San Francisco.
Edna moved to Derby, Vermont with her family in 1979. Edna and her husband David, purchased the Newport Health Care Center where she served in a variety of roles including the Director of Nursing Services.
    Edna was always close to her staff whom she viewed as her extended family. Edna was many things to many people. She touched many and gave so much to others.
    Edna enjoyed cooking, and spending time with her family and friends. Her other
passion was traveling abroad.
    She is survived by her husband David Silver, her children Morris and Tobi Silver of Benson, Vermont, Claire Silver and Namu Moulton of Derby Line, Vermont, and her grandchildren Jacob Silver and his fiancé Sarah Forster of Brookline, Massachusetts, Benjamin Silver of Waltham, Massachusetts, Emily Corbitt of Stowe, Vermont, and David Moulton of Coventry, Vermont.
    A graveside funeral was held on August 27th in Burlington, Vermont. The family wishes to express a special thanks to the staff of North Country Hospital, and members of the greater Newport health care community.
    Should you wish to honor the memory of Edna Silver, in lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to:
Make-A -Wish Vermont
Attention: Jamie Hathaway
431 Pine street Suite 214
Burlington, Vermont 05401

Jewish Community of Newport, Vermont

The late Emily M. Nelson, in her 1977 book Frontier Crossroads: The Evolution of Newport Vermont, provides the following description of the Jewish community of Newport at pages 132-133:

It was recorded by the late Morris Sockol that a Jewish community was formed in 1905 for the purpose of purchasing a Torah and observing the Jewish holidays and festivals.

Prayer meetings were held in various members' homes and Magoon's Hall was used for the High Holy Days.

In 1943 Oscar Skoll donated a building on Clyde Street to be used for a Synagogue. 

The following people were present to accept the offer: William Arkin, Abraham Arkin, Morris Atkins, Jesse Levin, Ed Needleman, Louis Needleman, Oscar Skoll, and Saul Sockol.

There was a public dedication and Open House in September, 1943, of the new Beth Israel  Synagogue. Protestants, Catholics, and Jews joined in the impressive ceremony. Rabbi Herman of Burlington, Vermont, conducted the service assisted by Cantor L. Spiro of Montreal.

Louis Lisman of Burlington delivered an address on the courage of the Newport Jews in founding a Synagogue.

The keynote address for the ceremonies was delivered by the late Rev. Wilson Bugden, pastor of the United Churches of Newport, who spoke on "Our Similarities." Pastors of the other city churches and Mayor O.S. Searles had a part in the public dedication of the new Synagogue.

Sabbath services, holiday festivals and Sunday School classes were held at the Synagogue until September, 1963. At that time the building was returned to Oscar Skill due to the diminishing Jewish population. 

The Torahs were loaned to the Ohavi Zedek Synagogue of Burlington, Vermont, for safekeeping.

In 1964 it became known to the former members of the Beth Israel congregation that a Torah was needed in a Jewish Community in India. A Torah was given and sent to India.

The funds of the treasury were used to purchase and maintain a room at the Orleans County Memorial Hospital in Newport.

The prayer books and menorah were given to Temple Beth El of Quincy, Massachusetts. The remainder of the prayer books and Torah covers were given to a new Temple in Simsbury, Connecticut, which Jason Arkin and his family helped to organize.

[The book also includes a photo, labeled: Beth Israel congregation members (from left) Saul Sockol, Louis and Ed Needleman, and Jack Gladstone, with Torah destined for a community in India.]

Farewell to Steve Crevoshay, April 7, 2021

 [From the Caledonian-Record obituary, April 12, 2021. See note at end.]

Steve Crevoshay died on April 7, 2021, surrounded by family. He had lived with cancer for several years but continued to enjoy life, particularly time with family, tending his prolific and beautiful garden (including the most beautiful marijuana), playing piano and recorder, singing, cooking, voluminous reading, and classic films.

Steve was born on October 12, 1944, in Boston, Mass., and grew up in a large, three-story house at 41 Hamlin Road in Newton with his parents, siblings, and maternal grandparents. The house was the site of many shenanigans, including simultaneous trumpet playing on all three floors by all three children and teenage parties that resulted in broken furniture.

Steve is best captured in his own words, through recollections and commentary written over the past year:

“With the certainty of limited time here, I enjoy not only old age, but also the pleasures, simple ones mostly, that abound, especially here in bucolic completeness. Colored as my mental wanderings are by all the new ageness absorbed over the years, and reinforced by Alan Watts’ lectures, I gladly drink in nature, clouds, sky, grass, trees, bees, flowers, birds, deer, gardens, sun & moon, all in their very own preciousness. The greatest sustenance is people. Family is my guiding star. When all is well, with everyone, as it is at the moment, I can be a satisfied lump in the easy chair, just breathing & images gliding by in my own private cinema.”

