Pat Taub
January
Maria Ewing, 71
Ewing, an opera singer in the ‘70’s and 80’s, helped to transform the role of opera singers by incorporating acting skills into her roles rather than simply stand and sing. Her daughter, actress and film maker, Rebecca Hall, referencing her mother’s racial ambiguity, made the critically acclaimed film, “Passing,” about a black woman who passes for white.
February
Carmen Herrera, 106
Carmen Herrera, a Cuban-born artist, who painted abstract geometric shapes, went all but unnoticed for most of her long life, then soared to international fame after her canvases began selling when she was 89. She continued to paint through her 90’s, commenting that her late-in-life success allowed her to hire assistants, so she could paint when arthritis confined her to a wheelchair.
Herrera at 94 with two of her paintings
March
Annie Flanders, 82
Founder of Details Magazine, an avant-guard magazine of the 1980’s that covered cutting edge happenings in music, fashion, and the arts in Manhattan. Details, more concerned with edgy reporting and arty photos, than turning a profit, lasted only a decade. Over time copies became a collectors’ item.
April
Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, 95
Ibarra became a prominent activist in Mexico, following the disappearance of her 21-year-old son in 1975, who was involved in leftist politics. When appeals to the legal authorities went nowhere, Ibarra de Piedra, organized other mothers of children who disappeared, staging hunger strikes, marches, and visits to politicians’ offices. Their actions received widespread support. Ibarra de Piedra became known at the “Moral voice of Mexico.”
Mrs. Ibarra & other mothers of the disappeared at a hunger strike in Mexico City, 1980.
May
Julie Beckett, 72
As the mother of a seriously disabled child, born in 1978 , who needed at home care, Beckett was devastated to learn that Medicare did not cover home care. Outraged, Beckett took up the case for Medicare coverage. She appealed to her congressman, who went all the way to President Reagan, who supported Medicare coverage for at home care for families with disabled children, making it legal in 1981.
July
Charlotte Pomerantz, 92
A children’s book author who subtly wove feminist and social themes into her picture books. In her popular 1974 book, “The Piggy in the Puddle,” she describes a rebellious pig who refuses to come out of the mud.
August
Melissa Banks, 61
Banks wrote the global phenomenon, “A Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing,” about a young woman’s coming of age in the 90’s. Banks’ novel is credited with influencing popular TV shows like, “Sex and the City,” where young women embrace their new sexual freedom.
September
Barbara Ehrenreich, 81
A writer who dedicated her life to writing about class and income inequalities. Her bestseller, “Nickel and Dimed,” chronicled her undercover job as a low paid worker, where she described the near impossibility of surviving on a minimum wage.
Barbara Ehrenreich
Hilaree Nelson, 49
Nelson was a pioneering ski mountaineer known for making artful turns in improbable places, with dozens of first descents from atop major and lesser-known peaks. She died in an avalanche while skiing from the Himalayan summit of Manaslu, the world’s eighth-highest mountain.
October
Angela Lansbury, 96
A Broadway and Hollywood legend, who won five Tony awards, but is probably best known for her role as mystery writer, Jessica Fletcher in the long-running TV series, “Murder She Wrote.”
Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher in “Murder She Wrote”
November
Doris Grumbach, 104
In the 1970s and ’80s, she portrayed lesbian characters and themes in a positive light that was then unusual in mainstream fiction. In her advanced age, she wrote, “The most lamentable loss in the elderly spirit is the erosion of hope.”
December
Dorothy Pittman Hughes, 84
A close friend of Gloria Steinem, she toured with her and spoke widely about the need for women to confront racism and classism in their ranks. Hughes was known as a formidable street organizer.
Dorothy Pittman Hughes with Gloria Steinman in their iconic 1971 photo
Barbara Walters, 93
Walters, as the first female co-host of the “Today” show, opened doors for women co-anchors on TV. Walters became known for “The Barbara Walters Special,” where she posed hard-hitting questions to celebrities and politicians. Fidel Castro called her the toughest interviewer he had ever had.
Walters interviewing Fidel Castro, 1977
The idea is not that we will win in our own lifetimes, and that’s the measure of us, but that we will die trying. –Barbara Ehrenreich
