Barbara Spector Karr

Barbara Joan (Lewin) Spector Nathanson Karr

October 28, 1931 - January 17, 2013

Barbara Joan (Lewin) Spector Nathanson Karr, (81), artist, poet, social planner, contextual psychotherapist, community builder, sister, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother, and friend, died a peaceful, gentle poet’s death on Thursday, January 17th, in her beloved NYC, just as the final notes of Saint Saens’, The Swan, faded away.

Born on October 28, 1931, at Royal Hospital on the Grand Concourse in The Bronx to the late William Henry Lewin, mechanic, labor organizer and zig-zag sewing machine patent-holder, and Sadie Gertrude “Gert” Lewin, who worked at Amtorg Trade Company, the Soviet-American Trade Organization, and later, a Bank Street College administrator.

Barbara’s much-anticipated and loved baby sister, Lynn, was born and died a very short time thereafter, in 1935.

Barbara, was raised a Red Diaper Baby, in Greenwich Village in Manhattan with the help of her beloved grandmother, Ethel Tilzer Burstein, whom she called, “Mom”.

She attended, the progressive, Little Red School House and in summers, she attended Pioneer Youth Camp and WoChiCa, (Workers Children’s Camp) and AYH Hostel camps and enjoyed spending time with her father at her family’s rustic cabin in Croton, NY.

Barbara graduated from Elizabeth Irwin High School, Class of ’49, and she and her much beloved Little Red Schoolhouse and Elizabeth Irwin classmates have nurtured close enduring friendships throughout their lives.

From 1949-1951, Barbara attended NYU, studying occupational therapy and developed and honed her many talents and skills as an artist, fine craftsperson, printmaker, book maker, cabinet maker, sculptor, needle craft maker, jeweler and tinker.

In 1950, at 18, Barbara married Clarence J. Spector, set up house in an apartment on W. 122nd Street, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

After a move to Radford, Virginia, she took classes at Virginia Polytechnic (now Virginia Tech,) and had Claire, the first of three children. In December, 1952, twenty-two days after Claire was born, Barbara and her family returned to 122nd Street. Soon thereafter, she lived successive small towns in New Jersey near her husband’s work at Bell Labs, Murray Hill. Barbara’s children, Matthew and Mark were born in 1954 and 1956 respectively, at Morristown Hospital in Morristown, NJ. Barbara was active in developing resources for her children's schools through early social ventures including Book Fairs and an annual Cracked Pot sale for which she would restore Italian pottery imported by retired teacher cousins, Clara and Jerry Isaacs, which had been damaged in shipping to nearly new.

In the 60’s, Barbara moved and resettled the family in Poughkeepsie, NY (1961-1965), Burlington, Vermont (1965-66), South Orange, NJ (1966-68) where Barbara worked at then Temple Israel, for summers in Lake Mohegan, and then back to the City of Poughkeepsie in 1968.

At SUNY, New Paltz, Barbara studied with Walkill State Prison Superintendent Charles L. McKendrick, the compassionate warden who led by example in providing rehabilitative services and educational opportunities for long-incarcerated inmates nearing release. Barbara graduated in 1970, with a B.S. in Sociology and worked as a Social Planner with colleague and friend, Marie Tarver, Executive Director of the Model Cities Agency in Poughkeepsie. Later, until her first retirement in 1982, she was the City of Poughkeepsie’s Director of Social Planning.

Barbara took the EST Forum early on and was an actively involved in Landmark Education and the NY Area Center. Her first marriage ended in divorce in 1979. In 1982, her pension vested and Barbara returned to her beloved Manhattan.

She completed training in Contextual Psychotherapy with colleagues, Bob Flax and Arthur Egendorf, and maintained a NY psychotherapy and consulting practice under the supervision of Warren Berland.

Barbara, met her second husband, a neighborhood book antiquarian and antique dealer, Louis J. “Lou” Nathanson, after “several interesting books” on a stall outside Pedigreed Junk, a long-lived E 85th Street, Manhattan, antique store, caught her attention. After marrying Lou, Barbara, joined him in the business, earned a certificate in English porcelain restoration. She set up a Porcelain Restoration Studio in the former studio of the late, artist and printmaker, Bernece Berkman Hunter, whose work Barbara carefully catalogued and donated to the Library of Congress. http://lccn.loc.gov/2010649893.

Barbara and Lou enjoyed a happy marriage and many friends. With Lou’s encouragement and coaching, Barbara also received credentials and worked as an appraiser.

She celebrated the marriage of her son, Mark to her daughter-in-law, Benay Forrest Spector, and the births of their children, her beloved granddaughters, Samantha Talia and Anaya Dora.

Barbara also made space in her heart for Lou’s children: Miriam Nathanson Sherwood and her daughter, Hannah; Douglas Nathanson, his wife, Ruth and their children, Rachel and Joshua; Lisa Nathanson, her husband, Freddy Gershon and Freddy’s sons, Jason and Jonathan and their families; and Lou’s youngest daughter, Karen Nathanson who, tragically, died suddenly, on her 30th birthday.

