Joy Agrons Seitchik

Joy was born in 1917 to Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Marcia (Masha) and Isador Agrons. Like so many other second-generation Americans, her story is individual and collective, personal and political. Her struggles are those born of the opportunities given to her by striving immigrant parents, who expected the best and most of their children in a prospering land they viewed with vibrant optimism. Early in their marriage Masha and Isador moved to Atlantic City where they bought a newspaper/candy shop, living in the apartment above the store. From that start they established a small retail fur business. Isador loved chatting up the women from Philadelphia who would summer on the beach, get measured for their coats, and have them delivered in time for the winter season. His wife Masha was hard working and no nonsense, but very bright, an avid reader with a good sense of humor. Joy absorbed from her mother a strong sense of family and great pride in her Jewish identity.

Joy loved Atlantic City, swimming, and the ocean. She spent summers on the beach (when she wasn't working retail to help her family and pay for her college education). It was there, at sixteen, she met Joe Seitchik, who was a couple of years older. Joe was also the son of Jewish immigrants, but much wealthier. He was staying in his Philadelphia family's summer home. Joe's mother wasn't impressed with Joy's family but Joe was very impressed with Joy. This summer romance ultimately became a partnership lasting over 45 years.

Growing up, Joy's brother Martin emulated Isador the raconteur, while she was a diligent student, serious about learning, identifying with the hard-working Masha. Typically self-deprecating, she joked of peaking in 8th grade when she won a medal for swimming and was selected as "best girl" by her teachers -- the first Jewish girl to win the annual award. She and a number of her Atlantic City High classmates applied to Cornell and Joy was surprised that she was the only one accepted.

Joy flourished at Cornell, where she would cross-country ski from class to class. She was engaging and smart, and spurned at least one marriage proposal. Majoring in anthropology, she went on to earn a graduate degree in social work at Bryn Mawr College.

Joy had fire and drive; it would be difficult to overestimate how important she was to Joe's life and his work. After a rocky start in college and struggles to get into medical school, Joe Seitchik embarked on a stellar career in academic medicine, rising to be Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, president of the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society and recipient of the Ashbel Smith Professorship given to outstanding scholars in the University of Texas system.

When her first two children were still young, Joy went back to school to take chemistry courses and then ran Joe's research lab for about a decade. More importantly, she was his confidante, his advisor, and his interlocutor, offering all the support and encouragement he needed to prosper both personally and professionally.

Joy was proud of her immigrant parents but deeply committed to being modern, secular, and progressive. Her approach to life was outward-looking; she felt that people had a responsibility to seek knowledge and experience. This was reflected in her aesthetic: she was intensely interested in travel, art, crafts, interiors, and architecture, filling her home with Nakashima and Georg Jensen furniture as well as paintings, mobiles and sculptures from local artists. In Texas Joy discovered Native and Mexican American art, traditional and contemporary, which she and Joe collected. She was a craftswoman-- first Rya rugs, then needlepoint and then pottery.

Her philosophy was also reflected in her politics. Joy was a passionate lifelong liberal and Democrat, her world view formed through her mother's socialist leanings, through coming of age in the 1930s, and through her early years working as a social worker in impoverished communities. She believed in government making society better and helping people. She was a guaranteed donor to many, many liberal causes, including the NAACP, Native American schools and colleges, Planned Parenthood, and the American Civil Liberties Union. Not religious, she was a lifelong supporter of Israel and the Jewish people.

Joy Seitchik loved life and lived it with great empathy and compassion for others. If you asked her, she would tell you that her life's work was her family. At the end of the day, Joe and Joy would usually have a bit of quiet time, sharing a drink and winding down. An early adopter of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking</em>, once she no longer worked full time, Joy prepared delicious dinners every night for Joe and the family. Much of the dinnertime conversation was about how his work had gone that day and the political ups and downs of academic medicine. These dinners taught her children the value of intelligent, lively, opinionated conversation, as well as providing a salon for doctors, residents and many out-of-town colleagues.

Joy was fiercely committed to her four children, her extended family and to Joe and their relationship, which always came first above everything else. She had a strong moral compass and expected much from herself and others. She took pride in her children's achievements, including those of her daughter, Johanna, who for many years directed the Women's Studies program at PSU. She could sometimes be judgmental and, like her mother, struggled with depression. She never quite recovered from Joe's death.

Above all she was very generous and giving. Over her life she took in many people -- friends, relatives, and co-workers -- who needed her care and shelter to recover from traumatic events in their lives. She was loyal and loving toward her relatives no matter their stumbles and transgressions, absorbing Masha's credo that "blood is thicker than water." She thrived in creating beautiful environments, throwing parties and taking care of people, reading, and railing against selfishness, militarism and political cowardice.

When she died in 1996, Joy's ashes were strewn in the ocean with flower petals, off of the beach where she and Joe first met. Like a great teacher, her love, energy, intelligence, artistic eye and compassion carry on through the many people that she touched.

Locate on Walk:

• Naming Wall (Right Wall), 1-17