Irving L. Kasner (1926-2023)
My friend Irv was an intellectual, quick witted, and a sage observer of historical events
I hate to be like that relative you only hear from when someone dies, gets married or arrested for wire fraud on reality TV, but that is what happens when you get older. I come to you all today with a eulogy for my dear friend Irv, who died last week at age 96. I met him and his wife, Doris, when I was in middle school and we stayed in touch by email through college. After Doris died in 2006, I grew even closer to Irv and we would go get a Chinese buffet lunch whenever I was back in North Carolina and catch up on politics, culture, and my latest career moves. He was my favorite conversation partner.
A couple of years ago — pre-vaccine so still cautious around our elderly friend — his neighbors hooked up a projector and we watched his 1957 wedding reception. It was his first time seeing it in several decades, and it inspired me to finally record some of his oral history. I ended up with four hours of tape, which, as I’m sure you can all relate to with your pile of summer reading books next to your bed, I hadn’t the faintest clue what to do with. Until last week.
His neighbors, who have been his proxy caregivers for at least three years, asked me to write his obituary. In my grief, I threw myself into it, double-checking his recollections with Google searches of major historical events and place names of Long Island haunts in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. I ended up with an obit I am proud of, and I hope he would be, too. I also made a short audio postcard of his distinctive Queens accent that I will miss terribly. I’m sharing all of it in hopes you will learn a little about what made Irv so special. Not just to me but to our world. We need more men like Irv. Sharp, insightful, and empathetic to those from different circumstances than their own.
Obituary
Irving L. Kasner died July 12, 2023, in Etowah, N.C., one day shy of his 97th birthday after a long and accomplished life fueled by curiosity and quick wit.
Irv, as he was known to his friends, was a passionate educator, beloved friend, notorious wise-cracker, sage intellectual, cat lover, die-hard Democrat, and frequenter of WNC's finest Chinese buffets and breweries.
The youngest of three boys, Irv was born in 1926 in South Ozone Park, Queens, and spent most of his youth and early adulthood on Long Island, N.Y. Getting an early start in “bug-ology,” he would collect butterflies and insects around his neighborhood.
His mother, Matilda Hershkovits, and father, Edward Kasner, came to New York from Austria-Hungary in the early 1900s during the second great wave of American immigration, escaping a festering antisemitism gripping the continent. His father found work selling produce and driving cabs. His mother provided for the family of three boys as a seamstress, making custom clothes for well-to-do families. She dressed Irv in suit jackets and slacks using patterns of her own design, imbuing Irv with a snappy sense of style he retained throughout his life.
In 1945, just out of high school, Irv was drafted to serve in the Army during World War II. While conducting basic training in Fort Knox, Ky., Irv contracted pneumonia and spent several weeks in the hospital and rehabilitation. After redoing basic training, Irv and his fellow soldiers were sent by train to Fort Ord in California to learn the techniques of invasion. The war ended before Irv could be deployed, sparing him the fate of many other American men, including some of Irv's friends.
For his service to the country, Irv used the proceeds from the G.I. bill toward an undergraduate degree at Brooklyn College and master's degree in biology at Adelphi University. He briefly entertained a career as a researcher, but grew tired of school and found his true calling as a public school teacher. Irv taught high school biology to countless students in the New York City Public School system through 1983, connecting complex lessons on biology, anatomy and science to students systematically written off by society.
Irv once recounted the story of one student who had been placed in a remedial biology class designed for students with learning disabilities. Irv was teaching them about photosynthesis and the student had a breakthrough.
"As a matter of convenience, an underachieving student was placed in the slow lane. His ability to correctly interpret observed phenomena and proceed to formulate an hypothesis concerning the role of chlorophyll indicated to me that his mind was moving in the fast lane," said Irv.
In 1957, Irv married the love of his life, Doris, the only person to deliver a punchline quicker than Irv. "We each had our own unique sense of humor and it blossomed into romance," he said. While he worked as a teacher and she as a union leader, they shared a warm and affectionate life together in Nassau County, taking the train to Manhattan for the occasional Broadway show or dancing at their local bar, where Doris would always lead. Both retired to their bucolic home in a Rhododendron-lined development frequented by white squirrels in Etowah, N.C., in 1986.
Not content to idle in retirement, Irv and Doris became involved as after-school mentors at Bruce Drysdale School and passionate advocates on behalf of Henderson County's most marginalized students. They also campaigned against school board candidates that sought to, as he put it, "advance the cause of segregation" in Western North Carolina. Irv and Doris launched an incentive program to give elementary students with perfect attendance a bicycle. Irv said while many programs rewarded good grades, far fewer reward children for whom showing up every day is the real challenge.
Irv was preceded in death by his wife Doris Kasner, his older brothers, Emil and Edward, as well as his two cats, Hillary and Harry. He is survived by nieces Liz Victor of Aiken, S.C., Sydney Kasner of Austin, Texas, his neighbors, and a community of friends, confidants and caretakers who will sorely miss his stories, his sense of humor, and his shrewd observations.
“How did sages get to be that way?” Irv once wrote. “They just guru that way.”