|
Light a Candle
Lucy Horwitz died in her Los Angeles home on April 4th, 2020 shortly after receiving partial hip replacement surgery. She was 87. Her friend and housemate Leonard Wise, and caregiver Anthony were with her. Lucy was born August 22, 1932 in Vienna, Austria to Fred and Hedwig “Hedy” (Zipper) Horwitz. To escape the Nazi takeover of Austria, the family fled Vienna in 1938 to a small town outside Paris, France where they stayed for 18 months until visas were obtained to travel to the U.S. Upon arriving in NYC, the family changed their name to Holt and struggled to get by until Hedy declared that “if we’re going to starve, let’s do it where the weather’s warm,” and moved her family to California. English being her third language, Lucy always felt most comfortable with numbers, becoming a Math and Philosophy major at UC Berkeley, leading to a career teaching Mathematics. While attending Berkeley, she met and married John Perry. They had two children, John Gavin Perry and Celia Ann Perry (Pool). Following stints at the University of Colorado, Boulder and SUNY Binghamton, the family eventually settled in Boston, MA where Lucy lived, learned and taught for 35 years. Her 18-year marriage to John ended in 1971. Lucy held advanced degrees in Mathematics Education and Cognitive Psychology. While getting her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from MIT, Lucy met the second love of her life, Wayne O’Neill, a Linguistics professor. Their adventures took them far and wide, including bicycling through the Middle East and North Africa for 9 months. Their remarkable relationship lasted 8 years. A dedicated political and social justice activist, Lucy was on the Washington Mall to hear MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech. She led the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice in Boston. She attended countless demonstrations against the Vietnam War continuing a long history of political activism and arrests. Her last arrest was in the Massachusetts governor’s office protesting welfare cuts to the state. David Chase, a physicist, was the next man to come into her life. They married in 1992 and lived together in Boston and Los Angeles for 16 years until his death in 2008. With David came Valerie, a cherished step-daughter. After retiring from teaching at U. Mass Boston, Lucy moved to Los Angeles (2002) to be near her daughter, Celia and three grandchildren, settling in Brentwood. Her activism continued with weekly vigils against the Iraq war. She continued volunteer teaching at an Adult Learning Center and picked up writing in earnest. Her writings cover a wide range, from the textbook Statistics for Social Change to several murder mysteries to her memoir Random Thoughts from an Aging Brain. Love was to find Lucy one final time when she was introduced by mutual friends to Bob Seeds, a retired HR executive in 2009. Lucy often remarked how incredibly lucky she was and what joy they brought each other in the final years of his life. Sadly Bob passed in 2011. Lucy never lost her belief that the future could be better than the past, and she always strove to make it so. Lucy is survived by her two children, seven grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and cousins. Donations in her honor may be made to the International Rescue Committee or Doctors Without Borders.
