Sherrie S. Epstein

Sherrie S. Epstein, 100, of Newton, MA, formerly of Brookline, MA on Friday, January 3, 2025. For fifty -seven years she was the adored wife of the late Franklin Epstein. She was the daughter of the late Herman & Ida Spivack, sister of the late Arlene Edelson. Her four children, Mark Epstein (Arlene Shechet), Ann Epstein (Bernard Edelstein), Sara Epstein, and Jonathan Epstein (Margaret Myers) survive her, along with nine grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

Sherrie was born in Cleveland, OH, and was raised in Cleveland and Painesville, OH. Due to family circumstances, she developed a high level of self-reliance. She attended Ohio State University and graduated in 1945. In 1946 she married Jules Steinbock in Cleveland but was widowed several years later. In 1950, She met Franklin Epstein on a train from NY to Washington, D.C., and they enjoyed almost six decades of marriage until Franklin’s death in 2008.

Their first child, Mark, was born in 1953 in Fort Richardson, Alaska where Franklin Epstein served as Captain in the Army and director of the medical dispensary. They then moved to New Haven, Ct. where Ann, Sara, and Jonathan were born. For almost twenty years while Franklin was on the faculty at Yale Medical School, they enjoyed the friendship and collegiality of the Yale faculty community, making lifelong friends. Sherrie worked as the Managing Editor of the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, a job which made use of her highly capable organizational skills, excellent vocabulary, and impeccable grammar.

As a mother she exercised an unusual combination of high expectations and liberal views, placing a value on independence. “Use your own judgement!” was her frequent parental advice. As a family, the Epstein’s spent two sabbatical years in Oxford, England, in 1964 and 1971. Sherrie efficiently packed up her family of four young children, set up homes, made friends, and had memorable years abroad.

Starting in 1968, the family spent summers in Maine, becoming members of the Mt Desert Island Biological Laboratory community. Decades of deep friendship grew here on the Maine coast, and an extended “Maine family” came to know and trust and value Sherrie.

In 1972 they moved to Brookline, MA, where Franklin became Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Sherrie worked at Simmons School of Management as a case-writer in the MBA program for women. Later she worked at Harvard Business School as a case writer and at the Harvard Kennedy School as a research assistant, where she co-authored a book with Robert Dorwart, MD, on the privatization of mental health care.

Sherrie was a life-long reader, always up to date on her New Yorker magazine, enjoying fiction of all kinds. She had a wonderful reading-aloud voice, and loved reading Dickens, enjoying his humor and wry observations of humankind. In retirement she took and taught courses at Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement. In 2012 she moved to Lasell Village in Newton.

Sherrie might appreciate being described as both trenchant and perspicacious. If you’re not sure what either one of those two words mean, Sherrie would say “look it up”.

Our family would like to thank the staff at Lasell Village and Lasell House, who came to know Sherrie over twelve years, appreciated her spirit and sense of humor, and cared for her at the end of her life.

A Funeral Service to be held at Sharon Memorial Park Chapel, 40 Dedham Street, Sharon, on Friday, January 10, 2025 at 1:00 PM.