Remembering Margot Lucoff, Part III

(Continued from January 1st posts)

Margot Lucoff received her B.A. in Humanities and Classic Languages at U.C. Berkeley in 1976, and in 1979 earned an M. Litt. in Near Eastern Studies at the University of Durham, England, and then returned to Berkeley to complete a MLIS (Masters of Library and Information Science) in 1980. She worked as a cataloging librarian at the Berkeley Public Library (BPL) from 1984 until her death in July 2004.

Margot Lucoff, April 2004 (shown here holding
the child of an acquaintance). Photo: Colleen Fawley.

In continuing this tribute to Margot, I'd like to pass along some stories about Margot shared by her fellow staff members at BPL:

I first met Margot walking around old Berkeley Public Library. We were both wearing long flowery dresses and Birkenstocks with socks and both had our long hair "styled" the same way. We pointed at each other and said, "Hey, I know we're going to be friends." - N. N.

About 10 years ago Margot was grieving the loss of her mother. She felt the pain of her loss very intensely. She came up with a very creative idea for dealing with her pain. she asked others to share it. She parceled out 12 months and asked 12 friends to each accept one month of her grieving period... I volunteered to become Margot's September support for as many Septembers as she might need the support... - J. E.

I vividly remember when we were at [the old Berkeley Public Library] and Reference got int the new edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Margot had wanted it all her life, and arranged to buy the old set from the Friends [Friends of the Library]. She was dizzy for days with the glory of it, and would answer the phone: "Hello, this is Margot, I own the OED!" - S. H.

BPL compiled a binder/album in which the library staff have contributed memories, stories, or poems, entitled: "Hello, Sunshine: Memories of Margot."[1]

Margot's synagogue, Netivot Shalom, at 1316 University in Berkeley, also has a commemorative project. The last year or so of her life, Margot was in a quilt group of about six or seven women that made quilts on Jewish themes. The group had just started a project when she died, and they turned it into a memorial to her, putting on names of her family members, her e-mail address, and the message from her answering machine and other things that reminded them of Margot. It is currently hanging in the synagogue library. [2]

The number and quality of tributes to Margot suggest the number of lives she touched in a special way. She was a true ray of sunshine, as the so-named "Hello Sunshine" book of memories at BPL suggests: positive, supportive, academic, enthusiastic, and in awe of life and learning--a role model to many.


[1] Berkely Public Library Staff News, Summer 2004.
[2] Diane Berbaum, Netivot Shalom

Remembering Margot Lucoff, Part II

Close Friends are Family Invited in by the Heart...

During the first year of my friendship with Margot Lucoff, we began exchanging weekend visits. At age 13, I was hungry for information about the world, in general, and her Jewish home life was so different from my own sheltered one that it felt a bit like Pandora's box.

Margot Lucoff, graduation photo from Kennedy
High School, Richmond, California, 1971.


Margot's family moved to the Bay Area from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In a "funny twist of fate," as one of her friends put it, Margot was born on the same day her uncle died, and that friend remembers paying a condolence visit, as a small child, to Margot's aunt. [1]

Margot adored her brilliant and focused father, Julius Lucoff, an engineer by trade. I remember him as a somewhat austere man, who swept into a room like a crisp autumn breeze: quickly, silently, but commanding attention. The only time I saw him sitting in one place was at the dinner table, or at the piano, playing. As city engineer in 1958, he published a government map of Emeryville, California (OCLC: 23250224). Julius died in 1986, at age 75. [2]

Margot's mother, Zelma, was a kind and concerned woman, anxious to see Margot and her brother, Bill, do well. Sometimes, Zelma used my presence at their dining table to impress certain desired attributes upon her daughter, much to my chagrin. "Margot, sit up straight. See how Chery doesn't let her hair hang on her plate." Margot would grumble a bit and snap back in a congenial tone, "Oh, Ma!"

Zelma Lucoff passed away in 1991, five years after the death of her husband. As a mother, she had worked hard to introduce Margot to all the beauty, knowledge, and opportunity the world had to offer. I remember going along on a trip to the Lawrence Hall of Science, and afterwards, walking the UC Berkeley campus, where Margot later attended, and the herb garden nearby. One day, Margot and I were driven out to the beach in Alameda where we walked barefoot in the salty, mirky tide, and gingerly stepped over knobby and rubbery sea snails embedded in the bay floor. On the way home, we ate string cheese--it was my first taste. [3]

Margot's friendship was precious to me because of her open, candid spirit. Being with her was refreshing, and she always offered up the unexpected; she was full of new ideas. It was she who introduced me to the mysterious worlds of philosophy, other religions, astrology, incense, sealing wax (for envelopes), and even Simon and Garfunkle, among a hundred other things. On her bedroom ceiling, she had taped artistic posters of individual signs of the zodiac so that she "could see them while laying in bed."

