William J. Toole
William J. Toole, 90 ½ years young, passed away after a brief illness on Friday January 8, 2021 in Melbourne, Florida.
Born in Trenton NJ, to Scottish immigrants, he was raised in Princeton, living there most of his life until moving to Pennington in 2005, with winters in Florida.
Mr. Toole was predeceased by his parents, William M. Toole and Jane (Jean) W. Gray, his wife Anne E. Toole, and his grandson Alexander Platt.
He is survived by three children, Linda A. Toole and husband David Gottschlich of Columbia, MD; Jane E. Platt and husband Greg of Cream Ridge, NJ; and Robert K. Toole and wife Patricia of Lawrenceville, NJ; eight grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren with one more on the way. He is also survived by his brother, the Reverend Dr. George G. Toole of White Hall, MD. He also leaves his “out-law” family in the Columbus, Ohio, area. His companion of the last nine years, Emma Denny, and many friends in Florida will also miss him.
Mr. Toole graduated from Princeton High School and attended Rider College. He formerly worked for the Princeton University Store but spent most of his career with IBM Corporation. He was part owner of Tartan Taxi of Princeton.
Bill was a 70-year member of Princeton Hook and Ladder Co. of the Princeton Fire Department, serving as President and Trustee. He was the longtime Secretary of the Princeton Firemen’s Relief Association and a Life Member of The NJ State Firemen’s Association. He was a Past Master of Princeton Lodge #38 F&AM, and Past District Deputy Grand Master and Past Chaplain of the Grand Lodge for New Jersey. Advisory Board member of the International Order of Rainbow Girls #51, he was also a Trustee of the Masonic Home at Burlington, NJ. He was a member of the Scottish Rite, Crescent Temple, and the Princeton Shrine Club. He additionally served his community as a member of the Borough of Princeton Affordable Housing Board and as a Sergeant and Tank Commander for 13 years in the New Jersey National Guard.
Bill enjoyed history and geography and was able to enrich those passions through his love of travel with his wife, Anne. They were members of the Wally Byam Caravan Club, traveling the North American Continent in their Airstream travel trailer. Bill was proud of his Scottish heritage and they traveled to Scotland many times visiting family and other countries as well. After 59 years of marriage, Anne passed away.
Bill met Emma in Florida, and they continued traveling this time mainly by cruise ship, including one eventful trip to Cuba.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions in Bill’s memory may be made to the Shriners Children’s Hospital.
Interment will be at Trinity-All Saints’ Cemetery, Princeton.
A celebration of Bill Toole’s life will be held at a later date this year.
Arrangements are under the direction of Mather-Hodge Funeral Home, Princeton.
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Jeffrey Lionel Gossman
Jeffrey Lionel Gossman, the M. Taylor Pyne Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, Emeritus, at Princeton University, died on Monday, January 11, 2021, at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Lionel was a meticulous scholar who happily crossed intellectual boundaries to follow untrodden paths and discover the orphans neglected by scholarly research to create connections between fields and disciplines. He understood that events great and small do not happen in isolation and the high and the low do not inhabit separate realms. His scholarship was driven by a passion to bring attention to those who have been neglected, misunderstood, or out of fashion. He was not a linear thinker who stuck to his chosen path. He was a scholar, a lover of arts, and a storyteller. He wrote on topics ranging from historiography to the stained-glass windows in the working-class sections of Glasgow. He published in the most prestigious academic presses, but loved to publish on Openbookpublishers.com, VictorianWeb.org, and other online platforms, which made his work accessible to everyone around the world.
He was both an intellectual trailblazer and a skeptic of the latest intellectual fashions. He was a generous and contributing citizen to the institutions which he served – Johns Hopkins from 1968 to 1976 and Princeton University from 1976 until his retirement in l999 as well as the American Philosophical Society which he loved, and on whose many committees he served for years. He was a reader for Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic (now Learning Ally), and he was usually assigned the most unglamorous French grammar texts.
Lionel was born on May 31, 1929, on the kitchen table of a rented flat in Hyndland in the West End of Glasgow. His father was born in London, his mother in Glasgow, both children of immigrant working-class parents.
Lionel received all his basic education in the Scottish public school system. In 1943, at the age of 14, he earned what was to be his first of many academic honors, “The James Wilson Medal for Excellence in French.” In 1946 he entered the University of Glasgow where he majored in French and German. He graduated with first-class honors in 1951 — the year of the University’s 500th birthday. Between 1952 and 1954 he served first in the Royal Navy and then in the Army, where he was trained as a simultaneous translator between Russian and English and earned a First-Class interpreter’s certificate. In 1954 he entered St. Antony’s College, Oxford, where he received his D.Phil degree in 18th-century French literature in 1958.
