Obituary of Temme R Davis

Temme Davis, leading lady in life and on the stage, died in Santa Cruz, California on Thursday, July 24th. Temme grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family in the Lower East side of Manhattan with her brother Joe, her sisters, Sylvia and Esther, and their immigrant parents, Morris and Rae Ross. Temme was "the pretty one," and she was smart, too. She graduated from high school at 15 and loved to ask, "Did you know I went to high school with Tony Curtis—only his real name was Bernie Schwartz?" The only one in her family to go to college, Temme attended CCNY, where her greatest claim to fame was being crowned Campus Queen by Bess Myerson, the reining Miss America. As Campus Queen, Temme was cast as the young ingénue in her first play, "The Hasty Heart." It was the beginning of a community theatre career that spanned five decades. Temme played the leading roles in "Picnic," "Dark at the Top of the Stairs," "The Crucible," "The Miracle Worker," "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds" and many more. She even got a bit part in a movie as an overbearing Italian mother. In her later years, faced with rare roles for older women, Temme turned to storytelling which delighted her grandchildren and audiences everywhere. Her last theatrical triumph, when she was well into her seventies, was to play the old woman in "The Vagina Monologues" at the Rio Theatre, where her first line was, "Down there? I haven't been down there since Eisenhower." Temme's performance stole the show. A child of the Depression, Temme loved hunting for bargains and crowing over her triumphs: "This was a Calvin Klein and it cost $200 dollars, but I got it for $19.99." Temme's closet was full of colorful jackets and scarves, with shoes and pocketbooks to match. A busy "balabusta," Temme was committed to public radio, liberal politics, and the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle. Her calendar overflowed with bridge, art openings, dinner parties, lectures, concerts, folk dancing, Shakespeare and poetry classes, weekly lunches at Irv's Deli, excursions with Lifelong Learners. She loved stepping outside her front door in Monmouth Beach, New Jersey, and taking the bus to New York for lunch and a Broadway show. Her friends treasured her zest for life, spirit of adventure, and passionate commitment to never stop learning. Temme took her first trip abroad in her forties after her husband, Abe, got swept up in the sixties and ran away to become a hippie in California. Back in the days when divorce was rare, Temme was proud of the way she recovered. She found the inner strength to change with the times and to face adversity with courage. Temme earned her masters in social work, launched a successful career as a school social worker, studied psychodrama, and became part of an educational theatre group that taught people about dyslexia in an era before anyone had heard of it. Although she wasn't raised to do so, Temme became financially independent, saved carefully for her old age, and rented her home to finance trips around the world. Temme went on many memorable journeys: hiking to see the sunrise at Mount Fuji in Japan, visiting the Great Barrier Reef and the beaches of Tahiti, spending winters studying Spanish in San Miguel de Allende. At 74, she was having lunch with a woman she had just met. "I have access to a condo in Ixtapa," Temme said, "Want to go to Mexico with me?" And they did. Temme's most cherished adventure was the "roots" trip she took to Poland with her brother Joe shortly before he died. And just three months ago, she took her final journey to see her last surviving sister, Esther "mein svester," and her husband, Ben, in Florida. They reminisced, ate bagels and lox, and sang old Yiddish songs. In Temme's world, loyalty to family was always #1. Despite their unconventional choices, she never stopped loving her children. She and her daughter, Laura, successfully reconciled after years of painful estrangement. Temme forgave her ex-husband and they grew to be friends. And she always adored her nieces and nephews and all of their children. "I love you mieces to pieces," she told her grandchildren, joy beaming from her face. In her final years, as dementia shrank her world, Temme moved to California to be close to her daughter's family. This enabled Temme to feel secure and well cared for as she lost one part of her life after another. Despite her shrinking world, Temme remained cheerful, saying things like, "This is one of the happiest periods of my life," and "I hope you have an old age just like mine." She lit up every time a family member came into her room. Temme's end came quickly, just as the pleasure was being sucked from her world. She died surrounded by love and will be fondly remembered by her children, Darren and Laura, her daughter-in-law Karyn, her grandchildren, Sonya, Eli and Eliza, her sister Esther, and her large extended family, who always benefitted from her loyalty, generosity, and love. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Santa Cruz Alzheimer's Association, who offered incredible support in her final years. (http://www.alz.org/norcal/in_my_community_donate.asp) A graveside service will be held on Tuesday, July 29th at 2 PM at the Home of Peace Cemetery at 401 Meder Street in Santa Cruz.