Irma Krizack, 93
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. - Irma Krizack, 93, of Sweetwood Retirement Community died Sunday, March 20, 2011, at home.
Born in Baltimore in 1917, she was the youngest of seven children of Hyman and Fannie Treger Jacobs, immigrants from Eastern Europe who arrived in the 1890s. Her twin brother succumbed to the influenza epidemic of 1918. She graduated from Western High School in Baltimore on her 16th birthday.
Mrs. Krizack went to work in her father's haberdashery, the Canterbury Shop on Charles Street, after high school. Unable to attend college during the Depression, she educated herself at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, which was around the corner from her father's business. She subsequently worked in advertising at Hutzler's Department Store.
In 1942, she married David Krizack, whom she met on a blind date at the 1941 Army-Navy football game, and moved to North Adams, where he had established his dental practice. They spent two years during World War II in Sioux Falls, S.D., where her husband served in the Army Air Forces and her first child was born. They moved to Williamstown after the war.
"She was active in the community, and she taught her children to be good citizens and to help those in need," said her son, Marc L. Krizack of Berkeley, Calif. She and her husband were active supporters of the Williamstown Theatre Foundation from its inception. She volunteered with Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic and was an active member of Hadassah. She was honored for her work on behalf of Alyn Children's Hospital in Israel and undertook various creative and entrepreneurial projects, among them the production of a modular dollhouse.
As young men, her brothers were nationally ranked tennis players and she acquired a lifelong love of tennis. She joined the national women's tennis tour in her 80s and was ranked 12th in singles and 6th in doubles. After retiring from tennis, she created collages from found materials using a technique she developed and her work was included in exhibitions in Western Massachusetts.
She was predeceased by her husband and by her daughter Cynthia "Rocky" Krizack in 1976.
Besides her son and his wife, Shelley Bergum, she leaves three daughters and sons-in-law, Carol and Edward Oshinsky of Potomac, Md., and Williamstown, Barbara and Thomas Schnitzer of Chicago and Joan D. Krizack and Andre Mayer of Cambridge, five grandchildren and five great grandchildren.
FUNERAL NOTICE - The family is receiving visitors Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. at 154 Stratton Road, Williamstown. Flynn & Dagnoli-Montagna Home for Funerals, West Chapels, North Adams is in charge of arrangements.
Contributions in Mrs. Krizack's memory may be made to Whirlwind Wheelchair International, 1600 Holloway Avenue, SCI 251, San Francisco, CA 94132 or online at whirlwindwheelchair.org. The nonprofit organization is headed by her son, Marc Krizack.