In September 1958 Lionel came to the United States. As he writes in his (unpublished) autobiography “In the Footsteps of Giants: My Itinerary from Glasgow to Princeton,” “… though I was suspicious of American power and appalled by the McCarthy witch hunts, I sensed the deep democratic instinct of the Americans and it appealed to me as a Scot. I felt instinctively that my Glasgow accent and my provincial lower-middle class Jewish background would not be held against me. I would be taken for who I was and allowed to become whatever I could make of myself.”
A full list of Lionel’s publications and academic honors are included in the Princeton University obituary: https://www.princeton.edu/news/2021/01/15/lionel-gossman.
Following is a small selection: Honors: The Howard T. Behrman Award, Princeton’s highest award for distinguished achievements in the humanities (1990); Officier des Palms Académiques (1991); elected to the American Philosophical Society (1996); and honorary degree of Doctor of Humanities, Princeton University (2005). Publications: “Men and Masks: A Study of Molière” (Johns Hopkins University 1963); “Medievalism and the Ideologies of the Enlightenment” (JHU, 1968); “Between History and Literature” (Harvard University Press, 1990); “Basel in the Age of Burkhardt,” awarded the George L. Mosse Prize for modern cultural history by American Philosophical Association (Chicago University Press 2000); “Brown Shirt Princess: A Study of the Nazi Conscience” (Openbook Publishers, 2009); “Thomas Annan of Glasgow: Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph” (Openbook Publishers, 2015); and “Scottish Publishers and English Literature: Some Smaller Publishers” (Victorian Web, December 2020).
Lionel is survived by his wife Eva; his daughter Janice, son-in law Michael Coppola and his son Nicholas; his sister-in-law Gabriella Weiss, and brother-in-law Alexander Ben Ami; his nephew Dr. Daniel Weiss (Debbie) and family; niece Ruth Bergman (Rabbi Aaron) and family; nephew Oded Ben Ami (Judy) and family; Rivka (Nivi) and family; Yair Ben Ami (Maya) and family; as well as many cousins in Glasgow, London, and Zurich.
Donations can be made to a charity of choice or to the American Friends of Glasgow University.
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Mandy Rabinovich
Mandy Rabinovich passed away peacefully in the early morning of January 16, 2021.
A longtime Princeton local who had lived all over the world, Menachem Mendel Rabinovich was born on January 30, 1927, in Bucharest, Romania. It was there, as a teenager, that he met Edith Hershkovich, his wife of 53 years whom he married in 1949, the same year the couple moved to Israel and started their family. Mandy always described Edith, known to all as Dita, as his soulmate. She passed away in 2002.
Mandy’s love of life, adventure, and travel took him all over the world. He raised his family on three continents — in Israel, Brazil, and Germany — exposing his children and grandchildren to multiple cultures. It wasn’t uncommon to hear four languages spoken over a single family dinner.
In their later years, Mandy and Dita settled in Princeton, where he would spend many hours drinking cappuccinos, in particular at Small World Coffee, and befriending baristas all over town. He was known for his warmth and his ability to make friends in a matter of minutes, extracting life stories and dispensing advice as only he could. “Health and luck,” he would say at the end of every conversation. “These are the most important things.”
Mandy is survived by his three children and one daughter-in-law: Shifra Rubin, Pnina Rabinovich, Alan Rabinovich, and Lina Rabinovich. He was also the beloved Saba of eight grandchildren – Itay, Noa, Deborah, Eli, Rafael, Shai, Dita, and Lucas – and four great-grandchildren – Matan, Ori, Mia, and Nuri.
His life affirming optimism, unusual sense of humor and electric smile will forever be remembered by those who knew him and loved him.
Funeral services and burial were Monday at Princeton Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to UNICEF USA (unicefusa.org).
To send condolences to the family visit OrlandsMemorialChapel.com.
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William H. Osborne III
William H. Osborne III, 91, formerly of Princeton, N.J., passed away on November 30, 2020, of COVID-19. He was a resident of Pacifica Senior Living in Santa Fe, NM.
Bill was born and raised in Newark and Maplewood, NJ. He attended Princeton University and served on the alumni committee for class of 1950. During the Korean War, he served as lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He worked many years as a Trust Officer at National Newark & Essex Bank, Midlantic Bank, and several other NJ banks. He served on the board of several charities, including the Job Haines Home for Unwed Mothers.
