Miriam “Mimi” Bressen Solomon Obituary (1927 - 2023)

Miriam (Mimi) Bressen Solomon, 96, passed away on 10 Nissan 5783 (April 1, 2023). Services will be at held at 11:30 am, April 4, 2023, in the sanctuary at Bnai Keshet Reconstructionist Synagogue, 99 South Fullerton Ave, Montclair, NJ. Following the funeral, mourners are invited to relax at Bnai Keshet, where light refreshments will be served. The extended family will sit shiva at Jolie and Lily's home on Tuesday. The family welcomes the congregation, friends and community to join them in sitting shiva from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm on Monday, April 10, with a minyan service & sharing of stories and memories starting between 7 and 7:30 pm at Jolie and Lily's home, 153 Valley Street (the Third and Valley Building), Apt. 134. For those unable to attend the funeral in person, the funeral will be broadcast over Zoom. See link below. Those asking about making contributions of food or donations, first of all thank you! If people want to contribute food that would be lovely, and we welcome any dish they feel like making. In lieu of flowers, the family would welcome donations in Mimi's memory to the South Mountain Conservancy PO. Box 273, South Orange, NJ 07079 (www.somocon.org/donate) or Alzheimer's New Jersey, Attn: Development Dept., 425 Eagle Rock Ave. Suite 203, Roseland, NJ 07068 (www.alznj.org) would be greatly appreciated. Condolence may be left at www.proutfuneralhome.com. Mimi was predeceased by her adored husband of 53 years, Emanuel ("Manny") I. Solomon, and her beloved sisters, sisters- and brothers-in-law (Louis and Beatrice Solomon, Harold Solomon, and Naomi and Jerome Bernstein, all formerly of Philadelphia; Judy and Albert Sarewitz formerly of South and West Orange, and Jeanne and Paul Epstein, formerly of Maplewood, as well as her sister-in-arms, Monnie Callan, formerly of New York City. She is survived by her children, Paul R. Solomon of Kalamazoo, MI; Jolie Solomon of South Orange, NJ, and Jonathan L. Solomon of Studio City, CA; her grandchildren, Ari Solomon of Washington, D.C., and Liliana Solomon of South Orange, NJ; and many nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews. To her own children and all the other children in her life, Mimi was a creative, sympathetic and enthusiastic spirit, whether teaching them how to hike or bake, making fabulous birthday cakes, inventing games out of ordinary household objects. She was untiring in reading them stories and poetry, singing and dancing with them ( "Little Boxes"! "Skip to My Lou"!) and hearing their worries or joys. Born (January 8, 1927) and raised in Philadelphia, Mimi graduated from Overbrook High School, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Pennsylvania State University and a Masters in Library Science from Rutgers University. Mimi and her husband, Manny raised their family and entertained a wide circle of family and friends in South Orange, NJ, and for one memorable year, in Leidschendam, the Netherlands. After Manny died in 2002, Mimi lived in Springfield, South Orange, and, in her final years, at Green Hill in West Orange. A shy but adventurous teenager and twenty-something, Mimi traveled with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) to Mexico in 1945 to work with the poor and learn Spanish, and to Norway/Finland in 1947 to do refugee and reconstruction work. From there, she made her way to Budapest to meeet her friend, Monnie Callan, for the Congress of the World Federation of Socialist Youth. Mimi met her husband, Manny, a World War II veteran, when both were campaigning for Henry Wallace, the Progressive Party candidate for president in 1948. Together, they were in Peekskill, NY in 1949 when the presence of singer and radical, Paul Robeson, provoked a riot while police did little to intervene. They were in Washington, DC in 1963 when Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. But their lifelong activism was local - they were founding members of the Fair Housing Committee in South Orange and Maplewood, opening a storefront office (where. Bill & Harry's Chinese restaurant now stands) that later hosted the local chapter of SANE and the anti-Vietnam War campaign. When Alzheimer's struck Mimi, one of the last memories she would recount repeatedly was about the white neighbors who refused invitations to sit down to dinner in the Solomon home with the first Black residents in town. Mimi was an early enthusiast in the Women's Rights' Movement, going to consciousness-raising groups and, before most other women she knew, going back to school for her master's degree, part-time, while raising her children. Manny was a natural feminist and keen supporter of Mimi in all she did. Mimi was a co-founder of one of the first reading groups in New Jersey, inspired by her daughter's group in Cincinnati --both groups unusual in that the members did their reading of literature (from Conrad to Shaw to Morrison) aloud, together. Mimi's group met regularly for 25 years. A consummate librarian-teacher in elementary schools in Verona and Summit for many decades, in "retirement" Mimi was a research librarian at Kean State University and, reinventing herself, worked as an archivist with the State Historical Society in Newark and the Essex County Parks Commission to document the history of Branch Brook Park and other New Jersey wildlands. Mimi was as much at home in the woods and wilderness as anywhere else. An avid hiker and paddler, she helped to mark trails, root out invasive woodland species and lead hikes for the South Mountain Conservancy--and her granddaughter's Brownie Scout troop. A member of New Jersey Paddlers, she canoed, most often with her paddling mentor, her sister Jeanne, from the New Jersey Pine Barrens to the Okefenokee Swamplands and in the waters of Portugal. But a particularly memorable trip was when she, Jeanne, and a small group, including members of the Takacz family of Maplewood portaged over many miles in the remote Northwest Territory of Canada. For Mimi and Manny together, the best place on earth was Mt. Desert Island in Maine, where they returned every summer. ZOOM LINK Topic: Miriam Bressen Solomon Funeral Zoom Join Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/9380561391 Meeting ID: 938 056 1391 One tap mobile +13126266799,,9380561391# US (Chicago) +16469313860,,9380561391# US