Sam Eisenstein

Sam Eisenstein was born May 18, 1932. He died March 24, 2023 just shy of 92. He is survived by Bettyrae, his wife of 64 years, stepson, David Wallace, MD, daughter Chana Eisenstein, DVM and her wife, Holly Bennett, RN, and his constant canine companion, Luke. Sam was also the unwitting male progenitor of Susan Cole, and is therefore also survived by Susan, her husband, Pablo Fernandez, and their children, Pablo Jr and Sofia. Sam is also survived by a few remaining beloved friends, Baylis Glascock, Michael Emerling, Ellen Emerling, Alexandra Meack, Ricki Weinburger and her husband, Alan Wilson. He was predeceased by his sister, Frances Arkin.

Sam’s life was shaped by his never-ending hunger for knowledge and his love of animals, especially dogs. He was fascinated by peoples’ behavior, motives and the gritty details of peoples’ lives. His interests were as varied as his books and friends, and he read on all subjects and topics. His sharp wit, his love of puns, his appreciation of the bizarre, drove him to explore the edges and the intricacies, and the conflicts that compose all of our relationships. He read voraciously from all sources, and had a deep lifelong preoccupation with the Holocaust. In later years, he expressed himself through poetry, processing his feelings about aging, losing agency, fame, loss, grief, and sexuality. His contradictory, self-deprecating, ironic mantra could be summed up in Groucho Marx’s famous statement, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.” And yet he was a founding member of his beloved writers’ group, still extant after 50 years.

Sam was born to Romanian immigrants Harry Eisenstein and Esther Apter. Harry and Esther met while en route from Bucharest, fleeing influenza, poverty and pogroms. Sam was born in 1932 in Bakersfield where he never truly felt at home. As a high school student, Sam started Sammy Eisenstein Photography and his appreciation for the art of photography lasted his entire life. His high school English teacher, Marguerite Johnson, took him under her wing and their friendship lasted for the rest of her life and kept him connected to Bakersfield. Because of his asthma and allergies, Sam moved Verdugo Hills before his senior year and graduated from Verdugo Hills High school.

He attended UCLA and graduated with a degree in English Literature. He then followed a girlfriend to Israel, but because her parents would not allow him to live with them, he lived and worked on a kibbutz which produced bananas, and he later traveled through Europe. Because he could strike up and maintain a conversation with anyone, he met another lifelong friend, Jan Stritch, on a busy street in Amsterdam. Their friendship lasted until Jan’s death in the early aughts. Upon returning home to Los Angeles, he met Bettyrae Rubin. The story is that one day Betty and her friend Naomi, whom Sam was dating, met Sam at Will Rogers Beach; it was apparently love at first sight and they were together for the rest of his life.

Sam then earned his master’s degree and later his PhD in literature, having written his thesis on the themes from the works of DH Lawrence. In 1966. His Fulbright scholarship took Sam, Betty and David to Japan where he taught for a year.

Sam also became a marriage, family and child counselor. In addition to his teaching and writing, he donated many hours of counseling services to Jewish Family Services in Los Angeles and saw a few clients in his home in Pasadena.

After a short stint teaching at Pitzer college, Sam found his home at Los Angeles City College where he taught English, Creative Writing and Composition for 53 years. His home away from home was the third floor of Jefferson Hall. It was here that Sam spent the majority of his life, teaching, reading, continuously learning. He is most well-known for his English 101 assignment, The Neighborhood Project which required students to find someone in their neighborhood to interview, connect with, and then write about it in a cogent fashion. In 1972, Sam took a Sabbatical from LACC and traveled with Betty and Chana across Europe exploring and writing.

Upon his return, Sam met and became friends with Sister Corita Kent of Immaculate Heart College. They collaborated together on many projects including his providing the text for her Mother Mary Is the Juiciest Tomato of Them All, which was what ultimately resulted in the order being excommunicated by the diocese.

Though English department folks don’t typically mix with math department folks, Sam met Peter Tripodes, a professor in the math department, on the first floor of Jefferson Hall, and they became fast and lifelong friends. Peter also became a core member of the writers’ group.

In the early aughts, Sam needed a triple bypass. Afterword, he joined cardiac rehab and immersed himself in his new religion: diet and exercise. He was a devout acolyte, and met many friends over the years in cardiac rehab; he could talk to anyone and befriend them regardless of their differences.

One of Sam’s most bemusing characteristics was his ability to create his own truth. After that triple bypass, for the rest of his life, when asked if he had heart disease, he emphatically said, “No,” believing that the triple bypass had cured his heart disease; after all, he’d had coronary artery disease, not heart disease.

Baylis Glascock, his close friend of 60+ years began a documentary about Sam’s life in the early 1970’s. As Baylis’ film editing acumen and technology developed, he continued to film sporadically over the next 40 years. We are working on gaining access to the film for distribution among Sam’s friends and former students.

Sam grudgingly retired from Los Angeles City College in May 2017 at the age of 85. Sam continued to write until just day before his death. His published works include:

1. The Inner Garden
2. Merciless Beauty
3. Rectification of Eros
4. Price of Admission
5. Nudibranchia
6. Cosmic Cow
7. Love, Death and Dogs (Reproaching Ninety)

Because his wife Bettyrae is unable to attend an in-person memorial service to celebrate Sam‘s life, we will be able to share stories, pictures, thoughts and memories on the memorial website Keeper.com, chosen from amongst many such forums because Sam referred to his caregivers as keepers; those close to Sam will hopefully catch the irony here.

I am one of the lucky ones. Sam was the best dad I could have ever wished for. I miss him every day.

Notes welcome; in lieu of flowers, please consider a memorial donation to:

Humane Society for Inland Mendocino County (HSIMC) or any public radio station.