IN TRIBUTE TO IRVING PINSLEY…

"They just don't make men like that anymore."

 That's what his niece said at one of the memorial services honoring him. Without exaggeration, I think.

It seems no tribute can give justice to someone so universally loved, admired and enjoyed for his easy way with people, engaging humor, fun-loving tendencies; soft-spoken, minimal yet incisive communication, sharp yet understated intelligence, considerable cultivation, unassuming demeanor, and loyal hospitality to extended family, friends and acquaintances throughout his life.

But I'll try.

On March 15, 1902, my maternal grandfather Irving Pinsley (originally Isidor Pinsky) was born in czarist Russia.

When he was two years old, he emigrated with his family to New York City, where he grew up with his parents and six siblings in an apartment in northern Manhattan.

Irving (far left) with his parents, six siblings and a few family friends or neighbors in 1914
 

He supported himself through school playing violin for live orchestras accompanying silent movies in local theaters. He earned a Bachelor of Science Degree from Fordham University in the Bronx and a Doctor of Medicine Degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
 

Irving at home in Freeport

 He became a general practitioner with his own medical office in Freeport, Long Island, where he resided with his wife Lillian and two daughters, Rhoda and Judith.

 When the U.S. entered World War Two, he enlisted in the Medical Corps of the Air Force, where he served as a captain overseas. 

  

After the war, my grandfather continued his medical education and became Chief Psychiatrist at Kings Park State Hospital. He worked and lived there for some twenty-three years, ran his own sanitarium, helped pioneer and published studies on the application of electroshock therapy, and specialized in treating the severely mentally ill, including violent criminals.  

Part of his treatment was having those patients engage in normal social and work activities and environments -- including at my parents' home on a few occasions. He drove them in his car and performed manual labor right alongside them, just as he did by himself in his own home.

An accomplished classical violinist, he was a performing member of the Kings Park String Quartet.

During those years at Kings Park, he outlived his first wife and two daughters, who all died within nine years of each other, and married the hospital's chief of Children's Social Services, Rose Daniels. 

  
Irving with Rose Daniels Pinsley

He retired to the upper east side of Manhattan, where he lived another year or so before succumbing to cancer at age 70 (when I was thirteen years old.)  And he was a tough act to follow.

The man who moderated my grandfather's memorial began it by noting that Irving would have responded, in characteristic fashion, "What's all the fuss about?" I can hear him saying it now too.
 

-- Adam Levin 

  
I was his only grandchild, whom he helped raise, and he was my hero and surrogate father throughout my pre-adolescence.
For me, he personified "cool". But then he was a hero or pal to virtually everyone who knew him.

The Long Island Press, "Dr. Irving Pinsley dies; pioneer in psychiatry", February 2, 1973

Private services were held today for Dr. Irving Pinsley, who had lived at Kings Park State Hospital while an administrative staff member there since 1948.

Dr. Pinsley died earlier yesterday.  He was 70 and had retired a year ago, moving to Manhattan.

He belonged to the American Psychiatric Association and was internationally known for his work in electric shock treatment at the hospital.

Dr. Pinsley pioneered and implemented the concept that a mental patient needs as normal a living environment as possible, as a basic part of psychiatric treatment.

He was brought to the United States from his native Russia by his parents when he was 2, settling in Manhattan.  He graduated from Fordham University with a B.S. degree and took his M.D. degree in 1926 from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

After interning at Rockaway Beach Hospital and residency at Jewish Maternity Hospital in Manhattan and at the old Riverside Hospital for Contagious Diseases, Dr. Pinsley moved to Freeport in 1931, opening a general practice.

He joined the Air Force Medical Corps in 1942.  Following his discharge in the rank of captain, he took psychiatric training at Kings Park State Hospital and at New York State Psychiatric Institute in Manhattan, completing it in 1951.

He was an instructor at New York Medical Hospital in Manhattan in 1951.

While in private practice in Freeport, Dr. Pinsley was president of Congregation B'nai Israel of Freeport and belonged to the Nassau County Medical Society.  He was active in the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and was a member of the Unity Club in Freeport.

His widow, the former Rose Daniels, a pediatric psychiatric social worker, was in charge of the children's unit at Kings Park State Hospital from 1947 to 1971.


Newsday, "Irving Pinsley", February 2, 1973

New York -- Private services were held yesterday for Dr. Irving Pinsley, 70, who until his retirement a year ago was chief of psychiatric service at Kings Park State Hospital.  He died yesterday at his home, 65 East 76th St., Manhattan.

Dr. Pinsley was a general practitioner in Freeport for 11 years before joining the Air Force medical corps during World War II.  After the war, he studied psychiatry at Kings Park and the New York Psychiatric Institute in Manhattan.  He joined the Kings Park staff in 1948, and practiced and lived there.

In Freeport, he had been president of Congregation B'nai Israel and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.  His daughter, Mrs. Rhoda Levin, a pianist, music teacher and member of the board of the Pro Arte Symphony Orchestra afilliated with Hofstra University, died in 1971.  He leaves his wife, the former Rose Daniels, a brother, Arthur, of Jamaica, Queens; and a grandson [Adam Levin].
 

Rose Daniels Pinsley, a supervising pediatric psychiatric social worker and arts activist afilliated for many years with the New York State Office of Mental Health's Kings Park Psychiatric Center and, later, the New York City Ballet, died in her sleep on January 4, 2000, in her home at East Hill Woods in Southbury, Connecticut.  She was 89 years old.

The wife of the late Dr. Irving Pinsley, an internationally known psychiatrist, Ms. Pinsley served as a social worker for the American Red Cross and U.S. Army in Europe during the Second World War, where she helped resettle displaced persons in Germany after the war, and headed the Children's Division at Kings Park Psychiatric Center in Long Island from 1947 until her retirement in 1971.  She was a longtime Charter Member of the National Association of Social Workers and a member of the American Association of Psychiatric Social Workers.

"She gave her staff considerable room to make use of their individual interests and skills, which was a benefit to the patients," said her friend and former employee at Kings Park, Jeanne Feingold of Setauket, New York.  "She was supportive in seeing the members of the family together with the patient, before this became more generally accepted practice."

Her commitment to dance and art led Ms. Pinsley to work closely with the New York City Ballet from 1971 to 1991, where she served on critical fundraising benefits and events, along with overseeing volunteer operations for most of those years.  Her work with its Special Events division and its major donors was "instrumental in raising a great deal of money," said Joan Quantrano, Director of the Ballet's Volunteer and Rehearsal Services.  "More than that, however, was her impishness and infectious enthusiasm and the way she used these qualities to lead the many volunteers she directed..."

"Danny" or "Danny Rose", as she was known by her many friends, "was a mentor to aspiring social workers, artists and dancers, and a compassionate and caring friend," said her friend, Audrey Schneider of West Hempstead, New York.  "She also provided solicitous and loving care to her stepdaughters and, later, her husband during their illnesses with cancer."

The sister of the late Aaron Daniels and Dorothy Daniels Angelus, Ms. Pinsley was born on August 10, 1910 to Jewish-Russian immigrants and raised in Ogdensberg, then a rural seaport on the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York.  She went on to receive a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Syracuse University in 1931 and a Masters Degree from Columbia University School of Social Work in 1948.

Ms. Pinsley met her husband, Irving Pinsley, as a colleague at Kings Park Psychiatric Center.  A former wartime captain-physician for the U.S. Air Force, Dr. Pinsley was Chief Psychiatrist at Kings Park for many years, where he specialized in rehabilitating the criminally ill, helped pioneer occupational therapy, and was internationally known for his work in electric shock treatment.  He died in 1973.

"Danny became our family's matriarch, an anchor and lifeline during the family's ordeals with cancer, a confidant and friend when I needed one, a conversationalist about everything but herself, brutally honest, and a true cosmopolitan with diverse cultural tastes," said her step-grandson, Adam R. Levin of New York City.

Ms. Pinsley's stepdaughters, Judith Pinsley and Rhoda Pinsley Levin, predeceased her.  She is survived by her nephew, Leslie Daniels, a retired corporate executive in West Hartford, Connecticut, and her step-grandson Adam Levin.

[Pinsley archives]

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