Madeline Ettin's Obituary
Madeline Ettin was born in New York City, on July 20 1945, to Abraham and Ruth (nee Rheingold) Ettin.She has one sister, Judy, five years younger.She showed evidence, early on, of significant artistic ability and studied at the Art Students League in NY, from age 12. On the basis of a portfolio, she was accepted into and graduated from New York’s High School of Art and Music in 1962. She continued to work at her art — and to love doing so — til the end of her life. SFor most of the last 15 years of her life, she was an active member of the Gallery House Coop Gallery in Palo Alto.She received her BA from Hunter College of the City College of New York in 1966. She later discovered a love of working with kids, especially high-school students and received her Masters in Psychology from Tufts University in 1974 or 1975 (?). For most of the remaining 40 years of her life she worked as a School Psychologist, for the last 12 years at Los Altos High School.In 1968, Madeline moved out to Berkeley, for — in her mind — an indefinite stay. Sometime very early in 1969, she met her future husband, David Israel. They were together for the 45 years left to her, marrying on Sept. 13, 1970, in the Tufts Chapel.On July 20, 1978 — her 33rd birthday — Madeline gave birth to their daughter and only child, Nicole Susan Israel. After graduating from Palo Alto High School in 1996, Nicole went to Brown, graduating in 2000 and from there moved directly to New York. On September 29, 2007, Madeline was the proud mother of the bride at the wedding of Nicole Israel and Josh Kaufman.On July 13, 2010, Nicole gave birth to William Lucas Kaufman and on April 20, 2013, to Louisa Jane Kaufman, bestowing on her mother the gift she came most to prize: two wonderfully beguiling grandchildren and the proud title of Grandma.Madeline was diagnosed with cancer on May 2, 2014. That diagnosis was tragically partial. Later that month she was diagnosed with a quite independent cancer of the pancreas and it was the latter that killed her, ruthlessly, but quickly.She died in Palo Alto CA, in the very early morning of July 16, 2014, less than 3 months after the original diagnosis and — much much more importantly — just days after spending a last glorious week with Nicole and Josh and William and Louisa.
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