During the holiday season, she gave unexpected gifts that I treasure to this day. At a time when I was used to receiving things like Avon cologne, jewelry, or stationery from family or friends, she gave me a map of the moon's surface and a glass prism. Margot provided tools with which to explore physics, astronomy, space, and history... showing that one could do more than just talk about the wonders of the universe.


Visit the Milwaukee Jewish Historical Website








Julius Lucoff was fascinated with science-fiction and was a member of the Bay Area branch of, I believe, the Science-Fiction Writers of America. Margot asked me to go along with her and her father to the club's private showing of "2001: A Space Odyssey," at a theater on Market Street in San Francisco. The theater was completely packed with people who took science-fiction with some degree of seriousness. Among the audience were local engineers, scientists, teachers, and writers, including author Poul Anderson, who would later serve as club president. Previewing "2001" was an exciting event to the science-fiction community, because it was the first film in many years to deal with space exploration in a sophisticated and intelligent manner, without the typical monster-of-the-day or tongue-in-cheek campiness.

I was also taken along to several science-fiction conventions. Oh, lucky me! At the Claremont Hotel in Oakland, I met Gene Roddenberry, the producer of Star Trek, and marveled for the first time at the art of science-fiction illustration. At another event held in S.F., Margot and I dashed from lecture to lecture, disrupting things to find seats in the crowded rooms, and then leaving each after only 5-10 minutes. She was always so excited to experience a piece of everything that it was hard to keep her in one spot for very long.

I owe my friend, Margot, a great deal of gratitude for expanding my horizons at at time of my life when lasting impressions were made: not just because of those special excursions I would never have gone on otherwise, but, for long coversations on topics that weren't really of interest to the average 13-year-old. She opened my eyes to the world at large: to science and art. She showed me how to explore new topics, new music, new ideas. She introduced me to Jewish family life and beliefs, and helped me realize similarities across cultures and religions, and not just differences.

Most of all, Margot was an example of what courage was in the face of a potentially devastating disease, and showed that a brave heart and passionate mind can conquer any limitation.


(To be continued in Part III)

Note: This tribute is based upon personal memories and conversations with Margot. If her family or friends should find any errors or inconsistencies with what they know to be true, please notify me at ckinnick@gmail.com, and I will be happy to make corrections.

Sources:

[1] Bernbaum, Diane, e-mail to Chery Kinnick, Dec. 28, 2007.
[2] Lucoff, Julius. Social Security Death Index.
[3] Lucoff, Zelma. Social Security Death Index.

Remembering Margot Lucoff

The New Year Brings Thoughts of Old Friends

There are those who shine
and diffract life
to enlighten others,
like brilliant colors
from white light
through a glass prism.


Image: Glass prism


While attending Portola Junior High School in El Cerrito, California, I had a good friend by the name of Margot Beth Lucoff. Her friendship was special to me in many ways and it came at a formative time of my life, which ended up changing me, forever.

Margot and I lost touch after our junior high years, but in the early 1980s I sent a letter to her mother at the family's old address in El Cerrito. She happily forwarded it to Margot, who wrote back to me, and we renewed our friendship through letters. By 1982, I had been living in the Seattle area for several years, but I had a chance to visit her for one day during a trip to the Bay Area. If you have ever experienced the strange familiarity of meeting an old friend after the passage of many years, then you know about that peculiar mix of joy, expectation, and confusion involved.

In the early 1990s, things happened separately in both of our lives, and our letter writing dwindled and stopped. In 2005, I found out through the internet that Margot had died the year before. I was devastated that I hadn't had the chance to say goodbye, knowing it was my fault for not keeping in touch.

At the time, I wanted to remember her somehow, but couldn't find a way other than to donate to the foundation of her bequest. We no longer had any mutual acquaintances that I could contact and share memories with. That's why I'm writing this blog post now. Friends are family invited in by the heart. They enlighten and inspire us, and the distance of years does not change the special interaction that once occurred, nor does it lessen the pain of their loss.

