Margaret Feldman

MARGARET FELDMAN
ITHACA - Margaret Feldman died peacefully in her apartment in Ithaca, New York on November 7, 2009.
Throughout her life, she epitomized commitment and social change, and inspired these qualities in others. Born in Pennsylvania as the older of two girls to educator parents, the family moved several times and finally landed in southern California, after an adventurous car trip across the country in 1920. Margaret graduated during the depression in 1937 from Chapman College in Orange, California with a BA in Sociology and went on to earn an MS in Social Work from Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 1939. At Chapman, she was student body president during her senior year, the first woman to hold that office in any comparable college.
She married Harold Feldman, a psychologist, in 1943 in Washington, DC. They moved to Ithaca, New York when Harold joined the Department of Family Studies at Cornell. After their three children, Dorothy, Dick and Larry, were well launched, Margaret enrolled at Cornell for her PhD in educational psychology. In 1960, she joined the faculty of Ithaca College.
Margaret also ran for mayor of Ithaca in 1979; she had a respectable showing, campaigning as a liberal and opposing a large environmentally damaging road project.
While working in partnership with her husband, Margaret championed women's issues-sex education, adolescent pregnancy, family violence, aging, and "sexism". She is given credit for coining the word "sexism" in 1970. She and Harold traveled extensively, with year stays in Sri Lanka and Ghana. They attended the International Women's Conferences in Beijing and Kenya. In 1981, they both retired and began their move to Washington D.C. to address family policy issues.
In 1988 Margaret chaired the 25th anniversary of River Park Condominiums and began a seventeen year leadership role in Southwest DC. She organized the first community parade since the 1930s. She was president of the community association and considered a mentor to many causes. She herself felt very close to the community and its fate, and put a great deal of effort and insight into improving the lives of all its members. She was especially concerned that the people have a sense of their own history and integrity as a community. She was instrumental in organizing a walking history tour of SW DC with permanent plaques, and a mural at the entrance to the neighborhood.
Through these years, she was also the DC representative of the National Council on Family Relations. She attended many professional meetings on the hill and lobbied for family-friendly policies. She was a model of tireless and effective lobbying for many in the family and women's movements.
In 2005, she decided to move to Ithaca, New York where her son and daughter lived. Before she left, her friends held a goodbye party for her, attended by more than 150 people, including 2 DC councilmen. She was given plaques to commemorate her leadership in her large cooperative apartment, her community organizing, and her work in historic preservation. She spoke movingly of the need for people to work together closely and constructively, recognizing their shared fates. To demonstrate this she held an alligator symbol from Africa, with four bodies sharing one common stomach.
Her last years in Ithaca were peaceful, marked by many close moments with her family and a very loving and caring group of caregivers, Tari Riley, Rachel Riley, Amanda Curtis and Emma Stone. She is survived by her daughter, Dorothy Sholeen and her husband, John of Newfield, NY; her son, Dick Feldman and his wife, Beth McCammon of Ithaca, NY; and her son, Larry Feldman and his wife, Margaret Stempien of Indiana, PA; 7 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, Harold Feldman, in 1988.
To recollect and comment on her life, and to see pictures from the family and others, please visit http://margaretfeldman.org. If you would like to post a comment on the website, which we encourage, send it to Dick Feldman at dick.feldman@gmail.com. He will put it on the website. You may send pictures as well as text. There will be services in Ithaca and Washington in the next few months. These will be announced on the website. Please send any donations in her name to the Feldman Fund of the Groves Conference; the Ithaca Women's Opportunity Center; the (DC) SouthWest Neighborhood Association; or the (DC) Clearinghouse on Women's Issues. Margaret had many causes.