Theodore Grossman: 1940 – 2014

— from Anna Kay Grossman —

Theodore (Ted) Grossman was born December 1, 1940, in Waterbury, Connecticut, to Nicolas and Adlah Grossman. He graduated from Crosby High School in 1958. He was a member of the golf team and the school newspaper staff.

He attended Lafayette College in Easton, PA where he majored in History and was a member of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity. He was on the editorial staff of the college newspaper, The Lafayette, for all four years, serving as Layout Editor, Managing Editor, and Sports Editor. After graduating from Lafayette, he attended Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Chicago to pursue his interest in journalism.

Ever idealistic, he left graduate school in1963, to join the Peace Corps. It was in Peace Corps training in Hilo, Hawaii, that he met his future wife, Anna (Kay) Flaxel. They were assigned to adjacent islands in the Philippines, and continued their courtship, commuting by ferry to see each other on weekends. They were married February 28, 1964, at the Archbishop’s Palace, Jaro, Iloilo Province.

Upon completing Peace Corps, he attended Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan, majoring in History. He completed his doctoral oral exams, and received a Fulbright Scholarship to the Philippines (Manila) and Spain (Segovia and Seville) to conduct research for his doctoral dissertation on the role of Filipinos in the Spanish Colonial Army. While in Manila, he taught a class in American History at the University of Santo Tomas.

After returning the states in 1970, Ted got a job teaching history at Southwestern University, in Georgetown, TX for two years. In 1975, he was recruited by long time friend, Leonel Castillo, to serve as dean of Hispanic International University and guide it through an accreditation process and an affiliation with Antioch University, establishing it as a University Without Walls program. This moved the family, including infant son, Alex, to Houston for five years.

After completing this process, Ted fulfilled his desire to return to his passion, journalism. He and his wife purchased the first of three community weeklies, The Waterville Empire Press, in Waterville, WA. After two years in Waterville, seeking a bigger challenge, Ted and Kay sold the paper and purchased The Nyssa Gate City Journal, and moved the family to Nyssa, Oregon, where they spent five years. In 1981, daughter Marcy was born. In 1985, they sold the paper and purchased The Islands’ Sounder, which brought the family to Orcas Island where he remained. In 1994, Ted and Kay sold the paper to Sound Publishing Company, and Ted remained on as Editor until his retirement in May 2006.

Throughout his nearly 30 year newspaper career, Ted received many awards from both the Washington and Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association, most notably The Miles Turnbull Master Editor/Publisher Award in 2006, awarded by WNPA to those editors/publishers deserving of “…the very highest honors and respect of the profession.”

Since retiring, Ted became very interested in his family’s history. He studied Hungarian, audited classes at UW in Eastern European History, and conducted research online. Further research was done at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., as well as archives in Slovakia and Budapest. He made four trips to Hungary and Slovakia to study Hungarian and conduct research. He visited several small villages where his ancestors lived, some with names that are different today or in a different country. He visited town halls and poured over volumes and volumes of town records of births, deaths, and marriages to find relatives.

He interviewed old timers in small villages, using a translator. As his research continued, Ted became interested in what life was like in small villages from the late 1800s leading up to WWII, about the relationships between Jews and non-Jews in small villages and the role the Jews played in the community.

In 2010, he was invited to present a paper at the 30th IAJGS (International Jewish Genealogical Societies) International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Los Angeles, together with a cousin from Israel, with whom had he reconnected via www.jewishgen.org. His presentation was about conducting research in the rural Hungary.

Ted organized a local Parkinson’s support Group on Orcas, after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2010. The group has met monthly until last month. Ted felt a strong connection to the group. It gave him such a sense of purpose and accomplishment. He was ever hopeful of a cure being found.

Since retirement, Ted found time to get back on the golf links. He had played on the golf team in high school, but found little time to play in the intervening years. He enjoyed the camaraderie of playing nine holes and “chit chatting” with his golf buddies. He still loved to travel. In addition to the multiple trips to Hungary and eastern Europe, he and Kay spent a year and a half in 2007-2008 living in Brooklyn with his son Alex and family, and enjoying his two grandchildren, Mila and Joe. While there he volunteered at the Women’s Press Collective, mentoring aspiring journalists and helping with the organization’s quarterly publication Collective Endeavor.

In February, Alex and his family and his daughter Marcy came from New York and Seattle, respectively, to join Ted and Kay in Hawaii for a 50th anniversary celebration.

He received the final diagnosis of stage 4 lung cancer metastasized to the bone on April 22. He entered Hospice care on April 29. Ted passed away at home the evening of May 3, with his wife and two children at his side.

Ted was ever the optimist. He touched many people’s lives. He was a cheerleader for whatever cause he believed in and supported. He loved children, and was extremely proud of his own two children and their successes and accomplishment. Another trip to Brooklyn to enjoy his grandchildren and attending a University of Michigan Football game in the fall in Ann Arbor were at the top of his bucket list.

In remembering him, his grandson, Joe, age 5, said what he really liked about Grandpa Ted was that he was funny and silly. His granddaughter, Mila, age 8, said she admired him because “even when he’s tired, he never spoils the fun and is always game to do what people are doing—like going for a walk or swimming or out to dinner.” He always wanted to be part of it.