Sixteen Black neighbors buried Dorothy Levenstein, "Aunt Dolly," to them.
Dolly died at 73 in the same house she grew up in, on Hughs Street in Chester, Pennsylvania. She was a homebody who rarely left Chester. She was an only child who never married. She was born in a predominantly white city and died in a predominantly Black city, though she never moved.
Her funeral took place at Ohev Shalom in nearby Wallingford, Pennsylvania, where she was a paying member of the congregation, though she never attended services. In this small synagogue, the rabbi had never met her. At Dolly's funeral, the rabbi was the only white person in the sanctuary. He offered kriah, the black ribbon traditionally worn only by immediate mourners -- spouse, siblings, children, and parents of the deceased -- to Addie Lesser, Aunt Dolly's power-of-attorney and executrix. The kriah ribbon is torn in a ritual that represents loss, a tear in the fabric of a family that cannot be mended. But as soon as he pinned the ribbon to Addie, all 15 others in attendance -- Addie's husband, children, daughter-in-law, and neighbors -- asked if they could wear one, too. The rabbi then went around the sanctuary, offering each a ribbon and personally tearing all 16 ribbons. To give a sense of how unusual this is, I have never seen this happen before. Many rabbis would have refused to do it because by tradition the symbol is limited to the immediate family.
Addie Lesser eulogized Aunt Dolly. She had met Dorothy thirty-five years earlier, when Addie was a single mother with a son. She was looking for childcare so she could go to work. She went to the first caregiver an agency had recommended and didn't feel like it was a good fit. She then went to the next caregiver on the list, Dorothy Levenstein and her mother, Evelyn, and she knew it was the right place for her son.
Addie later married and had more children. They were all cared for by Dorothy and Evelyn, and later just Dorothy, after Evelyn died. Dorothy became "Aunt Dolly". Addie said she always knew her children were loved and cared for at Aunt Dolly's and she never worried about them for a second while she was at work.
When the children were older and no longer needed daycare, Aunt Dolly would call Addie and ask if she could have the kids for the day. She would take them to movies, to lunch, on shopping trips.
In eulogizing Aunt Dolly, Addie spoke of a family trip to Florida that Aunt Dolly joined. Not one for traveling far, Aunt Dolly was happy to see Florida, and after two days she was ready to go home. But the family had planned to stay for a week and told Aunt Dolly that they couldn't go home just yet.
The funeral pamphlet -- unusually elaborate for a Jewish service -- was culturally Black in several ways: It listed Dorothy Levenstein's "Sunrise" and "Sunset" dates. It contained a printed eulogy and biography of her life. And it was overflowing with pictures -- almost all of which were pictures of Aunt Dolly with Addie and her family, and Aunt Dolly with friends and neighbors. Aunt Dolly was almost always the only white person in the photos. On the cover was a picture of Aunt Dolly, darkened (probably inadvertently) in such a way as to make her race unclear.
A few years ago, Aunt Dolly developed an early and rapidly-progressing form of Alzheimer's disease. Addie and her neighbors promised Aunt Dolly that they would never place her in a nursing home. They cared for Aunt Dolly as a collective during her decline, and she died at home, just as they had promised.
Aunt Dolly was buried at Ohev Shalom Cemetery, a tiny cemetery owned by the synagogue, next to her parents. She had prepared for her own demise, going so far as to have a stone erected in advance, next to her parents' stone. It is common when a spouse passes for the surviving spouse to erect a stone with a blank space for him or herself -- with the surviving spouse’s name and perhaps birthdate pre-inscribed. I had never before known of an unmarried person erecting a stone for themselves before passing, with the date of death left blank. But Aunt Dolly's marker was there, for her to see when she visited her parents' grave. On the day of Dolly’s funeral, the inscription had not yet been revised. It said, simply:
Dorothy Levenstein
September 14, 1947
to
[Blank]
Beloved Daughter