Shirl Lee Pitesky

1930 - 2022

December 17, 1930 - October 16, 2022 Shirl was born in Chicago to immigrant parents who escaped from Russia (now Ukraine) just before the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. She attended Northwestern University on a music scholarship when the University still had admission quotas for Jewish students. In her early twenties, Shirl moved with her family to Los Angeles, finishing her college education at UCLA and meeting her future husband Sheldon Pitesky, also an avid musician.

Shirl's great love of music permeated her life. As a teacher with LAUSD, she introduced generations of kindergarteners and first-graders to anatomy via styrofoam stick figures, reading (see the film "Regarding Henry" for a grammar lesson–administered to Harrison Ford– as commemorated by a former student) and classical music via classroom performances of Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore and Saint- Saëns' Carnival of the Animals. As the long-time organist, choir director, and occasional liturgical composer at Leo Baeck Temple, she was a familiar black-robed presence. Her children delighted in telling people that their mom played for the Dodgers (once).

Her days and years were filled with travel, cutting coupons, telling everyone to "be careful", reading the LA Times and a slew of health newsletters from front to back, caring for beloved English Bulldogs, classical music (especially Mozart and Bach) but also opera, jazz, and even military music, watching professional basketball, practicing the piano, battling against attempts to take advantage of her as a customer, practical jokes, wit, and studying about the history of Victorian England. She knitted sweaters, sewed Halloween costumes, embroidered Judaic ritual articles, catered her childrens' b'nei mitzvah and made cheese blintzes using a massively heavy frying pan brought over from "the old country." Her commitment to, and love and support of, her family were constants in her life, aside from occasions such as when her husband decided to start remodeling the kitchen – starting with demolishing the kitchen countertop - right before the arrival of brunch guests. Shirl could also lie extraordinarily convincingly, a useful skill when raising young children. In many ways she was an anachronism with respect to technology, pace of life, love of Victorian history, and thriftiness, but these characteristics all added to who she was and why she was so beloved by students, Leo Baeck Temple members, and her family.

She is survived by Sheldon Pitesky, her husband of 66 years; children Jo Eliza, Raymond (Lisa), and Maurice (Mackenzie Johnson); and her seven grandchildren Shana and Chava Friedman, Gianna and Ryan Pitesky, Zephyr, Isadora, and Heron Pitesky. She was pre-deceased by her son Stuart and her son-in-law Bill Friedman.

Services will be held at Eden Memorial Park on Thursday, October 20 at 1 PM. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the American Lung Association, The Muscular Dystrophy Association, or a Jewish organization of your choice.