Seligman Swartzman Gillis Sandman Joffe Yachad Lederman Fleishman

Mail from Adrian Sandler-14/4/2020 Adrian Sandler [adrian.sandler3@gmail.com] Dear Friends, My father Barney died yesterday morning, April 13. Some of you remember Barney from our childhood in Bulawayo, some of you met him on occasion in Cambridge, and a few of you in Durham or Asheville. He and my mother Carla, who died 2 years ago, were last able to visit us in Asheville in 2009 at Nick and Katie’s wedding. Shirley and I were last with him in December, at the Nightingale House in Wandsworth, London. In the past week or two, he and many of the residents there have succumbed to respiratory illnesses, presumably COVID. This is an extremely difficult time for the kind and dedicated staff at Nightingale. Dad was 97. He lived a full life and he had a good laugh! He was born in 1923 in Potchefstroom, South Africa, one of 4 children and the only son to Leah and Hyman, who left Latvia and Lithuania in the early 1900s. His dear older sisters Ann and Sylvie lived into their 90s, but he was the last of that generation in our family. He was a star athlete, and we still have some of his sporting trophies! Barney went to Wits (the University of the Witwatersrand) medical school in Johannesburg, and as a young doctor, volunteered to defend the new state of Israel in 1948-49. There he met Carla, and the two were married in Haifa before returning to South Africa. My older sister Lorna and brother Ronnie were born, while he pursued additional training and experience as a gynecologist in South Africa and the UK, and then the family settled in Bulawayo, Rhodesia, where I was born. He had a reputation as a skilled surgeon, and he was very dedicated to his work. I remember accompanying him on his hospital rounds on the weekends, watching him engage in rapport with other doctors and nurses and soak up the admiration he received - undoubtedly influential in my own career choice, made at about age 3! Then there were his hobbies - golf, poker nights, and horse racing - all pursued with much enthusiasm and a little whisky. After the kids had all gone, Barney and Carla left Zimbabwe in 1983 and settled in the Red House, Limpsfield, Surrey. He worked for a time in the NHS and then retired, spending his days in the garden, or reading the newspaper, and attending to a series of health problems that befell Carla and himself. He had major bypass surgery, lost an eye to glaucoma, and was treated for prostate cancer. Around that time, Ronnie returned from the US to London, and Shirley and I left Cambridge for Duke. We would visit them at the Red House, and they were still well enough to travel. The family would get together for special occasions, like their Golden Wedding or 80th birthday parties. In 2010, they moved into the cottage in Ronnie and Sue’s garden in Wimbledon, but by 2016, with Carla’s deteriorating health and Barney increasingly affected by Alzheimer’s, it was time for them to move to the Nightingale House. Even as his memory left him and he became unmoored, he never lost his love of engaging with people. He was warm and playful to the end, and we will all miss him greatly. His life was a blessing! L’Chaim! Adrian