Elayne Baliff

1936 - 2024

BALIFF, Elayne, 87, passed away peacefully with her beloved family on March 26, 2024, in Houston, TX. She was preceded in death by her beloved parents, David Marks and Frieda Heller Marks.

Elayne is survived by daughter Elizabeth (David) Baliff of Brooklyn, NY, and their daughter Emma; son Jonathan (Barbara) Baliff of Houston, TX, and their children Noah, Sam, and Eve; her brother Ira (Frances) Marks of Highland Park, NJ, and their sons Brendan and Thomas (Sloane) Marks of Richmond, VA.

Elayne was a master teacher, serving students and faculty for almost 50 years in NYC, Mecklenburg County, NC, and Henrico County Virginia Public Schools. She left an indelible mark on Tuckahoe Middle School in Richmond, VA where she was Chair of the History Department, teaching middle schoolers World and American History and mentoring teachers in all departments. She was also one of the first middle school teachers in America to lead students on annual trips to the United Kingdom and Continental Europe with the American Council for International Studies, a program she helped inaugurate in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Elayne was born in The Bronx in 1936 at a time of extreme change for the city, the country and the world as a whole. She graduated with honors from Walton High School in 1954. As the first person in her family to go to college, Elayne graduated with honors with a BS in Education in 1958 from City College of New York. She took a Master's in History from CCNY in 1962 while also beginning her teaching career in New York City.

Elayne loved CCNY (Dr. Jonas Salk was her biology professor and graduation commencement speaker) and was active in student government, the volleyball team, and Phi Alpha Theta, the History National Honor Society. She was a popular student, known for her sense of hilarity and laughter. Later in life, friends would remark that you could triangulate Elayne Baliff's humor somewhere between Joan Rivers, Elaine May, and Elaine Stritch.

As New York City was in tumultuous decline in the 1960s and 1970s, Elayne took a chance with her young family and moved south – first to Charlotte, NC and then to the suburbs of Richmond, VA. There, she was a successful teacher and administrator but also active with causes dear to her heart – literacy and women's rights. A life-long Democrat, she was a constant presence during local, state, and national election cycles, driving fellow Dems to the polls. Elayne also always made a point of stating her Jewish credentials: her family was religious, and she went regularly to synagogue. She was an active member of Congregation Beth Ahabah in Richmond where later in life she studied Hebrew and was Bat Mitzvahed. When she moved to Houston, she was a proud member of Congregation Beth Yeshurun, where she was an ever-present member in the front row on Shabbat morning with her family – enjoying the B'nei Mitzvah she loved to teach.

As much as Elayne's success in teaching and education leadership were noteworthy, above all else, she was an incredibly devoted and capable mother and mother-in-law, sister and sister-in-law, daughter, and aunt. In 1977, she became both matriarch and patriarch of the Baliff family, raising two highly energetic and challenging children. Elayne's attentiveness to "Her Elizabeth" and "Her Jonathan" allowed them to achieve individual independence, an unbounded love of learning, a deep devotion to Jewish faith and values, and an unwavering commitment to family, especially one's elders. She lost her mother Frieda too early and was the most dazzling daughter to her father David, a 35-year veteran of the NYC Fire Department, whom she lovingly cared for in Richmond until his death in 1999.

Elayne was aided in her journey by a group of strong-willed, highly educated, and similarly minded women who were indispensable throughout her life. At every stage of her long life, she was blessed with friendships that softened the blows of unfair circumstances, expanded her world and worldview, and aided in the raising of her children. Friends like Professor Ricki Murphy, Anne Rockman and Marylou Buck, Dr. Terry Vance and her husband Mike, Jackie Warren and Jane Linus, her sister-in-law Frances and daughter-in-law Barbara provided hours of laughter at bridge and mahjong tables, vacations, and meals.

Over the past 28 years, Elayne took on the role she will want to be remembered most fondly: grandmother to four incredible individuals: Noah, Sam, Emma, and Eve. To say she was the typical Jewish grandmother would be an understatement. Elayne Baliff's delight in her grandchildren is legendary. She had distinct relationships with each grandchild as infants, teens, and adults and treated them like the incredibly singular, wonderfully gifted, and individually superior people they are. She regaled her friends with stories, both brief and extended, about honors achieved, classmates bettered, and challenges overcome. Unconditional love of her grandchildren, and their love of Elayne, will be the highest of her enduring legacies.

Although Elayne's Master's dissertation was on the US Constitution, where even at the end of her life she could correct you on specific articles and amendments, she loved the language of the Declaration of Independence. And one verse stood out for her: "Let Facts be submitted to a Candid World." The fact is that Elayne Baliff was both a one-of-a-kind woman and a classic example of a woman of her generation – a Jew and an American; a New Yorker and a Southerner; a very serious woman and a tender daughter, mother and grandmother. May her memory be a blessing as she lives on in the generations to come.

A memorial service will be held on April 7, 2024, at noon at Congregation Beth Yeshurun, 4525 Beechnut Street, Houston, TX 77096 with lunch to follow.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Elayne's favorite cause, Childhood and Adult Literacy: The Children's Literacy Initiative; The Virginia Literacy Foundation; or the Barbara Bush Literacy Foundation.