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In Loving Memory of

Doris Elaine Lubet

Obituary

Doris (Dvora) Lubet, nee Levitt, passed away January 27, 2020, in Evanston, Illinois. Doris was born on June 4, 1927, in the Black Sea port of Odessa, in what was then the Soviet Union and is now Ukraine. Her family actually lived in the shtetl of Tomashpol, from which they emigrated, arriving in Canada when Doris was an infant. They lived first in Veregin, Saskatchewan, where her father worked on an uncle’s wheat farm, and then as the accountant for a pacifist agricultural commune known as the Doukhabors. The family soon relocated to Winnipeg, Manitoba, where Doris’s parents - Norman (Nyasha) and Rebecca (Tzusa) - owned and operated the Sunland Grocery in the North End, and other businesses over the years.

When Doris was 20 years old, she took a trip to Pittsburgh to visit her father’s cousin. As she was sitting on her cousin’s front stoop, she was spotted by a handsome young soldier who happened to live in an adjoining rowhouse. Before even meeting her, Fred proclaimed to his best friend Jack (Uncle Ace) that he was going to marry her. Next to meeting Fred, her favorite Pittsburgh experience was attending a Pirates-Dodgers baseball game, in which she saw Jackie Robinson steal a base. Fred and Doris courted that summer before she returned to Canada. True to his word, Fred took the train to Winnipeg in January (wearing only a light jacket), and asked Doris to marry him. Their wedding on January 3, 1948, was six months from the day they met.
From Pittsburgh to Chicago’s Great West Side, to south suburban Park Forest, they ultimately settled in Evanston. As an expatriate Canadian, Doris stayed in close contact with her parents and her brothers, Allen and Martin, and their families. It was a great moment when she discovered in 2009 that her Canadian citizenship had not lapsed, and she immediately obtained a new Canadian ID card.

Doris and Fred had a wonderful romance, lasting over fifty years until Fred’s death in 2004. Together they pursued a lifestyle that was avant garde the time, although to them it was just natural. Much to the amazement of their mid-century neighbors, Fred would share child care responsibilities and Doris would mow the lawn. Although Doris was religious and Fred was an atheist, they respected each other’s beliefs. They had gay friends in the 1940s (including Steve’s first babysitters), and African American friends, well before it was socially acceptable.

Doris was not yet a U.S. citizen in 1952, so she was unable to vote for Adlai Stevenson. By 1956, she had naturalized and was an active campaigner in the presidential election. As a precinct captain for the progressive Tri-Town Democratic Club, she took Alex and Steve with her from door to door (Dana was not yet born) distributing Stevenson flyers. One of her best recollections was shaking hands with Eleanor Roosevelt during the 1960 Kennedy campaign, which was one of the few in which she was able to vote for a winning candidate.

Doris and Fred were active in the Civil Rights Movement from the beginning of their marriage, attending integrated events in Chicago at a time when it was unpopular bordering on risky. They helped to integrate their adopted hometown of Park Forest, hosting the first Black families who did not always receive a warm welcome from others in the community. More than once, they woke up to find petty vandalism at their modest home on Blackhawk Drive, evidently the work of unenlightened neighbors who objected to open housing. In 1963, they attended Dr. King’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which was one of the proudest (non-family) moments of Doris’s life.

They protested U.S. intervention in Vietnam beginning in the early 1960s, when the war was still very popular, organizing a weekly peace vigil at the Park Forest post office, the only local site of federal authority. The vigil at first attracted hostility, but it eventually drew hundreds of Park Foresters to the ranks of the growing peace movement. Doris and Fred moved to Evanston in 1967, choosing at first to rent rather than buy home because of concern, with three draftable sons, that they might need to move to Canada. Doris arranged for her brother to sponsor draft resisters for immigration to Canada by offering them work in his Winnipeg grocery store.

Doris and Fred embraced vegetarianism in 1968, inspired by Dr. King’s call to nonviolence, long before it was commonplace. Their door was always open to family, and they set an example by helping strangers and those down on their luck. Their goal was always to, "pay it forward." They were patrons of the arts, especially classical music, attending as many as three concerts a week during their years in Evanston. Doris placed the greatest value on education and honored hard work, which she passed along to her sons and grandchildren.

Later in life, Doris delighted in spending time with (and talking about) her sons, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and nieces and nephews who live all across the U.S. and Canada. She was fond of wryly recounting her mother Rebecca’s great culinary skills, and she had to admit that her mother-in-law Annie had made an award-winning babka. She was devoted to all of her grandchildren. She enjoyed the frequent visits of Evanstonians Natan and Sarah, while never referring to Ari, Elliot, and Benjamin as cheeseheads. She shivered empathetically with Alyssa and Ben when she heard the Minnesota weather reports. Although she generally disliked house pets, she later changed her mind about Pecan, who brought her considerable comfort.

Doris is survived by her three sons: Steven (Linda Lipton), Alex (Iris Shiraishi), and Dana (Cheryl Brown); her grandchildren: Sarah (Willard Kasoff), Natan, Alyssa, Ben, Ari (Jenna), Elliot and Benjamin; her great-grandchildren Djed and Filomena, and many nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her parents Norman and Rebecca, her brothers Allen and Martin, her husband Fred and an infant daughter, Beth. Service is Private. In lieu of flowers, please make contributions to the candidate most likely to defeat Donald J. Trump. Arrangements by Chicago Jewish Funerals - Skokie Chapel, 847.229.8822, www.cjfinfo.com

Arrangements by Chicago Jewish Funerals. www.chicagojewishfunerals.com

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Address Lubet Residence
2515 Orrington Avenue
Evanston, IL 60201

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