An obituary was printed in the Sept./Oct. 2004 issue of "The Reel & Strathspeyper," a publication of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, San Francisco branch.

Friends of Margot Lucoff are sad to inform you of her death. She died on Thursday, July 22, at home, in her sleep, of natural causes. She was 51 years old.

Margot was introduced to Scottish Country dancing by her fiance,Mark De Lemos, in the mid-1980s, and danced primarily in the Berkeley Class.

Margot was at Mark's side when he died, in 1989, at the cancer research center in Seattle while awaiting a bone marrow transplant for leukemia. Later, in his memory, she attempted to become a bone marrow donor but did not make it past the first two screenings.

Margot worked for many years in the Berkeley Public Library's Cataloging Department and was active in the Jewish community.

Margot was born with neurofibromatosis (NF). She asked that the National Neurofibromatosis Foundation (NNFF), a non-profit medical foundation, be considered by anyone wishing to make a donation in her name. The website for donations, contact information, and information about NF is http://www.nf.org.

Margot and I had no classes together during junior high; we met because we hung out in the same area of the school yard during lunch break. At first glance, it probably seemed that we had nothing in common. Our personalities were different: she was outgoing and brash; I was quiet and shy. Our cultural backgrounds were different: she said that her Jewish ancestors were "White Russians,"or emigres from the Russian Civil War in the early 20th century; mine were midwestern Norwegian-American homesteaders of Lutheran faith. She had an opinion about nearly everything; I struggled with the barest confidence needed to even form an opinion. She guffawed openly and heartily; I hid my giggles behind my hand.



Margot Lucoff (left) at Portola Junior High School, with Adrienne Carlson, 1966, El Cerrito, California.

Being a young teen is hard enough, but Margot had particular challenges to face. I had only to deal with shyness, but she had to deal with the very real conditions of chronic disease. In her younger years, Margot spent many, many months in complete traction to help severe scoliosis caused by neurofibromatosis. She had to wear a spine and neck brace for years afterwards. The only outerwear that fit over it easily was a poncho. Whenever I remember Margot, I picture that ever-present red plaid poncho with the neck support sticking out of the top, her intense dark eyes and bravely open and smiling face above it.

We both had the utmost enthusiasm for the future, for all things cultural, and for Star Trek. Yes: Star Trek. Even a TV program (though an exceptional one for its time), can inspire bonds lasting beyond lifetimes.

A small group of us always stood around at lunch and discussed the latest episodes, trying our best to make clever "Trekky" jokes. Margot claimed the Captain Kirk role, probably because of her boisterous and adventuresome spirit; another friend, Robin, was Spock, I suppose because she admired his logic, and I was "Bones" McCoy, if for no other reason than it completed the trio. Other students must have thought we were crazy because we didn't spend our time complaining about boys and teachers, but the play-acting and musings filled many otherwise dull noon hours, and urged us on to related topics about life, the universe, and everything.

Star Trek

Our stage was the wide, terraced patios of Portola Junior High, which looked down the El Cerrito Hills toward San Pablo Avenue and beyond, to the San Francisco Bay. A kiosk supplied a daily ice cream and treats, at least until our pocket money ran out. Each day we ate our lunches on the terrace, and Robin bought her usual Hostess Suzy-Q's. We talked and joked inbetween glimpses of the Golden Gate Bridge--its vibrant orange color barely visible--and of its neighbor to the north, the sleeping lady form of Mt. Tamalpais. On misty days, the fog horn on Alcatraz Island in the bay punctuated our conversation. It was a time for dreaming...

But, dreams are often shattered by those who do not have equal vision and optimism, and by those whose minds are clouded by ignorance and hatred.

As Margot was leaving school on or near the last day of the ninth grade, she was accosted in a hallway by a group of troublemakers who taunted her and threatened bodily harm if she attended El Cerrito High School the next autumn. Though she was courageous in many ways, this very personal attack frightened Margot deeply, and she decided to alter her path and attend a different high school. A young person's universe revolves around those physically close by, and so, a special time came to a close and we each went our separate ways. But, fortunately, it was not for good.

(To be continued in Part II)

Note: This tribute is based upon personal memories and conversations with Margot. If her family or friends should find any errors or inconsistencies with what they know to be true, please notify me at ckinnick@gmail.com, and I will be happy to make corrections.