Eulogy for my Father, Irving J. Alter, April 2, 2006

In this town, the local paper is the New York Times.  Their substantial per-line fee for obituaries compelled us to describe my father in about ten words.  So we wrote only this:  “A brilliant, just and courageous man.  No one had a bigger heart.”  (That’s twelve.)  Today I’ll expand a bit on that cryptic but accurate summary.

My father was smart.  In high school, he won so many academic honors that his classmates referred to their graduation as “Irving Alter Day.”[*]  He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from City College and went on to Yale Law School.  At Yale, his first-semester grades placed him in the top 10% of his class, which meant that he made the Law Review.  In 1956 he published a Law Review Comment on using the law to help fight racial segregation.  His article nicely illustrates the combination of his powerful intellect, activist ambitions, and egalitarian values.  Following law school, he had a long and distinguished legal career.  His late colleague Arthur Gussaroff told me that my father, in his prime, was the best attorney he’d ever seen.

My father had exquisite taste in music, wine, and the arts. The walls of his apartment are adorned with framed reproductions of paintings by Gaugin, Modigliani, and Picasso.  More recently, the displays expanded to include several by Marion—selected by his penetrating eye.  Classical recordings from his impressive collection were constantly playing on his stereo, and he could (and would) talk your ear off about their beauty and significance.

Though he appreciated the finer things in life, he was no snob.  Far from it.  He was a proud child of immigrant parents, descending from Russian peasant farmers.  He regarded and treated everyone he encountered as equals.  A few years ago, someone who works in his building—my father certainly knew his name, but I forget—anyway, this fellow told me how my father was unlike most other tenants in that he regularly conversed with him and was genuinely interested in what he had to say.[*]

I have heard a virtual chorus of praise for my dad—and not just this week, but for years during my frequent visits.  Many kind souls, not just his family and old friends, are pained by his death.  These include Johanna, Yvonne, and others; some are present today.

One of the first places Elizabeth and I went when we arrived Thursday was to his favorite restaurant, Sammy’s.  In recent years, he went there daily.  He developed valued friendships with the employees, especially Sammy, who reminded him of his own father (who, as it happens, was also a Samuel).  One of the waiters recently called my dad from, I think, Greece, just to see how Irving was doing.  These friendships meant a lot to my dad.  The affection for my father I would see in the faces of Sammy, Mathew (whom he mentored), Lourdes, and the others there reflected my dad’s own kindness and manifest humanity.

John Postley, his trusted physician, wrote of him, “I know no more courageous man in all the world.”  John may have been referring to my dad’s remarkable resolve:  despite his many serious health problems, including crippling arthritis and severe physical pain, he succeeded in pursuing a relatively active life—walking twelve blocks a day even when doing so took him two hours.  He was indefatigable.

He was courageous in other ways too.  And just.  In his career and everyday life, he always stood up for the little guy—and for the right and the good.  When Daryl, his friend and neighbor in Woodstock, was unfairly treated by an employer, he stepped in and got Daryl a fair settlement.  Daryl said that what he most valued was seeing the truth so plainly and eloquently expressed, in the legal document my father wrote.  My dad set a high standard for integrity and character.  Towards the end of his career, he discovered that a powerful client was planning to do something shady.  He knew that exposing the plan might effectively end his legal career.  But he did it anyway, and never once did he waiver.

He experienced deep sadness, including depressions that one wouldn’t wish on an enemy.  But he also had profound joy.  A few years ago, he wrote three chapters of an autobiography (which I’d be happy to share with anyone interested).  Chapter two, entitled “Love’s Beginning,” is about his romance with his college sweetheart—my late and beloved mother, then Janet Kramer.  He wrote:

for the first time we kissed each other fully on the lips… I walked on air to my bus, smiling constantly during the hour and a half trip [home].  I noticed neither the passage of time nor the winding, bumpy bus ride back to Manhattan.

And he led a full life.  Here are a few things he did in his career:

• he was in the Army JAG [Judge Advocate General’s] Corps in North Carolina, where he successfully defended an African American soldier from a trumped up charge;
• he personally rescued a child who was kidnapped to Canada as a result of a custody dispute;
• he acted as de facto bank president for a period of months;
• he wrote political speeches for the president of the union his firm represented;
• and he facilitated the creation of affordable housing for city employees.

And at home,

• he fished;
• he swam;
• he sang, and was even a cantor in his youth;
• he had two rewarding marriages, each of more than twenty years;
• he spent countless weekends taking his young sons on adventures of all sorts;
• he created rock gardens and flower gardens;
• he played the recorder; in his book he suggests that his rendition of Purcell’s Chaconne helped earn him my mother’s phone number;
• he hiked up and down mountains with Marion;
• he traveled to Israel, alone, with Marion, and with my cousin Karen; there he forged intimate bonds with extended family, including especially his beloved cousin Menachem;
• he cooked memorable, if occasional, weekend meals when Kevin and I were young;
• he was a virtual wine connoisseur;
• he passionately enjoyed classical music, collecting beautiful recordings; he special-ordered the Bach Cantatas when Harnoncourt first recorded them; and he duplicated selections for family, friends, and even acquaintances;
• he and my uncle Jerry constructed a kayak from a kit of what seemed a thousand pieces; with Jerry’s father Herman, they also built Kevin and me a spectacular playhouse;
• he dabbled in photography, both documenting our family life and later photographing nature scenes in central park and elsewhere;
• he devoured great literature, including all of his favorite plays by Eugene O’Neil;
• he saw hundreds of movies, including the art movies he loved so well, and a number of wonderful plays; and he attended symphonies, operas, ballets, and chamber music concerts;
• and he talked:  he talked with a fervor that led a friend of mine to describe him as “a force of nature.” Our world is quieter without his booming, vivacious (and at times mellifluous) voice—and it’s duller too.

He doted on his sons, on Ani, on his nieces—Karen, Laura, Julie, and Fran—and on all the children and relatives that had the good fortune to know him well.  He adored my wife Elizabeth, and she adored and revered him.  Their bond has meant more to her (and to me) than I could describe.

He gave and gave and gave, showering us with love, affection, gifts, praise, anything he could think of to make us happier.  When, in 1995, I told him I accepted a position at the University of Alabama, he immediately went to Sam Ash and bought me the top-of-the-line banjo.

There’s a sequel to that story.  At the time, I said I’d prefer to go to Alabama with a laptop on my knee. So, he returned the banjo and got me the laptop.   Last summer I mentioned that I regretted that decision.  So, later that day, he rode on his scooter all the way to 48^th street and returned with a banjo on his (arthritic) knee.

No one had a bigger heart than Irving J. Alter.  Ours hearts are broken because he is gone.  But his memory will live on in our souls and make them better.

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I have tried to convey a sense of who my father was, from a detached viewpoint.  I have not tried to describe how we felt about him or what his death means to us.  I leave that much harder task to my older and wiser brother.