Gloria Kahn Weiss

Gloria Weiss was born on February 12th, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois. Her parents, mother, Ethel Faden Kahn and father, Ludwig Kahn, were proud first-generation Americans. Gloria was their second child, her brother Jimmy, James David Kahn who predeceased her March 10, 2011, was seven (7) years her senior.

Gloria grew up in Rogers Park in Chicago was confirmed at Ner Tamid Synagogue, of which her parents were founding members. She attended the University of Illinois in Champaign Urbana where she was the president Delta Pi Epsilon.

She was married in the summer of 1951 to Richard Allen Weiss who passed away years after their divorce in 1979. She never remarried, but maintained an active social life for many years, both on Chicago’s Gold Coast and later in the Golden Isles. Gloria held adult membership in Temple Sholom, was an adult educator there developed and ran programs for the Jewish Community Centers of Chicago and Anshe Emmet. When the family lived in Evanston she was active in leadership and lifelong education at Beth Emmet the Free Synagogue and attended Northwestern University as a non-traditional student to secure her doctorate.

Later, she relocated to St. Simons to be with her only daughter, Holle Weiss-Friedman and her grandchildren, eldest son Michael Lorin Friedman, and twins: David Joseph Friedman and Rachel Elise Friedman.

Gloria was an avid collector of art and antiques and a lifetime scholar. Her interests were many and varied. She taught and lectured on myriad subjects, wrote prolifically, both scholarly and in the Coastal Illustrated in her weekly column Accent on Antiques all written out in long hand on yellow legal pads and retyped on a corona portable typewriter. She refused to get a computer and never had a cellphone. She engaged in fascinating correspondence with people all walks of life near and far throughout her entire lifetime until vision problems limited her reading and writing. Gloria was never at loss for something to say or an opinion to offer, always witty and clever on the phone or in person. There was never a dull moment interacting with Grammie Glo.

Among the great joys of her later life were Michael’s engagement to A.J. Goodrich at Thanksgiving in 2018 when the family was together, Rachel’s engagement in 2019 and marriage in March of this year to Brett Nathan Amman here on St. Simons and David’s engagement in Charleston in July of 2019 to Hannah Camen Kaplan. She will be sorely missed at their wedding in October.

Private interment Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. at Palmetto Cemetery officiated by Rabbi Rachael Bregman of Temple Beth Tefilloh. Shiva Wednesday and Thursday at 210 Settlers Road, St. Simons Island.