My Mother: Marilyn Lavi Obituary

Marilyn Lavi (born 1942 in Lima, Ohio, died 2025 in Aurora, Ohio) was a Librarian, Children’s Literature Adjunct Professor, and Dance Instructor who powered a higher education union, multicultural grant programs for Cold Spring Harbor High School, professional dance troop, art gallery collective, and local voting official, and our family household. She was a fiercely independent woman and an educational and multi-cultural advocate!

Marilyn Ann Lavi (1942-2025)

Our mother passed approximately two and half weeks after my father and I am still in shock. Despite being abstractly prepared, processing the loss while becoming an orphan has an unmooring emotional effect. I will write more when I can, but this acknowledgment has been over a month delayed. I am glad I signed off every time we spoke individually with “I love you,” including two days before her passing.

Above, I’ve hinted at her many professional highlights that I will try to cite in the future. When she was at her best, she was a witty, knowledgeable educator who advocated multiculturalism, education, civic duty, and religious tolerance throughout her life. She was a voracious reader, art collector, and independent thinker who prized the ability to forge her own identity.

Mom was born of Scotch, Irish, English and German heritage (our alleged Native American roots haven’t been proved) and we have another alleged relative Captain Abbey of Enfield, Connecticut, who can trace back to the Pilgrims. Her mother, Bertha, was a lifelong member of the P.E.O. and her father, Frank, was Vice President of a steel foundry in Detroit. Growing up, her family traveled internationally. After graduating from New Trier High School, Cottey College, and undergrad in Ann Arbor, she graduated from Michigan State University’s Honors College with a Masters in Library Science. Despite being a WASP who was raised Methodist, she married an immigrant in a Unitarian ceremony. She lived in multiple places in Ohio, Michigan, and Chicago, resided in Montreal, Canada, and spent 40+ years in Huntington, New York on Long Island. She raised her children with an appetite for all arts, education, and cultures of the world; exclusively supporting both her children becoming cubs (as a Den Mother) and staying on the path to achieve Eagle Scout. In our family household, she guarded us from allergic reactions and our choice of pets reflected this: she raised chameleons, a turtle, a Boa Constrictor and a Siberian Husky!

But Mom wasn’t perfect: owing to her upbringing, she was a physical discipliner and a chocoholic who had a cola soda every day. She had to navigate and isolate family from negative cultural traits (which I respect and modeled myself), but this was a persistent conflict with Dad. She could be contrary to a mischievous fault in any situation, which did not serve her well in the final decade after divorce. I could get her to laugh about the parallels she had to her mother’s end years and the situations we wanted to avoid, but we could not get her to change her course.

Throughout her life, she used her wits, called out, advocated, and educated the potential across her community. She lived (and died) the way she wanted. Fortunately Mom’s affairs were in perfect order, thanks to my brother and his wife’s guidance and close proximity, which is in stark contrast to Dad’s messy end. Mom’s cremains are interred at Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky next to her parents.