AUGUST 3 • 2023 | 61
son-in-law, Deborah and Dr.
Andrew Colman; son-in-
law, Dr. Ronald Rasansky;
grandchildren, Bradley and
Diana Stoler, Randy Stoler,
Dr. Michael and Jennifer
Rasansky, Lisa and Jay Lazar,
Jodie Colman, and Dr. Brooke
Colman; great-grandchildren,
Camellia and Elodie Stoler,
Lily and Matthew Rasansky,
and Zoey and Cooper Lazar.
She is also survived by her
devoted caregivers, Tajuanna,
Campbell, Regina, Sil and
Latrice, her nurse from
Brighton Hospice Jillian;
many loving relatives and
friends.
Mrs. Stoler was the beloved
wife for 55 years of the
late Dr. William Stoler; the
cherished mother of the late
Cheryl Rasansky; the adoring
great-grandmother of the late
Joshua Rasansky; the loving
sister of the late Sylvia and
the late Sol Panush, and the
late Jerry and the late Marilyn
Loga; the dear sister-in-law
of the late Sam Stoler, and the
late Dr. Harry and the late
Gertrude Stoler; the devoted
daughter of the late Ida and
the late John Logan; the loving
daughter-in-law of the late Joe
and the late Rose Stoler.
Interment was at Clover
Hill Park Cemetery.
Contributions may be made to
Zekelman Holocaust Center,
the Maxine and William
Stoler Fund for Family
Research, 28123 Orchard
Lake Road, Farmington Hills,
MI 48334, holocaustcenter.
org/tribute; Hebrew Free
Loan, 6735 Telegraph Road,
Suite 300, Bloomfield Hills,
MI 48301, hfldetroit.org;
Brighton Hospice, 26075
Woodward Ave., Suite 300,
Huntington Woods, MI
48009, brightonhospice.com;
or to a charity of one’s choice.
Arrangements by Ira Kaufman
Chapel.
HELENE WEGIER, 89, of
Farmington Hills, died July
22, 2023.
She is survived by her
daughters and son-in-law,
Linda Van Howe (Mel), Susan
Blunt; grandchildren, Jenny
Leveille, Laurie Hale (Andy),
Erin Styron (Andrew), Amelia
Van Howe (Robert Vargas),
and Chris Van Howe (Urszula
Mozurkewich); great-
grandchildren, Charlie, Bailey,
Callie, Henrik, Cameron and
Scarlett; many other loving
family members and friends.
Helene was the beloved
wife of the late Henry Wegier;
sister of the late Maurice
Kassovitch.
Interment was held at
the Adat Shalom Memorial
Park Cemetery in Livonia.
Contributions may be made to
the American Cancer Society.
Arrangements by Dorfman
Chapel.
OBITUARY
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thejewishnews.com.
Poet and children’s book
author Mary Ann Hoberman,
whose own childhood in a
“very loud, raucous, opin-
ionated” Jewish household in-
spired the family themes that
infused her books, died on
July 7 at her home in Green-
wich, Conn. She was 92.
The author of dozens of
children’s books, including
The Llama Who Had No Paja-
ma, The Seven Silly Eaters and
You Read to Me, I’ll Read to
You, Hoberman was named
Children’s Poet Laureate by
the Poetry Foundation, a title
she held from 2008-2011.
The theme of family was
prominent in two of her most
celebrated books, A House Is
a House for Me (1978), which
won a National Book Award,
and All Kinds of Families!
(2009), which whimsically
celebrated what a sociologist
might call non-traditional
families.
“Eggs in a carton can seem
like a family/ So can a loaf
with its slices of bread/ Celery
stalks or a big bunch of car-
rots/ They sleep in the fridge
with a drawer for a bed,” she
wrote.
Born Mary Ann Freedman
in 1930, Hoberman said her
family moved frequently
before her parents “fetched
up” in New Haven, Con-
necticut. There, she told an
interviewer, “my mother’s
mother and her family lived
and some of my father’s
family, as well. And some of
my memories have to do with
this large extended family. No
one had very much money.
They were immigrants. There
was a great warmth, a lot of
Yiddish speaking — which
they kept from me — because
it was the secret language that
grownups could communi-
cate with.”
Those memories inspired
the “very strong love” of
family that she incorporated
in many of her books.
She drew most explicitly on
her Jewish, Depression-era
childhood in Strawberry Hill
(2009), a novel about Allie,
a 10-year-old girl whose
family moves to a new town.
When a friend of a friend
calls Allie a “dirty Jew,” it
leads to lessons in difference
and tolerance.
In 1951, she married Nor-
man Hoberman, an architect,
who illustrated her first book,
All My Shoes Come in Twos
(1957), based on poems she
had written for her children.
Her husband died in 2015;
one of their sons, Perry,
would later illustrate some of
his mother’s books. Hober-
man is survived by Perry and
three other children, Diane
Louie, Chuck Hoberman and
Meg Hoberman; a brother,
and six grandchildren.
Mary Ann Hoberman’s Books
Drew on Her Childhood
JTA
JTA/LEGACY
Mary Ann
Hoberman