Daniel Bloom
1925 - 2016
Lucy Bloom
My dad was a truly wonderful and humble person who kept his knowledge of a variety of subjects to himself. As some of you know, his passion for learning began when he entered Yale University at 16 years old completing a four year degree in two years!! Afterwards, he was always participating in some form of higher learning be it in school while getting his degree in dentistry from University of Pennsylvania or his Master’s Degree in Health Education from Teacher’s College at Columbia University in New York.
He truly was a man ahead of his time and wore many hats. When I was a child, we had a cabin cruiser named the Bono Vivo, which is Esperanto for “good life”. Esperanto was a man-made language taking many different languages from around the world and combining them into a universal language. Growing up in New Rochelle, NY, he was very active in our neighborhood association which was one of the first truly integrated middle class neighborhoods in this country. We had an extra phone line for the NAACP as my parents worked closely with Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis during the civil rights era. In addition, my parents had a travel agency they ran out of the house called the No-Flight Travel Service. All the passion for learning that was going on in his brain interfered greatly with his relationships with family members and friends. My memories growing up are limited to bike rides on Block Island, traveling on the boat on weekends with my family and being allowed to steer the boat, vacationing in the Catskills, playing shuffleboard and swimming with him. However, I finally began to have a true father-daughter relationship with him when he moved out to California in the 1980’s. It made up for all those years when I was a child and he was absent emotionally.
His passion other than education and learning was for the spiritual faith that he found after he was married in the 50s. The Ethical Culture Society always was such an integral part of my father as was the Unitarian Universalist Society. These values were passed down to his children from both my father and mother. Dad was always searching for answers and never stopped until about 3 months ago when his health really began to decline.
While going through his belongings after his death, I came across research notes galore covering a variety of subjects ranging from epilepsy to various types of mental illness to dementia and Alzheimer’s. Of course, there was also research on dentistry and physics. There were so many letters from colleges and organizations across the country responding to my father and his various comments and/or inquiries. When he was 80 years old and living in an assisted living facility in Altadena, he was awarded a $20,000 grant by the National Institutes of Health to further conduct research in the seizure activity of rats and how it relates to humans!! I then said to him, “Dad do they know how old you are and where you live?” he replied with a smile “I just wanted to see if I could do it!” Kevin and I celebrated with Elizabeth and her husband and of course, my dad at the Raymond Restaurant, one of the oldest restaurants in Pasadena.
My father had such an alert, active, inquisitive mind and he had such a strong desire for learning along with his strong spiritual values that he wants to continue furthering education in death. He has generously donated his body to science and is now in the care of the USC Anatomical Gifts Program where he will be furthering the medical education of students for the next four years before he is cremated. I can’t express to you how proud I am of my father and how proud I am to call myself a BLOOM….
He truly was a man ahead of his time and wore many hats. When I was a child, we had a cabin cruiser named the Bono Vivo, which is Esperanto for “good life”. Esperanto was a man-made language taking many different languages from around the world and combining them into a universal language. Growing up in New Rochelle, NY, he was very active in our neighborhood association which was one of the first truly integrated middle class neighborhoods in this country. We had an extra phone line for the NAACP as my parents worked closely with Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis during the civil rights era. In addition, my parents had a travel agency they ran out of the house called the No-Flight Travel Service. All the passion for learning that was going on in his brain interfered greatly with his relationships with family members and friends. My memories growing up are limited to bike rides on Block Island, traveling on the boat on weekends with my family and being allowed to steer the boat, vacationing in the Catskills, playing shuffleboard and swimming with him. However, I finally began to have a true father-daughter relationship with him when he moved out to California in the 1980’s. It made up for all those years when I was a child and he was absent emotionally.
His passion other than education and learning was for the spiritual faith that he found after he was married in the 50s. The Ethical Culture Society always was such an integral part of my father as was the Unitarian Universalist Society. These values were passed down to his children from both my father and mother. Dad was always searching for answers and never stopped until about 3 months ago when his health really began to decline.
While going through his belongings after his death, I came across research notes galore covering a variety of subjects ranging from epilepsy to various types of mental illness to dementia and Alzheimer’s. Of course, there was also research on dentistry and physics. There were so many letters from colleges and organizations across the country responding to my father and his various comments and/or inquiries. When he was 80 years old and living in an assisted living facility in Altadena, he was awarded a $20,000 grant by the National Institutes of Health to further conduct research in the seizure activity of rats and how it relates to humans!! I then said to him, “Dad do they know how old you are and where you live?” he replied with a smile “I just wanted to see if I could do it!” Kevin and I celebrated with Elizabeth and her husband and of course, my dad at the Raymond Restaurant, one of the oldest restaurants in Pasadena.
My father had such an alert, active, inquisitive mind and he had such a strong desire for learning along with his strong spiritual values that he wants to continue furthering education in death. He has generously donated his body to science and is now in the care of the USC Anatomical Gifts Program where he will be furthering the medical education of students for the next four years before he is cremated. I can’t express to you how proud I am of my father and how proud I am to call myself a BLOOM….
