BY GAYLA CAWLEY
MARBLEHEAD — The Infant/Toddler day care program at the Jewish Community Center of the North Shore has been re-dedicated to once again reflect the name of its founder.
The day care program was an innovative idea 38 years ago when it was spearheaded by Ursula Block at the JCC.
“This was the first I/T program at any Jewish Community Center in the country,” said Dr. Lawrence Block, Ursula’s son.
Ursula Block launched what is now known as the Jewish Community of the North Shore Ursula Pels Block Infant/Toddler Program and became its first director. She held the position from 1978 to 1985, before retiring because of health reasons.
The program was started to help working mothers have careers, while their children were cared for at day care.
“It was a time where women had promising careers…and still wanted to have their babies,” said Bea Paul, who co-founded the I/T program.
Ursula died in 1991 and a dedication was held at the time to name the program in her memory. But Lawrence Block said he was troubled when his brother informed him recently that their mother’s name no longer appeared on the program’s website and there was no record of it being named after her.
Block said that Martin Schneer, JCC’s executive director, had no knowledge of Ursula when he asked him about the oversight. But Block said Schneer admitted it was a mistake for her name to have been dropped.
A re-dedication to Ursula Block was held on Sunday at the JCC, attended by former parents, teachers and others involved with the program since its inception. The event also served as a fundraiser, with a goal of raising $10,000, to benefit programming.
Block said it takes work and dedication to keep a memory alive.
Ursula considered starting the day care program from the moment she and her family escaped Nazi Germany in 1938, shortly before Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, when Nazis torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses and killed nearly 100 Jews.
Block said his mother was part of a family of four. Her father had a brother, and her uncle also had a family of four. His mother’s uncle got four visas for his family to reconnect with relatives in New York City. But he didn’t understand Adolf Hitler was going to be a serious problem. So he gave his visas to Block’s grandfather, mother and the rest of the family instead.
Block said his mother and her family escaped the concentration camp. But her uncle and his family perished shortly after, aside for one of the daughters, who survived. Following the incident, he said his mother felt guilty, but lucky too.
Ursula never stopped thinking about the millions of Jewish children lost in the Holocaust and wanted to encourage more Jewish mothers to have more babies. She and Paul recognized that more women were choosing to return to the workforce and that quality day care was needed to balance a family and professional life, according to a history of the program.
“I had a tremendous amount of emotional memory coming back to those days when we started the program,” Paul said. “It’s a wonderful thing. I’m thrilled. I’m thrilled that Ursula’s name is back on the program because she was the key.”
JoAnn Simons, CEO of Northeast Arc, said she pre-registered her son in the day care program in 1979. She said her son, Jonathan Derr, has Down Syndrome and Ursula was the first person to say that he needed to be loved, hugged and fed to thrive, which was a profound statement to hear. Now, her son is an independent, 37-year-old man, largely due to the fact that he was able to spend 50 hours a week in an environment with other children.
“Ursula saw a future that no one else saw,” Simons said.
Howard Nunes and Cynthia Ittleman, a married couple, put their two children through the day care program in the early 1990’s. Both were attorneys at the time.
“I think it enabled Cynthia’s career,” Nunes said.
Ittleman said the program is the “most warm, secure and loving place she could imagine.”
“I don’t know what I would have done without them,” Ittleman said. “They kind of raised me as a parent. There’s just no substitute for the care that was given.”
Gayla Cawley can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley