The Marie Civic Leadership Award

In 2004, Paul and Irving Spitzberg initiated The Marie Interfaith Civic Leadership Award an award to honor their mother, Marie Spitzberg. Growing up, they saw a positive role model in her values and civic activities in partnership with their father, Dr. Irving Spitzberg.  Marie Spitzberg lives interfaith leadership in her service to all regardless of religion or economic circumstance. Award Details>>

Marie Spitzberg 1918-2011

Eulogy by Irving Spitzberg

"We are a people in whom the past endures,
In whom the present is inconceivable without moments gone by,
The Exodus lasted a moment, a moment enduring forever
What happened once upon a time happens all the time.

Mom's life lasted a moment in the universe of time and space, but it is a moment that endures forever in the hearts and actions of everyone here assembled. As my wise wife Virginia told me yesterday, we all are in sacred space in this moment and we can today assure it endures.

My task is to remind us all Mom's life is the testament to the power of someone who can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.

My role now is threefold in summarizing her ordinary life with its extraordinary impact on us:

1. Let me begin by thanking all of you for coming to celebrate Mom's life and for your participation in her life.

QUESTIONS

a. How many of you had a relationship with Mom where she was your surrogate mom or grandmom and therefore my honorary brother or sister? Please stand.

b. How many of you were formally taught at some time in your life by Mom in Sunday school or in a computer or other classroom setting?

 c. How many more of you shared personally and directly in experiencing Mom's wisdom and love? Your membership in our extended Marie family contributed to the beauty of her life and ours. Thank you!

2. To remind some and to introduce many to Mom's earlier life with my father, Dr. Irving Spitzberg, two lovers whose love and life partnership was central to her life and ours until my Dad died in 1989.

a. Dad was a professor of diseases of women and children at UAMS in its earliest guise and in many ways a unique private practitioner of pediatrics in Little Rock before the field formally existed. He was one of two white pediatricians in Arkansas who treated African American patients. He always had a desegregated waiting room and was deserted by many white patients because of that. Both Mom and Dad walked the walk of equality and justice.

b. Their marriage was unique in that two people separated by about twenty years in age created a partnership of love and life. Their marriage set the bar high for Paul and me.

c. Paul and I were (and are) Jewish-American Princes. We were the center of our parents' lives, of course the best of the best to them (and to us, which explains our modesty). Our parents' only social life - apart from an occasional Canasta game - was built around our school, scouting, sporting, and other extracurricular activities. d. My brother and I are very different people, as were our parents. We learned from Mom and Dad to respect and have affection for those differences. I know that my brother's generous spirit and sensitivity were critical to the quality of my mother's life and for that I love and respect him. As we together created The Marie in her honor seven years ago we wanted to celebrate her story by celebrating others who are exemplars of her values and her approach to life. 

www.caringbridge.org
Key in mariespitzberg (one word) in the 'Visit a Website' box There are links on the site to a Butler Center video, the guestbook and a tribute page.

The logo of the Marie Interfaith Civic Leadership Award symbolizes how people of all faiths look upward to God and reach outward toward each other. It is rendered in black and white to represent that people of all races as well as all faiths are working together to lead their community.

Past recipients of the Marie Interfaith Civic Leadership Award include:

Mimi Dortch, 2005
Jim Davis, 2006
Grainger Williams, 2007
The Congregations of Bethel AME Church and Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, 2008
US Sen. David Pryor, 2009
State Sen. Joyce Elliott, 2010
Dr. Fitz Hill, 2011