Jeree Pawl

Jeree Heeney Pawl

Celebrating the Life of Jeree H. Pawl

Jeree Heeney Pawl - beloved partner, mother, grandmother, aunt, friend, and visionary teacher – died peacefully in her Mill Valley home on November 19th 2021 at the age of 91.

From the start, Jeree knew that the ordinary world held extraordinary stories that she could learn and share. Her curiosity about human nature, endeavor and caprice was irrepressible. At the age of three, she used her little red chair to scale the fence surrounding her family's back yard in Farmington, Michigan and made her way to the near-by barber shop, where she earned her first pennies by singing for the patrons until the barber fetched her home. After one semester at Elmira College for Women, she undertook a summer internship at the Provincetown Playhouse in New York and was so captivated by her experiences with the theater and the teeming life of the city that she returned shortly, ultimately working as the secretary to the art editor of Condé Nast. During her years in New York, she attended classes at NYU, Columbia, and the New School for Social Research. She frequented book shops and cafés and made friends for life.

Seeking to formalize her studies, Jeree enrolled at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she swiftly earned first her BA, and then her doctorate in psychology. In the mid 1960s she joined the clinical staff of the Children's Psychiatric Hospital in Ann Arbor, where she quickly became known as a gifted clinician and a highly prized supervisor. She subsequently joined world-renowned social worker and psychoanalyst Selma Fraiberg in the university's Child Development Project.

In 1979, Fraiberg and her clinical team were invited to join the Department of Psychiatry at the University of CA, San Francisco. They started the Infant-Parent Program at San Francisco General Hospital to address the needs of very young children and their families, as well as the community professionals who served them. In 1981, Dr. Pawl assumed the directorship of the program, which she stewarded expertly for nearly two decades. While tending to the daily functioning of this community-based program in the heart of San Francisco's mission district, Dr. Pawl was also instrumental in the development of ZERO TO THREE: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families, and was elected President of the Board in 1994. Her professional writing and speaking helped the world to see and feel the vital importance of a field as it was being born: the field of infant and early childhood mental health.

Jeree possessed an almost uncanny ability to "feel her way" into the experience of others. She helped adults to understand the meanings expressed in the behavior of infants and toddlers. Parents too felt understood, even in their most bitter conflicts, and were able to embody more fully the parent they wished to be, thanks to her unflinching attention to their experience. Practitioners across disciplines felt heard and valued by her, and their commitment to working on behalf of infants, toddlers, families and caregivers was galvanized by her guidance and vision. A key element of that vision was captured in her famous adage, 'How you are is as important as what you do.' Through her writing and presenting, teaching and training, consultation and supervision, Dr. Pawl mentored and inspired thousands of professionals, seeding the field and inspiring programs and policies regionally, nationally, and world-wide.

A devoted and creative mother, Jeree took delight in parenting, sharing with her daughters and their father her own sense that the world is intriguing and rewarding. She encouraged family art projects, puppet shows, sledding parties, and music. A generation later, she embraced the role of grandmother with equal generativity and joy. In particular, gatherings at the "Red House" in Michigan allowed full scope for play and discovery, creating indelible memories. Across the years, she wove an extended network of family and friends that has comforted, sustained and enriched the lives of all who are a part of it.

Jeree brought brilliance, enthusiasm, irreverence and wit to everything she undertook. A consummate storyteller, she leaves all of us the gift of confidence that however inscrutable it may appear, experience can be understood, and that healing and transformation follow from sharing our human stories.

Jeree is survived by her devoted partner Dr. Judith Pekarsky; her daughters Amy Pawl (Frank Grady) of St. Louis and Meg Pawl Johnson (David Pawl Johnson) of Farmington Hills, MI; four grandchildren, Emma Jeree and Spencer Byrne Grady-Pawl, and Victoria Jeree and Lillian Louise Pawl Johnson; her niece Eve Beglarian; and her cousin Chris Janiec.

Jeree's family invites those wishing to make a contribution to the Infant-Parent Program's Jeree H. Pawl Memorial Fund to do so here: makeagift.ucsf.edu/jereepawl. If making a contribution by check, please write "Jeree H. Pawl Memorial Fund" in the memo line and mail via USPS to: UCSF Foundation, Lockbox 45339, San Francisco, CA 94145-0339 OR via Fedex, UPS, etc. to: Lockbox/Item Processing Operations, MUFG Union Bank, N.A., 501 Canal Boulevard, Suite E, Richmond, CA 9480, Attn: UCSF Foundation Lockbox 45339.