Rabbi Jon-Jay Tilsen of Congregatin Beth El Keser Israel in Westville sent in the following eulogy of former New Havener Rose Goldring Brunswick, a suffragette, unionist, rights activst, Zionist, and great-great grandmother. She died Oct. 17 at the age of 100.
Rose Brunswick, daughter of Abraham & Rebecca Renett Goldring, grew up in Hartford, along with her siblings Sylvia, Jacob and Samuel. Her parents were European Jewish immigrants, union organizers and feminists. As a child, Rose stood in the picket lines with her father and attended women’s suffrage rallies with her mother.
She worked hard much of her life and was a leader and supporter of worker’s rights, aid to refugees and immigrants, women’s rights, civil rights, and Jewish national rights in Ottoman-occupied Palestine, British-occupied Palestine and in Israel. She felt compassion for the oppressed and translated her sentiments into action.
Her anti-war sentiments were influenced by the experience of her father, a Warsaw native, who had been conscripted into the Czar’s army in 1904. She was a local leader in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
Rose was only 9 ½ years old when the 19th Amendment was adopted, granting women the right to vote in the United States, a right that she exercised when she voted for FDR in 1932. She voted in every election since then.
Rose visited her parents in Hartford frequently, and brought the children with her from New Haven to see their grandparents. She maintained close and loving relationships with her siblings and their families.
Rose held numerous jobs. When she worked as wait staff she also worked to organize and support the restaurant workers.
She was arrested during a peaceful demonstration in Washington DC in 1936. Back in New Haven, she worked at the Taft and the New Haven hotel. Later she worked as a cashier, and then as a bookkeeper for a number of law, real estate and insurance firms. In each situation, she strove to organize and support her fellow workers, while taking pride in her own work ethic as a valuable, hard-working employee.
Rose met George Brunswick at a political event, and then eloped with him to spare their families the cost of a wedding, preferring a small ceremony with a rabbi in New York.
With George, Rose created a loving home for their children Barbara and Max, and for the late Myra. In addition to involving the children in the important work of advancing the causes of social justice, Rose was home every day to meet them during their school lunch break (note: kids used to go home for lunch), took the kids on outings to the zoo and similar destinations, and to Hebrew school.
Rose tried to provide the best educational opportunities to her children and to support their interests, whether it was hosting a Jewish youth group in their home or helping them network to find jobs. She provided logistic and emotional support during the difficult periods that her children faced, just as she had enjoyed their support and that of her family in her times of illness, loss and distress. She was proud of their accomplishments and their dedication to their shared ideals.
She was deliberate about the values and lifestyle choices she made as she raised her children. She sent her son Max to kindergarten as a young reader. Because reading and education were central values of her people, she chose that value over TV entertainment even in an era when people actually found television entertaining. She walked to work, school and shopping because it was free, civic-minded and
healthful; even in her later years, a “little walk” might easily have been three miles after dinner.
Over the years, Rose participated in and volunteered in numerous labor and union causes, as well as peace groups, and later the Anti-Defamation League, all along including her children.
She took her daughter Barbara on an all-night bus trip to Washington DC for a demonstration during the trial of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg, showing her daughter first-hand the race-segregated facilities of our nation’s capitol – the “white only” and “colored” drinking fountains and public accommodations.
Rose was a proud and involved grandmother to David, Karen, Janice, Lauren, and Amy, and the late Donna, and to their partners and spouses; and a proud great-grandmother to Sarah, Myra, Rebecca, Woody and Nathan and their spouses and partners; and a great-great grandmother to Joseph and Solomon. The many times she looked after the grandchildren, strolled and walked with them, celebrating holidays and sharing
meals, and allowing them the opportunity to fulfill the religious obligation of honoring one’s parents by driving her to appointments and activities in her later years – all of these created important bonds between the generations.
Rose saw a world transformed; she had a hand in that transformation, particularly in the progressive developments. She was blessed with a life filled with meaning and love, and with a family to whom she passed on her highest ideals, a family whom she nurtured and who cared for her in return. She was honored in her final years and received the continuing care and love of her children.