Just one of the stories about Great-Grandma Sylvia.

Great-grandma Sylvia, a hard-headed determined spitfire of a woman, was the matriarch of my father’s family. She did things her way. (Everyone else did too.) She outlived her first husband, and probably could've outlived her second.

Sylvia and her second husband, Saul, were in the car one day when suddenly the car stopped. It had stalled in the middle of a narrow highway in Florida. Try as he might, Saul could not get the car to move. So Sylvia took charge of the situation. She got out of the car and started directing traffic around it. Sylvia, being an expert at directing people, got the highway organized enough to allow Saul, with help, time to push the car out of the way. Sylvia, age 90, was in full command of the flow of traffic.

(Which is not surprising, since controlling traffic is nothing compared to escaping Bolshevik Russia, running the Synagogue, starting several businesses and being married for 35 years, twice.)

A trucker, unaware that this portion of the highway was under new-management, hit Great-Grandma Sylvia while she was giving instructions to other motorists. Ironically, that is how she died.