“Whatever the project, it means total involvement for Flora Cohen.” So began a Dec. 13, 1978, article in the old Milwaukee Sentinel by Dorothy Austin.
And it seems that intensity of involvement characterized her activity in a wide range of local interests, ranging from playing the marimba to Jewish life.
Indeed, she acknowledged it herself: “If I didn’t have total involvement in the community, I would have all out involvement in something else, because that seems to be my personality,” she told The Sentinel.
Cohen, nee Bell, died Nov. 27. She packed into her 96 years of life deep involvement in many projects and organizations.
In fact, she turned 60 when the Sentinel profiled her, but advancing age did not slow her down, and some of her activity was just beginning.
In 1979, she was elected to the first of two terms as president of the Milwaukee Jewish Council, the predecessor of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Jewish Community Relations Council.
In 1987, she was a member of the board of Mount Sinai Medical center and was involved with the Jewish institution’s merger that year with Good Samaritan Medical Center.
But Milwaukee’s Jewish community knew of Cohen even in her days as a marimba virtuoso.
The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle in the 1940s and 1950s carried many announcements about her scheduled performances for Jewish National Fund, Milwaukee Jewish Nursery School, Beth El Ner Tamid Synagogue, Naame Pioneer Women and other groups.
Marimba master
According to the Sentinel article, Milwaukee native Cohen began marimba lessons when she was 10, and rapidly fell in love with the instrument. (The Chronicle reported that she performed with an ensemble called the Milwaukee Jewish Band in 1931.)
She performed at the Chicago World’s Fair when she was 14, and at New York City’s Carnegie Hall and in Europe when she was 16.
She graduated from South Division High School and continued playing the marimba for a few years. Then in 1940, when she was 22, she married Arthur W. Cohen.
While she didn’t end her performing right away, music played a reduced role in her life as she became the mother of three daughters. She also began to participate in Jewish and non-Jewish community activism, becoming what she called “a professional citizen.”
As she wrote in her entry in the Jewish Community Foundation’s “Book of Life,” she was one of the founders of the Milwaukee Jewish Nursery School, which apparently was the beginning of her community work.
In addition to her already cited Jewish community work, she was a past vice president of Jewish Family and Children’s Service, the predecessor to today’s Jewish Family Services.
In the general community, she served as president of the League of Women Voters of Whitefish Bay, commissioner and president of the Milwaukee County Social Development Commission and president of the Southeastern Wisconsin Health Systems Agency.
“I am a suburban housewife, but I have a metropolitan conscience,” she told The Sentinel.
She received many awards for her work, including the B’nai B’rith Human Rights Award and the Human Rights Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.
As an activist, she often focused on governmental and social problems, but she apparently did not approach them with anger.
“I am not angry at our government at all,” she told The Sentinel. “And I am not angry at particular elected officials. I think we are fortunate that we have the kind of system we have, and that we actually do encourage citizens to participate…”
And she wrote in the JCF “Book of Life,” “Because Art and I are first generation Americans who remember the Great Depression, World War II and in particular the horror of the Holocaust, we feel fortunate for our ability to participate in the growth of Israel and support for our Milwaukee Jewish community.”
Moreover, she will be continuing to support the Jewish community posthumously.
According to Caren Goldberg, executive director of the Jewish Community Foundation, the endowment development program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, Flora and her husband created charitable remainder trusts and donor advised funds through the JCF.
These will continue contributing to MJF annual campaigns and to several other local Jewish organizations, Goldberg said in a statement.
“Flora believed it was her duty to do what she could to make the world a better place; together with Art, Flora has built for our future by leaving a wonderful legacy,” Goldberg said.
Her husband died in 2010. She is survived by daughters Margery Nieder, Sheri (Charles Green) Cohen Green and Billie (David Wilson) Cohen Wilson; two grandchildren; and four great grandchildren.
Blane Goodman Funeral Service handled arrangements. Graveside services were held Dec. 2 at Spring Hill Cemetery.
The family suggests memorial contributions to the Milwaukee Jewish Federation or the Jewish National Fund.
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