He held a number of jobs over his life. These included camp counselor, librarian of the Botany Department of the Chicago Public Library, film lackey, shoe salesman, delivery driver, picture framer, harpsichord builder, tax assessor, co-op manager, substitute teacher, and natural products salesman. The job that he used to help weave an incredible community across the Northeast Kingdom was that of owner of Newport Natural Foods in Newport, VT. He ran the store with his wife Madeleine for 28 years. He knew nearly every customer by name, and regularly provided those in need with purchases on credit. He was a mentor to many employees and fostered a community of artisans and healers through the store.

Steve also volunteered as a Little League coach and Hebrew school teacher, helped local migrant farmworkers through the Vermont Migrant Justice program, and was involved in a number of food justice efforts in the Northeast Kingdom.

Music was his great joy, beginning with piano and trumpet lessons as a child. For over 30 years, he was a tenor in the Northsong Chorus. Prior to that he was a singer with a group called the Doo Wops, performing all over the Northeast Kingdom. A particular delight was shape-note singing. He also participated in Bread and Puppet performances as a singer and Garbage Man (and, memorably, once as Bernie Sanders). Over the last 20 years he developed his skill on the recorder, and enjoyed playing Baroque music with a number of friends and family. In his last year, he began to provide video piano lessons to his granddaughter in Seattle. He was especially proud of the musical career and accomplishments of his son, Gideon, which began with the two of them singing together in the car on the way to Little League practices.

He is survived by his sister, Amrita Crevoshay, his children, Eve Crevoshay, Gideon Crevoshay, and Laila Copperansky, his partner Mariel Hess, his granddaughter Aria Edery, his son-in-law David Edery, his ex-wife Madeleine Winfield, the parents of Laila, Ruth Coppersmith and Sara Lisniansky, Mariel’s daughters Kit and Reeve and their partners, his niece Shulamit Crevoshay and nephews Avi Crevoshay and Sholem Futran, and numerous dear cousins and friends. He is predeceased by his parents, Maurice “Maish” Crevoshay and Selma Leah (Levine) Crevoshay, and by his older brother, George Crevoshay.

Steve chose to have a private green burial at his home, in keeping with his deep connection with the earth and attunement to the cycles of nature. A beloved beech tree will be planted above his gravesite at the first anniversary of his death. In keeping with Jewish tradition, the family requests that no flowers be sent. Those who wish to honor his memory may do so by planting a tree or by making a donation in Steve’s honor to reforestation or tree planting efforts locally or worldwide.

 ***

Note from the blogger, Beth Kanell: When I arrived in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont in 1978, Steve and Maddy were members of the food coop in Newport, and I met them when I joined. I recall learning from them to wear gloves when cutting cheese (because otherwise it molded quickly), sorting out coop members' orders in heaps of small bags of nuts, beans, flour, and seeing my son Kiril learn to crawl and walk on the floor of the coop, which was then below sidewalk level, on the south side of Newport's Main Street. Soon Eve was riding in a carrier on Maddy's shoulders.

 I recall the happiness when Steve and Maddy decided to become "owners" and add store functions to the coop. I also remember taking part in a gathering to finish the fiberglass insulation for their owner-built home. It's a long time ago now. It amazes me that the counterculture habit of smoking marijuana, which was part of such gatherings "back then," has now morphed to Steve's own gardened marijuana, mentioned above.

When I met and married Dave Kanell (we met in 2001, became a couple in 2002, married in 2003), we marveled at the fact that we had not crossed paths with each other sooner, since Dave actually had spent far more time with Steve than I had -- although in an entirely different context. Dave was a long-time leader of Congregation Beth El in St. Johnsbury, appreciated Steve's teaching of Hebrew to the kids there, and had memories of Eve and Gideon growing up. Steve wasn't active in the congregation by the time I was, but I think he was still coming south once a year to the High Holiday services, perhaps with Maddy. Ozzie Henschel, whom I also met in the coop (he called my baby's feet "foozles" and snuggled him), definitely came a few more times in the early 2000s. 

 I can't close this without also saying how much of a marvel and blessing it was when Steve connected at last with Mariel, whom I knew from two other parts of my life -- working on GreenUp Day in Glover, and maintaining good health in Danville. It's very heart-affirming to see such good people find each other and savor life together. Let the circle be unbroken, by and by.