Sally Yarmolinsky was the best boss I ever had.
Last week I went to a memorial service for her. She died of cancer last month.
Those of you who knew me back in the 90s will probably remember Sally, who was the Director of Development at Union Settlement Association, the community organization in East Harlem. I was her #2. It was my second job out of college. I escaped from the hell-hole that was Jobs for Youth (which was sadly mismanaged out of existence) and arrived to work for Sally at the beginning of the Settlement's centennial year. It was a crazy time, we were doing events every few weeks. But it was fun.
That's why Sally was the best boss I ever had. Because she made work fun. Not just laughing, joking around kind of fun either. But fun in the sense of working creatively together. We really did improvise, in the best sense of the word. She taught me that "development" wasn't just raising money for the work of the organization -- it was developing the organization. We created new programs. We made connections. A lot of things happened there because Sally had an idea, and got the money to do it, and got enough of the program people to actually agree to go along with it. After she left the Settlement, a few years after I did, she never seemed to find the job that would appreciate what she could do -- not just to raise money, but to lead.
Sally came to our wedding, and in the last few years I saw her every once in a while to talk about -- well, everything. She was the first person I went to for a recommendation. She encouraged me to go to graduate school and get the skills to become, someday, an Executive Director. She was a mentor and a friend.
The last time I saw Sally was about a year ago. I happened to be in her neighborhood with Zach, so I called her up, and we stopped by her house. She was bald. I hadn't known she was sick. But she was talking about the book she was writing about Alfred T. White, the Brooklyn reformer who had built her house. She talked about the opera group she was singing with, showed me the book she had made for her nephew, fed Zach cookies.
A few months later I got an invitation for an event she had put together on White, involving music, poetry, biology, housing, and history. Oh, and beer and oysters. A typical Sally event. I couldn't go, but I thought she must be recovering, and she emailed me later to say that the event was "the best yet!!!!!"
She was an exclamation mark kind of person.
There were a lot of people at her service, a lot of stories told, and songs sung, and laughter, and tears. Her family seemed to extend to all of New York City.
I think she would have liked it. I think she would have had fun.
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Best thing I've read all week. Thank you for writing it.
I have fond memories from your tenure at Union Settlement, and I didn't even work there! Part of it's that we are all so young and bushy-tailed, but part of it's the happy memories from the events, great and small, you guys did back then. The whole organization had a real spirit to it, which I suppose is a further testament to Sally's outlook on life.
Comment #1 :: link :: September 22, 2006 11:29 AMSo sorry to hear the news. I think I only met Sally at your wedding, but I feel like I knew her after reading your piece.
Comment #2 :: link :: September 22, 2006 11:33 PMIt's not often, son, that we get the chance to pay tribute to those who influenced us in so many ways as Sally did you. That was a beautifully written testament to the change agent that she was in your life and how profoundly the intersection of your relationship with her honed your skills, gave you new ways of thinking about your work and propelled you greater heights in your professional life. Would that we all have had a mentor like that. You did Sally proud!
