Obituary
Samuel Eliot Grodzin, ninety-four years old, died peacefully on Thursday December 17, 2020.
Sam lived a long life in which he found success and contentment with family, friends and his community. That is no small accomplishment.
When he began seeing his wife Roslyn in 1964, he had recently suffered the disappointment of a brief marriage that did not work out. Roslyn had lost her husband and was left alone with three young children. Together they made their married lives a success for the next forty-five years.
Sam was a war veteran. America joined the Second World War and Sam enlisted in the Navy, serving at sea in the Pacific Theater.
Honorably discharged, he returned to his hometown of Zion, Illinois where he managed with his father the iconic Zion Department Store. The store was a block-long Victorian wood and shingle structure. When it burned to the ground, Sam was entrusted to carry on his family’s merchant tradition and its good name. The business he rebuilt, Mr. Sam’s, was a success and he was chosen President of the Zion Chamber of Commerce.
Sam involved himself generously in his communities, building a pond and bridge named after his father Julius in the Zion town park and leading the local Lion’s Club in many civic and charitable projects. When he married Roslyn and moved to Highland Park, they were among the founding members of a new synagogue in neighboring Deerfield, The Moriah Congregation. Later, when they moved to Chicago, he and Roslyn were active in the Jewish community there, contributing to their Anshe Emet Synagogue not only financially, but with their personal participation in adult education and other programs of enrichment to the community.
Surrounded by many friends who shared Shabbat dinners, synagogue services and neighborhood outings, the end of his life, bound to a wheel chair, was nevertheless difficult. But he did not complain. He continued to wage life independently after Roslyn died last year.
We mourn Sam’s death, but we can be comforted by remembering that in a long life he found success and contentment.
Arrangements by Chicago Jewish Funerals. www.chicagojewishfunerals.com