Lots of children claim their mother is the world’s greatest cook. Barry Feldscher had scientific proof.
Many years ago, the veterinarian told Barry’s mother, Helen, that their cat, Marmalade, was beyond hope. Helen wasn’t ready to hear that, so she took the cat home and fed it some of the chicken soup she was preparing for her Passover seder.
“And the cat made it,” said Barry Feldscher with a laugh. “Everyone attributed it to that.”
Helen Legum Feldscher died peacefully in her sleep April 15 in her Mountain View apartment. She was 94.
She was born in 1919 in Annapolis, Md., one of eight children of Morris and Goldie Legum. Morris, a Lithuanian immigrant, was a businessman — Barry recalls him being in the bail bonds trade and also dabbling in real estate. He kept his family comfortable, but Jews were decidedly not invited to be part of Maryland’s polite society in those days.
Helen married Willard Feldscher and moved to California, the only one of her many siblings to leave the East. She lived in the Bay Area for the last 63 years of her life.
The Feldschers were one of the founding families of Peninsula Temple Beth El in San Mateo; Helen was the second member of her family to found a temple, as her father founded the Annapolis synagogue his son and grandsons still attend. At 94, Helen may have been the last of Beth El’s original members.
Helen was proud of her Jewishness and was active in ORT throughout her life. She was also devoted to her family — attending two of her great-granddaughters’ bat mitzvahs was an exceptionally proud moment.
Helen was the sort of elderly woman that, for some reason, people went out of their way to help, without her even asking. Barry Feldscher notes that when he and his mother flew to Los Angeles for the latest bat mitzvah, the flight crew spontaneously decided to sing Helen “Happy Birthday” on the plane’s loudspeaker system (she’d just turned 93). When the parking lot at the hotel hosting the bat mitzvah party was full, the attendant took one look at Helen and offered his own spot.
Helen Legum Feldscher is survived by 106-year-old sister Rose Balser of Baltimore, 90-year-old brother Edward “Udie” Legum of Annapolis, daughter Joannie Stern of Los Angeles, son Barry Feldscher of Mountain View; two grandsons and four great-granddaughters.
Donations in her memory can be sent to ORT, 75 Maiden Lane, 10th floor, New York, NY 10038.