![]() “Everyone loved her there, and she loved them back. “She helped people deal with issues of aging and isolation,” her son said. ![]() Because she had trouble adjusting to the transition, she formed a support group for other residents. When her health began to fail 12 years ago, she moved into the Falls at Cordingly Dam, a senior living center in Newton. Couples counseling was her particular passion, her son said, and she also led assertiveness-training courses for women. Schwartz was a psychiatric clinical social worker for three decades. “We thought she would never finish, but she did.” “It became kind of a joke in our family, because Mom was in social work school for so many years,” he said. She convinced administrators she was a worthy candidate and persuaded them to let her study on a part-time basis, her son said. Schwartz was a busy at-home mother when she decided to pursue a master’s degree in social work at Simmons College. Schwartz, a kidney disease specialist and former physician-in-chief at Tufts Medical Center, died in 2009. Their marriage ended in divorce in the late 1970s. Schwartz in 1950 and settled in Newton to raise their children. He died last year.Īfter graduating from Vassar College with a bachelor’s degree, Carol Levine married Dr. Levine, launched the cardiology department at what is now Tufts Medical Center. He was a renowned cardiologist for whom the Levine Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Brigham and Women’s is named. ![]() “Yet Carol continued in her stable way to be the same kind of caring, nurturing person we needed her to be.”Ĭarol Levine was born in Cambridge, a daughter of the former Rosalind Weinberg, who became a writer and interior decorator, and Dr. She was kind and gentle, but she was really able to handle a lot of stress.”ĭuring Ken’s 10-month illness, “I feel like we all had our breath taken away,” Cohen said. “It was so hard for Carol to lose two of her children to the same illness, but somehow she was able to maintain her optimism.”Įllen Cohen, who was married to Ken Schwartz, said her mother-in-law “was very strong at the center. “She had cognitive issues at the time of Laurie’s death, but she was still engaged,” Dreyfus said. Schwartz was in early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Schwartz worked at the center alongside her daughter, Laurie Schwartz Naparstek, who died of cancer in 2011 at age 52. “She had a great respect for the culture of medicine, and she really understood the roles played by nurses and social workers and chaplains in the care of patients. “She was one of those people who didn’t like to hear her own voice, but when she spoke at board meetings everyone listened,” said Dreyfus, who also is president and chief executive of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. He said her career in social work and lifelong connection to hospitals and health care, combined with her devotion to her son’s memory, made her a strong asset and an ideal board member. Schwartz was instrumental in the organization’s growth, said Andrew Dreyfus, a cofounder and board member of the center. At the end of Ken’s life, he and his friends and family, including his mother, created the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare in Boston, which promotes “compassionate care so that patients and their caregivers relate to one another in a way that provides hope to the patient, support to caregivers and sustenance to the healing process,” according to its website.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |