Obituary: Lala Myers Greene, 73
Lala Myers Greene passed away early Saturday morning, Dec. 26, 2015, in Atlanta in her home with her loving husband of 53 years by her side. She was 73 years old.
Lala was born in Atlanta on Oct. 12, 1942, to Frank and Elizabeth Myers. She spent her early years growing up in the same home as her maternal grandparents, Bert and Honey Lilienthal; an aunt and uncle, Lala and Frank Lesser; a cousin, Lainy Goldstein; and a sister, Nancy Woodruff. She graduated Northside High School in 1960 and headed off to Ohio State University to begin her college career, but fate had other plans. The summer after her freshman year, still only 18 years old, she met Jack Greene in Atlanta. Jack had recently moved to Atlanta after being deployed by the Army to Fort Gordon in Augusta from his home in Spring Valley, N.Y. It was love at first sight, and within eight months they were engaged and married.
Together they built a life and a family. Lala worked side by side with Jack as they built many successful businesses together, but her true calling was her role as a mother to her two children, David and Ann, and later their spouses, Kerry and Michael, whom she loved as her own. She then used this same innate capacity for love and nurturance as a grandmother, or “Saffi,” to her seven grandchildren: Benjamin, Avi, Rose, Aaron, Elie, Dov and Yoni. Lala loved being with her family most of all, and they with her. The family especially enjoyed their many summers together in Maine.
Lala had the rare gift of being able to see the good in every person and cherish each day. Although Lala was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in February 2011, she never allowed the disease to define her life or tarnish her outlook. She continued to be the most compassionate, kind, grateful, optimistic, humble and strong person in the lives of her family, friends and even strangers whom she had just met. Although she was the one battling the disease, she remained everyone else’s beacon of light and hope.
Lala is survived by her husband, Jack Greene; her father, Frank Myers (Elizabeth z”l); her sister, Nancy Woodruff (Scott); her children, David and Kerry Greene and Ann and Michael Karlin; and her grandchildren, Benjamin, Rose and Dov Karlin and Avi, Aaron, Elie and Yoni Greene.
Sign the online guestbook at www.edressler.com. The funeral was held Sunday, Dec. 27, at Temple Sinai, 5645 Dupree Drive, Sandy Springs. In lieu of flowers, please remember Lala with donations to the Weinstein Hospice or the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. Arrangements by Dressler’s Jewish Funeral Care, Atlanta, 770-451-4999.
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