Phyllis Irene Jaffe

1932 - 2019

Phyllis Irene Jaffe

Salisbury - Phyllis Irene Gillie Jaffe, Phd., MDiv, died at home in Salisbury on Monday, December 31, 2018. She was 86 years old.

Jaffe was born on January 25, 1932 in Marion, Indiana and is the daughter of the late Warren Everett Norris and Alta Virginia Erlewine. Jaffe has lived in Salisbury with her husband, Dr. Leonard H. Jaffe, since 2009.

In addition to her husband, Jaffe is survived by her son, Matthew Danielson of Hillsboro, Virginia and his wife Maureen Tucker; step-daughter Louise Jaffe and her husband, Richard Casey of Malibu, California and their daughters, Margaret Casey of Boston and Nora Sorena Casey of New York City; and step-son Frank Jaffe and his wife Carol Riotti of Raymond, Maine; their son, Samuel Jaffe of Boston, Massachusetts and daughter Sara Jaffe of Portland, Maine.

Phyllis Jaffe was an art educator, businesswoman, ordained priest and artist. She received her doctorate degree in education from Indiana University in 1969 and held faculty positions at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Indiana University-Indianapolis and served as the president of Kendall School of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan for ten years.

After retiring from academia, she served as a business consultant with the International Executive Service Corps in Eastern Europe, Russia, India and Nepal and served as the Interim Executive Director of the National YWCA.

In her later career Jaffe pursued theological studies, earned a Masters Degree in Divinity from Wesley Seminary in Washington, D.C. and became an ordained minister in 2006. She then served as a hospital chaplain at the National Institute of Health, and Sibley and George Washington University Hospitals in Washington, D.C. where she ministered to multi-cultural and multi-racial patients until 2009.

Jaffe was also an accomplished artist who exhibited her abstract paintings throughout the U.S. and in Paris, France and Malmo Sweden. Recently her work has been exhibited in Annapolis, Cambridge, Easton, Ocean City and Salisbury.

Friends and family are invited to a celebration of Jaffe's life at noon on Saturday, January 5, 2019 at Holloway Funeral Home, 501 Snow Hill Road in Salisbury.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests gifts to local arts organizations to support arts education in public schools.