Rachel was born in 1936 and grew up happily in Newton and Brookline as the oldest of four children. Her father was a hematologist at MGH, and the family identified with the Harvard/Brooks Brothers upper-class Boston style. She attended Mount Holyoke for two years, but that was her father’s choice, not hers. Even at that age, she was not one to tolerate a situation she deemed unsatisfactory, and she transferred to the University of Chicago, from which she graduated with a major in the history of science and a fiancé a decade older, Myron Rosenblum. The couple wed and moved to Lexington when Myron, an organic chemist, found a job at Brandeis. In 1960 they bought the house in which they still live.
Rachel completed the Master’s program in History of Science at Harvard but, after much agonizing, decided that she did not have enough to offer the field. Instead, she stayed home with their young daughter, and although she admits to having had some identity issues, she felt basically satisfied with her life as wife and mother. Never one to sit still, however, she began to study the Montessori method in a small study group that evolved into the Montessori School of Lexington, first housed in a rental space at Temple Isaiah. A teacher was hired, but the process proved difficult, especially after a child was abused. Finally a member of the original study group took over and remained as head of the school for several decades. In the 1960s the current building on Pleasant Street became available and the rest is history.
At Brandeis Rachel was active in the family wives group. In the style of the early sixties, the wives favored “formal” and “gourmet” dinner parties, which helped create a wonderful community among faculty members and their spouses. The group also initiated the Open Housing listing at Brandeis wherein home owners committed to accepting people of color. In 1961 Rachel’s son, Jonathan, was born. Then the family spent the year 1965-1966 on sabbatical in London and Haifa, and she returned to Lexington pregnant with her daughter Leah. It was during this period that Rachel rethought her life and decided she really wanted training in a field in which she could be useful to others. In the end, she decided on social work, largely because of the flexible hours it offered. She completed the program in 1972, after five years of study.
Rachel’s emphasis in her studies and her work was on community organizing and education. After spending a year in Jerusalem in 1972, she returned home and began her first job, at Concord Middle School. The following year an opportunity opened up for a new special education program in which social workers were needed to represent the families. Rachel remained in the special education field from 1974 until her retirement in 1996, during which time her responsibilities were ever-changing and never-endingly interesting. She was involved with high school evaluations, worked with families and students in special education at the high school, and worked on behalf of special education students placed by the system in private settings. She took great pleasure in supervising graduate students at the BU School of Social Work where she became an adjunct faculty member.
Myron retired the same year as Rachel, 1966, and the couple took to traveling, living in some of the places they visited. At this time Rachel also discovered weaving when her mother presented her with a loom and irresistibly beautiful fibers. Rachel still works with the Lexington Weavers’ Guild and still derives enormous pleasure from working with color and texture. Her preference is the creation of big pieces such as shawls and blankets.
In the early eighties, Rachel, along with Kay Tiffany (like Rachel a member of Adams), got involved in the Nuclear Freeze movement, working with Lester Around to found the Lexington group and working as well with state and national groups. She also joined Lexington’s Democratic Town Committee and functioned as chair for a time. There were still other needs to be met, and Rachel founded a statewide group to push campaign finance reform, succeeding in getting the issue added to the Democratic platform. But wait—we’re not through yet. In addition, Rachel has been a member of Common Cause since its founding, earning a place on its board (starting in 2012) and a position as chair of the Massachusetts Common Cause organization. Her area of responsibility was development and events, and this organization continues to be a major commitment in her life.
In 2008 Myron was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and the couple was forced to rethink the big questions associated with aging. Out of this rethinking came the idea for Lexington at Home, spurred by an article on a volunteer “at home” organization in Princeton, New Jersey. Not surprisingly, Rachel turned the idea into a reality in Lexington. And so here we are, seven years later, about 130 people pledged to bond and support one another. Life remains rich for both Rachel and Myron, with LAH in particular opening many levels of satisfaction.
And on the topic of levels of satisfaction, there are, of course, Rachel and Myron’s children and grandchildren.. Miriam, the oldest, lives in Denver with her husband and has three children in their twenties. Miriam is a Yale- trained musician who plays Klezmer, Baroque, folk, and just about everything else on the oboe and clarinet. She teaches and performs and has also worked as a computer programmer.
Their son Jonathan is 53 and lives in Seattle with his wife and two daughters. He is a labor union organizer who works basically in health care, also doing some intra-union work. Working to institute a $15 minimum wage throughout Seattle airport, Jonathan has now turned to writing about the labor movement and its need to reach beyond organizational boundaries to develop working collaboration with community and spiritual leaders.
Youngest child Leah became enchanted with Paris on her Year Abroad from Wesleyan and now lives there with her partner. Originally a classical ballet dancer, Leah became a member of a Parisian modern dance company. Ultimately, however, she needed to move on and now teaches English as a Second Language in a university, in the arts conservatory, and privately, all of which she enjoys immensely. In addition, she and her partner teach tango dancing in their program several nights a week.
One of my favorite quotations seems an apt conclusion to this profile. It is attributed to Robert Kennedy, but it suits Rachel at least as well:
There are those who look at things the way they are and ask why? . . . I dream of things that never were and ask why not?
Rachel has been asking “Why not?” all her life. May she continue to do so for a very long time.
