NINA

Remembering Nina

October 16, 1935-April 8, 2019

Nina Zimpel was her name when I met her in 1962 in the Good Samaritan Community Center where she ran a nursery school. She came to meet me as I was in charge of the building. She wanted to make sure the relationship between the school and the center was in good shape. It was. We found out we each had grown up in New York City and now lived in San Francisco.

We met in my office overlooking busy Potrero Avenue. The room was light and airy overlooking a green garden and a yard full of toys and slides for the children. Nina was tall 5 foot ten perhaps. She wore a long thick braid that went down her back. She had a bright merry eyes and solid build olive skin and a wide, open face. We got the school business over with and then chatted for another hour or more about New York, our families and education. She went to the University of Minneapolis, met Lloyd her husband and came west. She had three boys and Lloyd was a writer. She was a solid liberal, secular Jew and dedicated to nursery school children and public schools.

Jessica, our youngest, did not like her nursery school at St. Luke’s Church so we moved her to Nina’s school where she flourished. Nina and Lillian became good friends. Our families exchanged visits to our homes. We went on picnics together. Nina was a fine photographer and took some fine picture of Leigh, Sarah and Jessica which hang in our hallway to this day.

Nina was proud that her parents were Communists and that her father edited a Yiddish Communist newspaper in New York City. Her values of equal rights for African Americans, women and gays and lesbians came from her heritage. She was for peace, pro-union, for financial equality and for health care for all.

She was always smiling, good natured warm and loving. She loved and nurture young children. She spent her whole long working life running and teaching nursery schools. She even didn’t mind changing diapers when needed.

An artist, photographer, quilt maker and also made a coffee table. My daughters remembered the table inlaid with marbles and glass pieces in the Zimpel home. She attended the New York Cristo Central Park Installation. Nina was friends with hundreds of parents and grown children that she had had in nursery school. She always had a place to stay wherever she travelled.

After divorcing Lloyd Zimpel, she took her maiden name Youkelson 

She had some trouble with at least one of her teen sons. He later had teen sons of his own and apologized to Nina for all the trouble he had caused her when he was that age. 

I often saw Nina doing water aerobics at the University of San Francisco pool when I went there to swim. She attended my 80^thbirthday party at Harris Restaurant in 2011.

She and I would often meet each other on 24^thStreet in San Francisco, stop and chat and catch up with our families. She would always say my daughters were larger than life. We never talked long before one of her former students or a parent would chime in to our conversation.

She was smart, wise, insightful and witty. Apparently she was ill for a year or so before she died.