William Seymour Calem MD

William Seymour Calem, 98, was born in Bronx, New York, May 22, 1927, to Jacob and Celia Calm of Manor Avenue. His father, an immigrant from the Pale of Settlement arrived alone at Ellis Island at the age of 11 and eventually brought all his siblings to America to join him. He met Celia Bromson on the Lower East Side, where she grew up.

William was their adored only child. He grew up among a close-knit group of aunts, uncles and cousins on his mother's side, while visiting his father's family, most of whom had settled in Brooklyn. From a strict Orthodox household, as a young boy, he attended the neighborhood shul with his father for daily morning minyan, and was a bar mitzvah there in May 1940.

He also had a close group of boyhood friends, including a best friend, Bill Miller, who shared his birthday. They remained in touch throughout his life, but he outlived them all. William excelled in school, particularly in math and science, earning admission to the competitive Townsend Harris High School. When the school closed his sophomore year, he transferred to the local high school, James Monroe, graduating early, at 17. He was admitted to City College of New York, the CUNY system's most selective, where he majored in physics. His college education was interrupted after a year, when in 1945 he was drafted into the US Navy. He spent the next year at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Wisconsin, training to be a radio operator. He was honorably discharged in 1946 and returned to City College to graduate from there in 1949, with a bachelor's degree in physics.

From there, professional ambition took him to SUNY Downstate College of Medicine. During his last year of medical school, a mutual family friend introduced him to my

mother, Lillian Herszkorn. They married in June 1953, a month after his graduation from SUNY Downstate and made their first home in Brooklyn near Maimonidies Hospital where he was an intern in general surgery. Their first child, Jane Ruth, was born in May 1954, followed by three siblings: Paul Seth in June 1956; Judith Ann in July 1959; and Robert Ethan in August 1963.

By then William had completed his surgery residency at Kings County Medical Center and the Brooklyn V.A. Hospital. After a brief interlude in private practice in Brooklyn, he became Chief of Surgery at Greenpoint Hospital, with the family relocating to a new home in Roslyn, NY, in 1965.

When an opportunity presented itself to launch a private practice on the south shore of Long Island, he left Greenpoint and opened an office on Broadway in Hewlett, NY,

remaining there for some twenty years. The family relocated from Roslyn to Hewlett Harbor in 1969.

Retirement at 62, in 1989, meant time for him and Lillian to travel extensively, touring many countries in Europe and visiting America's magnificent national parks, as well as spend time with family and friends. A lifelong lover of history, he never tired of reading about periods in American history, particularly the Civil War. Family vacations to

Colonial Williamsburg and Washington, DC were highlights of family roadtrips in the 1960s. As a boy, he collected stamps and coins and had an enviable First Day Cover

collection! He also loved dessert flora, insisting we all trek around the arid landscape in Southern California near Palm Springs on a rare trip out west with the family in the

summer of 1967.

His final decades, since 1999, were spent in Hoboken. He lived his life with drive, determination, honesty and integrity, honoring his parents and Jewish tradition. Pre-deceased by Lillian in 2016, William is survived by his four children, Jane (Richard Rosen); Paul (Edith Mandujano); Judy (Irving Lieberman); and Robert; grandchildren

Joanna Rosen, VMD; Sarah Rosen Beier, MD (Matthew Beier); Elizabeth Rosen (Russell Kornblith); Andrew Mandujano; and David Lieberman; and three great grandchildren: Louis and Celia Kornblith and Eleanor Beier.

Please also see Facebook post below, by Jane Rosen:

https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/giving

https://host.nxt.blackbaud.com/donor-form/?svcid=renxt...

My dad, William S. Calem, MD, died earlier this week at 98 1/2 years of age, in peace and comfort, at his home in Hoboken, NJ.

A Depression baby, he lived the American dream, building his career as a surgeon, a family with my mother, his wife of 63 years until her death in 2016, and buying their first home on Long Island in 1965.

One essential facet of his journey, something that made it all possible, was the free public education he had, beginning in the Bronx where he grew up. Graduating early from James Monroe High School, he continued his education at City College of New York, long considered one of the country's finest institutions of higher education, the "poor man's Harvard," and producer of multiple Nobel prizewinners over the decades. His professional studies then took him to SUNY Downstate College of Medicine, where he graduated in surgery and took residency at Kings County Medical Center and the Brooklyn V.A. Hospital before entering private practice.

Without this free, accessible public education, his success would have been far from guaranteed, his promise and potential possibly unrealized. Education was a core value in our home, the key to a fulfilling life of the mind as well as to a pathway to fulfilling life's dreams and ambitions.

Please join me in supporting today's and future generations with a gift to CUNY's City College and SUNY Downstate College of Medicine in my dad's memory. Links above to make a one-time donation.