Hope Robinson

Hope Madeline Robinson
Hope Robinson, 85, of Livingston, NJ, died at home on October 29th, 2024, after a long battle with pulmonary fibrosis. She was predeceased by the mainstays of her life: her husband, Robby, and her mother, Sally. She is survived by her 3 beloved children and their spouses, Lori and her husband TJ; Mitchell and his wife Kristine; and David — and 7 beloved grandchildren — Gabriel, Abby, Ashley, Ella, Ari, Sophia, and Eve — all of whom miss her deeply. A graveside service will be held at 1pm on Sunday, November 10th at Cedar Park Cemetery, 735 Forest Avenue, Paramus, NJ.

Hope was born on September 4th, 1939 in Brooklyn, NY, and grew up in Brooklyn and Queens. During her early childhood, she was raised in a multigenerational, Yiddish- and English-speaking family (her first words were in Yiddish). Although an only child, she grew up surrounded by family: her maternal grandparents, her mother, her aunt and uncle, their spouses, and her two cousins. Her strongest influences were her grandmother, Yetta, known as Bubby; her mother, Sarah, known as Sally; and her aunt, Betty, Sally’s sister. Hope remembered this period of her life vividly and shared many stories of it with her children.

The stories she didn’t share for many years were the stories of the loss and hardship she suffered as a child. Her parents’ marriage was unhappy and brief. Her father owned a pet store, and as Sally put it, “He was kinder to animals than he was to me.” He was neither a loving husband nor loving father, and Sally divorced him when Hope was 3 years old. After the divorce, apart from a single, unwelcome visit when Hope was a teenager, her father had no contact with his daughter for the rest of her life. Her mother’s second marriage, which lasted through Hope’s teen years, was little better, at least from a parenting perspective. Her stepfather, a policeman, was an alcoholic. Sally kicked him out and took him back numerous times, and what Hope mostly recalled of their marriage was their frequent, intense fighting.

Given the instability and tumultuousness of her mother’s marriages, Hope’s most consistent and uncomplicated source of love and support was her Aunt Betty, whom Hope loved deeply. Hope was 14 years old when Betty died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. The loss was devastating.

Hope loved theater from an early age. She won the “Danny Kaye” award at her middle school, and was accepted into New York’s prestigious High School of Performing Arts, where she hoped to develop her acting and dancing talents. Unfortunately, the school wasn’t a good fit for Hope, and she transferred to regular public school after her first year. Years later, when she saw the Broadway show A Chorus Line and heard the song “Nothing,” she said it was just like her experience at Performing Arts.

When Hope was 16, one of her cousins introduced her to Herman (Robby) Robinson, who would eventually become the love of her life. Once they started dating, it didn’t take him long to fall in love with her, but it took her considerably longer to fall in love with him. A major reason was their age difference: he was five years older, in his early 20’s, while she was still a teenager. Hope’s mother and grandmother, however, thought Robby was an excellent catch — a nice, respectable young man studying to be a doctor! When Robby proposed to her, Bubbe and Sally pressured Hope to accept. And so, at age 18, Hope Naumann was married to Herman Robinson on April 13, 1958. Their marriage grew to be a very close and loving one, and lasted for 55 years, until Robby passed away in 2013.

After graduating high school, Hope matriculated at Queens College, CUNY, where she majored in English literature. In 1960 she received her B.A. and then followed in her mother’s footsteps by becoming an elementary-school teacher. For just over a year, while Robby pursued his medical training, Hope taught in the same school as Sally, until pregnancy required her to stop working. From then on, family was the central focus of Hope’s life.

She and Robby lived in Queens for the first several years of their marriage, and their first two children were born there: Lori in 1963, David in 1965. Robby was then drafted into military service, because of the Vietnam War. He chose the Navy, and they moved to Camp Pendleton, just outside of San Diego, where Robby served as a doctor on the marine base, and where Mitchell, their third child, was born in 1967. A year later, when Robby had completed his service, they moved back to Queens, and then, a short while later, to Livingston, New Jersey, where they lived for the rest of their lives.

Hope poured almost all her love and energy into her family: into building a successful, loving marriage with her husband; into being a loving daughter to her mother; into raising her children, providing them with the foundations and love they needed to succeed in life; and, much to her joy in later life, into being a devoted grandmother.

One of Hope’s greatest gifts to her children and grandchildren was that she did everything in her power to support their relationship with Sally. Few children have a grandmother or great-grandmother as loving as Sally was.

Nurturing those relationships was one of Hope’s greatest gifts to Sally as well. Hope had fully forgiven Sally for her shortcomings as a mother, and understood that Sally herself, although loved by her own mother, had been deeply wounded by her as well (although Sally was the most devoted of Bubbe’s children, Bubbe always showed greater love to her son, Jack, and her elder daughter, Betty). Sally loved Hope very deeply, and Hope loved her very deeply in return. Their relationship was a central pillar in each of their lives.

While her family always came first, Hope also treasured her friends. Some of her friendships stretched back many decades: to her years as a young wife and mother; to her years at Queen College; even to her single year at Performing Arts high school. Other friendships were more recent. But however long or short the friendship, Hope could always be counted on to send you a birthday card each year; to call you to catch up if months had passed since your last conversation; and to check in on you frequently when you were ill or had suffered a loss.

Family and friendship wound themselves through Hope’s other interests in life. Hope loved going to Broadway shows; traveling; listening to music, especially American popular standards; being physically active, especially through tennis, skiing, or golf; watching British mystery series on TV; going to street fairs or antique shows; and reading. But unlike Robby, who happily spent countless hours on his own, enjoying opera, photography, or reading, Hope always wanted to share her interests and pastimes with family and friends.

As for the larger world, Hope always kept up to date on current affairs. She wouldn’t have described herself as political, and she wasn’t an activist, but she believed in liberal values such as compassion, fairness, equality, and inclusion, and she imparted these values to her children. In her final years, the sickening transformation in American politics — the country’s turn toward hatred, bigotry, violence, dishonesty, and selfishness — distressed her greatly.

A more longstanding and more personal source of pain was that none of her children or grandchildren lived close by, a situation made even more painful during the final decade of her life, which included the deaths of both Robby and Sally; a great deal of physical pain from a number of injuries and illnesses; and the isolation caused by the COVID pandemic. But while Hope never stopped wishing her children and grandchildren lived nearby, she never let physical distance prevent her from having close relationships with them. She did all she could to keep the family connected, not just with her but also with each other. Even though her children and grandchildren were eventually spread across a continent and an ocean, over the course of many years she created countless opportunities to bring everyone together, and strove to nurture strong, loving family bonds that would outlast her. She succeeded.

Although she had little respite from physical suffering during the last year of her life, she never let that stop her from sharing joy and love with her children and grandchildren, all of whom spent time with her during that year. And she derived great comfort from her son David moving in with her and taking care of her for her final months. In their last conversation, a few days before she died, Hope was filled with gratitude for all the love in her life. David was beside her, holding her hand, throughout the final hours of her life. Her passing, when it came, was peaceful.

Hope’s children will be sitting shiva at her home (53 Rockledge Drive, Livingston, NJ) on Monday, November 11th and Tuesday, November 12th, from 11am to 4pm.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in Hope’s memory to her favorite charity, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (https://www.stjude.org/).