According to her daughter, Ruth Coleman, who died on August 2 of lung cancer at age 84, will be remembered for her quietly generous spirit.
“She didn’t like to make a splash,” said her daughter, Roberta Caraway.
But she turned her personal struggles and passions into the basis for significant philanthropy, to Jewish and non-Jewish causes.
After battling breast cancer in the 1980’s, she set up what was then called the Mount Sinai Medical Center’s Ruth Coleman-Ida Soref Breast Cancer Diagnostic Center in Bayside.
When her second husband, David Coleman, died in 1993, she created the David and Ruth Coleman Charitable Foundation.
Over the years she donated millions of dollars to various organizations, including Yeshiva Elementary School, the Jewish Home and Care Center Foundation — Sarah Chudnow Campus, Congregation Beth Jehudah, The Milwaukee Public Library Foundation, the Milwaukee Public Museum, the Task Force on Family Violence and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.
According to Nita L. Corre, president of the Jewish Home and Care Center Foundation, Coleman had “vision and passion” and she was “one of the strong voices in the community to support the renovation of the Jewish Home. She made it a reality.”
Her daughter added that the Jewish home and Yeshiva Elementary School were especially close to her heart.
“She thought it was important to take care of the Jewish elderly because they are forgotten,” said Caraway. “And she thought it was important to bring children up the Jewish way, so that’s why she was involved with YES.”
Born in Milwaukee, Coleman graduated from Washington High School. She attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a few years before marrying her first husband, Irving Sklar, who was director of the UW marching band.
In addition to her philanthropic pursuits, Coleman adored playing poker.
She was preceded in death by husbands Irving Sklar in 1965 and David M. Coleman in 1993.
She is survived by daughter Roberta (James) Caraway of Bayside; son Mark (Cookie) Sklar of Phoenix, Ariz.; sister Clarice Turner of Mequon; six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
Rabbi Michel Twerski officiated at services held at Goodman-Bensman Funeral Home on August 3. Burial was in Spring Hill Cemetery.
The family appreciates memorial contributions to the Jewish Home and Care Center or to Yeshiva Elementary School.
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