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Few Years,
Many Accomplishments
DIANA LIEBERMAN
Staff Writer
M
atthew Droz spent his life
looking out for the needs
of others.
An only child, he had
unusual rapport with older people and
was a leader among his friends at
Michigan State University.
He encouraged the brain-
injured children his mother
tutored in their Farmington
Hills home, telling them at
every sign of improvement,
"Now you're really college
material."
For more than three years,
Mr. Droz fought his own
health battle with a closed
head injury suffered in 1997, Matthew
when he fell off a college loft
ladder.
Mr. Droz died in his sleep Feb. 16
from one of the intermittent seizures
that resulted from his fall. He was home
from MSU to say goodbye to his par-
ents before they left for a vacation in
Rome.
He was 23 years old.
A marketing major who was due to
graduate in May, Mr. Droz planned a
career that would add ethics to the
world of advertising.
"He loved to sell and was very con-
cerned that the commercials for casinos
showed not what really happens in a
casino but showed gambling as a way to
a better life," said his mother, Marilyn.
When he was about 13 years old, Mr.
Droz, working with his mother, com-
pleted a research project on the market-
ing of video games. It showed that the
industry was targeting advertising for
violent video games to young people
under age 15
"I took all the research and sent it to
United States senators," said Marilyn
Droz. "Then I testified to a senate sub-
committee."
As a result of this testimony and oth-
ers, video games are now rated according
to age, she said.
Mr. Droz also worked with his moth-
er as a part of the volunteer group
National Coalition Against Television
Violence.
While a student at North
Farmington High School, he was twice
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2001
104
named state champion in the annual
competition of DECA, a national asso-
ciation of marketing students.
"Along with being a family mem-
ber, he was a good friend," said Mr.
Droz's aunt, Nancy Vicknair of
Lakeland, Mich.
"He was so upbeat about everything
— he wouldn't burden you with his
problems," she said.
"Instead, he'd listen to you."
Vicknair said her late
mother had Alzheimer's dis-
ease and her father has
dementia.
"Matt would treat both
his grandparents with digni-
ty," she said. "He had lots
of friends, but he still spent
time with his family."
Mr. Droz's fiancee, Amy
Droz
Weinberger of West
Bloomfield, said she knew
she could telephone him "any time of
the day and he was so excited it was as if
he hadn't spoken to me in weeks."
"He never hung up after a conversa-
tion without saying he loved me," she
said.
At Mr. Droz's Feb. 19 funeral, about
a dozen of his friends memorialized him
with the Pink Floyd song Wish You Were
Here. Leading the singing on guitar was
Benjamin Manson of Farmington Hills.
In a memorial letter to his late friend,
Manson remembered "the street corner
in Birmingham where we would sit on
the window ledge for hours talking, our
late nights at Silverman's, our adventures
in Spartan country."
"Considering all that has been said, I
guess I don't have to say goodbye since I
know that you will always be with me in
my heart," Manson wrote.
Matthew Droz is survived by his par-
ents, Alan and Marilyn Droz; grandpar-
ents, Ethel Droz and Murray Chayet;
fiancee, Amy Weinberger; aunts and
uncles, Nancy and Bill Vicknair,
Howard Droz and Sharon and Sandor
Katan. He was the loving grandson of
the late Louis Droz and the late
Karoline Chayet.
Interment at Adat Shalom
Memorial Park. Contributions may
be directed to the Matthew Droz
Memorial Fund — Closed Head
Injury Association. Arrangements by
Ira Kaufman Chapel.
❑
Hospice Hero,
Humanitarian
Jerry Bielfield
DAVID SACHS
Copy Editor
J
erome Bielfield, a Ford dealer
for 40 years, was a pillar in the
Jewish community, helping cre-
ate Jewish hospice in Detroit.
Rabbi E.B. "Bunny" Freedman of the
Jewish Hospice and Chaplaincy
Network in Southfield, praised Mr.
Bielfield, whose substantial gift endowed
the network and established Jewish hos-
pice as a reality.
Besides providing funding, Mr.
Bielfield regularly visited hospice
patients and befriended their families.
"Jerry didn't just give charity — he
lived charity" said Rabbi Freedman. Mr.
Bielfield, 88, of Bloomfield Hills, died
of cancer Feb. 18.
To Mr. Bielfield, community involve-
ment was never an afterthought.
Following in his family's footsteps, he
had been a contributor and fund-raiser
for Federation since 1934.
"Jerry was one of the most caring and
kind people I've ever met," said Allan
Gelfond of the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit. "His interest in
hospice, Hebrew Free Loan and the
House of Shelter is all the same thing —
it's Jerry's caring."
After graduating from the University
of Michigan in 1934, Mr. Bielfield vol-
unteered as mentor to the Titans, a club
of 19 teen-age boys at the Jewish Center
on Woodward and Holbrook in Detroit.
"He was a father figure to every-
body," said Rose Kaluzny of Southfield,
whose late husband, Shy, was a Titan.
"Jerry was a humanitarian — he loved
people."
Members ultimately fought in World
War II, got married and raised families
— and kept in close touch with Mr.
Bielfield throughout the years.
Mr. Bielfield served in counterintelli-
gence during the war and worked in his
father's Firestone tire store before open-
ing the Ford dealership with his brother
Bud. Established in 1949, Jerry Bielfield
Ford at Lonyo and Michigan in south-
west Detroit was the first Jewish-owned
Ford dealership, said Jerry Jorgensen,
who bought the business from Mr.
Bielfield in 1989.
Mr. Bielfield was active in the auto-
mobile trade, serving on the boards of
directors of the national, state and local
dealer associations. He co-founded the
Charity Preview at the annual Detroit
Auto show, which has raised millions for
good causes over three decades.
But his most unique accomplishment
in the Jewish community was the estab-
lishment of the Jerry and Eileen Bielfield
Fund for Jewish Hospice.
When Mr. Bielfield sold his business
12 years ago, he was looking for a new
project to direct his energies. Executive
directors Robert Aronson of Federation
and Alan Goodman, then of Jewish
Family Service, told him of the need to
establish a local Jewish hospice. Mr.
Bielfield took it from there.
"He understood the various needs of
hospice exceptionally well and really got
into it," said Rabbi Freedman.
"He was able to create Jewish
Hospice, nurture it, see its flowering and
then benefit from it [during his illness].
That's a complete cycle."
In addition, Mr. Bielfield, along with
the late Milton Shiffman and the late
David Hermelin, helped bring hospice to
Israel's Central Galilee region, funding
the Milton and Lois Shill-man Home
Hospice of the Valleys. Mr. Bielfield also
aided Hospice of Michigan.
"Jerry was, in his own very quiet way,
completely devoted to this Jewish com-
munity and in particular, to the people
among us who did not have a voice and
could not help themselves," Aronson
said.
Mr. Bielfield is survived by his wife of
46 years, Eileen; stepson Julius Byron
"Bud" Kahn; granddaughter and hus-
band Melissa Jensen and Chris
Williams; and great-grandson Aidan
Williams.
Interment was at Clover Hill Park
Cemetery. Contributions may be
made to the Jerry and Eileen Bielfield
Fund at the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit, 6735 Telegraph
Road, P.O. Box 2030, Bloomfield
Hills, MI 48303-2030 or the Jewish
Hospice and Chaplaincy Network,
24123 Greenfield Road, Southfield,
MI 48075. Arrangements by Ira
Kaufman Chapel.
❑