Barbara became actively involved in The Crystal Quilt, a nonprofit women’s collective offering discussion groups, forums, panels lectures, other instruction and training.

After Lou’s death, Barbara gave up her Restoration Studio and ran Pedigreed Junk for a time, primarily for the benefit of Lou’s children.

Barbara met Emanuel Karr, also recently widowed, while he was out walking his daughter’s dogs and stopped into the shop for the dog treats which were always on hand. Many common interests brought them together. They married when Manny was 80 and enjoyed 17 happy years together before Manny’s death in 2011. Marriage to Manny brought two more step-children, two more grand-daughters, Abigail Mann and Ashley McDonald, grandson, John McDonald and his wife, Eva and the birth of their children, and Abigail’s, Emma Frances, Manny’s beloved great-granddaughter.

Following her late mother, Gert Lewin’s participation in The New School’s Institute for Retired Professionals (IRP,) Barbara retired from the antique business and enjoyed active participation in QUEST, the CCNY-Center for Worker Education’s Life-Long Learning Community. Over her many years at Quest, Barbara developed close friendships with community members who shared her passion for Life Drawing, the Prose and Poetry Workshops, Women’s Literature, among other subjects.

Barbara’s first submission to Quest’s Q Review was in 1996. She served on the Q Review Editorial Board from 1998 to 2001, as Art Editor from 2002-2004, and 2008-2009, as Editor from 2005-2007, as Poetry Editor from 2009-2010 continuing with co-Editor, Betty Farber in 2010-2011. Over the Q Review years she worked with friends and colleagues, the late Joan Bonagura, Betty Farber, the late Rose Gladstone, Jennifer Jolly, the late Frances Klein, Helen Neilson, Donna Rubens, the late Pat Pelkonen, Eva Shatkin, the late George Solomon, and the late Gabriel Wilner.

Barbara was also an active member of Fran Quinn’s, Poetry Workshop, The Riverside Poets, and the National Council of Jewish Women’s Poetry Workshops. Barbara’s poems were published in the New York Times, the Q Review, in volumes of The Riverside Poets Workshop Poems, the Jewish Women’s Literary Annual, and her four books of poetry, In Life’s Stream Through Time (2000), All Appears Serene (2001), Her Hurt Lost In His (2002) and Fallen Out Of Sight (2003).

Barbara is survived by her daughter, Claire Spector, JD, and her beloved partner, Dr. Charles Sepos, of Santa Rosa, CA; son, Matthew Spector, NREMT-P, on assignment in South Sudan, Africa, and her "daughter-in-love," Lisa Griffin Vincent, Ph.D., of Minneapolis, MN; and, son, Mark Spector and his wife, Benay Forrest Spector, of Rockaway, NJ; beloved grandchildren, Samantha Talia and Anaya Dora; step-daughter, Miriam Nathanson Sherwood, and step-granddaughter, Hannah; step-son, Douglas Nathanson, M.D., and his wife, Ruth, of Allentown, PA, and step-grandchildren, Rachel and Joshua; Lisa Nathanson and her husband, Freddy Gershon of Long Beach, NY, his sons, Joshua and Jonathan and their families; step-daughter, Harriet Karr McDonald and her husband, George McDonald, step-granddaughters, Abigail Mann, and Ashley McDonald, step-grandson, John McDonald, his wife, Eva and their children; and step-great-granddaughter, Emma Frances Mann Rideout; grandchildren, Micah Ellerbe and his wife, Nicole, and their children, Tyre, Tommy, Tre Savon, Precious, Cherelle, Allana, Maston, and Micah of Ocean Beach, NY; great-great granddaughter, Anaya Marie Hart; granddaughter, Xosa McKoy and her husband, Wayne McKoy, and sons, Marc Fitzgerald Blaise, and Lenox Ellerbe Robinson, of Holly Springs, NC; former husband and later, friend, Dr. Clarence J. Spector and his wife, Elizabeth “Libby” Spector, of San Jose, CA; and, many loving friends.

Barbara’s family wishes to thank NYC EMT Williams and the Irving Sherwood Wright Center on Aging, Weill Cornell Medical College, NY Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical Center’s compassionate palliative care team, lead by Dr. Kiran Rayalam, MD, Fellow, Geriatric Medicine; Tara Benziger, NP; social workers, AnnaMarie Sheldon, LCSW, Palliative Care Service; Social Work Supervisor, Dory Hottensen, LCSW, Palliative Care; Senior Social Worker, Kristen Good, LCSW; Social Worker Manager, Lisa Bard, LCSW; Patient Care Director, Cynthia Kazmac, MS, RN; and the superlative nursing and patient care team of NY-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, Greenberg Pavilion, 14N, for the meticulous and truly responsive care and support they provided in helping Barbara to make a truly dignified, peaceful passage.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in Barbara's honor may be made to ACT-Solutions.org, 829 Sonoma Ave, Santa Rosa, CA 95404, or, American Refugee Committee International, arcrelief.org, 615 First Avenue NE, Suite 500, Minneapolis, MN 55413-2681.