Bill was a voracious reader, avid cyclist, and photographer. After retiring, he loved traveling with his wife Lib, vacationing in Maine, and visiting family across the U.S. Bill was known and loved for his integrity and generosity, his gentlemanly charm, and dry humor.
He is survived by his sister, Joan O. Lautenberger; his three children, Lynn D. Osborne, Wendy O. Pierce, and William H. Osborne IV; and six grandchildren.
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Marjorie C. Horowitz
Marjorie C. Horowitz, 96, longtime Princeton resident, most recently residing at the Stonebridge at Montgomery retirement community in Skillman, New Jersey, passed away on January 4, 2021.
Marjorie, daughter of Dora and Barnett Chasen, and younger sister of Harriet, was born on June 19, 1924 in Newark, New Jersey, and lived in nearby New Brunswick for most of her youth. After graduating from high school, she attended optical school and worked as an optician in New York City before returning to New Jersey to marry her childhood best friend’s handsome older brother, Milton Horowitz. The Chasen and Horowitz families were longtime friends and the engagement was welcomed and celebrated.
Marjorie and Milton married in 1947. She moved to the Princeton area where Milton and his cousin had purchased Weber’s Training School and established a veterinary practice on Highway US 1. In those days, room and board were part of the kennelmen’s salary so she cooked three meals a day for her husband and six other hungry men. A tough job for a new bride.
Speaking of cooking, Margie made the best pies ever. The fruit filling was terrific, but her crust received top billing. If fruit pies were not to your liking, not to worry, her mandelbrot (Jewish biscotti) was a big hit with her friends and family. Nobody had just one helping of her brisket as well. Marjorie raised her two children, Carol and David, on the property. She was active in the community and was a founding member of the Princeton Jewish Center. She and Milton traveled the world together, and when in mid-life she, also, took up his hobby of fishing, “they fished all over the world” too. In later years, Marjorie became interested in stained glass. She made many beautiful lamps, mirrors, boxes, and window pieces. She loved the Yiddish language; she spoke, wrote, and read it fluently. She also belonged to a Yiddish reading and conversation group in Princeton.
She is lovingly remembered by her children, their spouses, her grandchildren, nieces, nephews, many friends, and her dearest friend of 90+ years and sister-in-law, Shirley Shapiro (née Horowitz). Due to current public health Covid precautions, there will not be a funeral service or gathering at this time. When conditions permit, a celebration of her life will be held.
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Lawrence Walter Howley
Lawrence Walter Howley, 84, passed away peacefully and returned to the Lord on January 12, 2021 at Princeton Care Center from complications with COVID related illness.
Mr. Howley was born on October 3, 1936 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to Anna (Benedyk) and James S. Howley. As a young man of 17 he enlisted in the Air Force but received a medical discharge. Mr. Howley relocated to Princeton with his family in the late 1950s. Mr. Howley was self-educated as a freelance writer. He especially enjoyed writing for children and contributed to children’s magazines. He was most proud of a piece titled “The Long Ride” taken from his childhood memories of sledding.
While residing in Princeton, “Larry and Susan” frequently visited the Princeton Public Library, enjoyed “going to the shore” and walks around town. Larry was a loving caretaker of his wife of 60 years, Susan, who suffered from medical issues in recent years. He was the best “big brother” and always had a quick wit. He will be dearly missed, as he was dearly loved.
He was preceded in death by his parents, and two brothers, James Neill Howley and John Timothy Howley. He is survived by his wife, Susanna Robertson Howley, and four sisters: Blanche M. Ropars, Naperville, IL; Linda Howley-Skuby, Bloomington, IL; Colleen Howley Gosselin, Charleston, IL; and Maureen (Randy) Pletcher, Springfield, IL. Susanna and Lawrence had no children but doted on their many nieces and nephews.
The family would like to extend special thanks to the dear neighbors on Bank Street, especially Mrs. Hannah Rosenberg and Chip and Jean Crider for their support of Larry and Susan during their time of need. Also, our brave nephew, Robert Howley, who was able to supervise the closing of their apartment of 50 years. In time of need, the staff of Princeton Care Center, and Dr. Barile, MD, were kind and generous with their support.
Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on January 15, 2021 at St. Paul’s Church. Burial followed in St. Paul’s Church Cemetery.
Arrangements are under the direction of Mather-Hodge Funeral Home, Princeton.
Donations may be made to charity of your choice.