Sophia Fay Lavine, 96, passed away after a brief illness in Albany on December 16, 2021. She was born in Syracuse, N.Y. where her parents, Joseph and Bessie Bottwin, and their large extended family, called her Sophie Fay. Sophie graduated from Albany High School in 1943 and then attended Syracuse University studying both math and chemistry, and like many women of her generation during World War II, earned her bachelor’s degree in three years. In July 1947, she married her beloved husband, Abe Lavine, in Temple Adath Yeshurun in Syracuse. They met on a blind date and remained happily together for almost 69 years, raising a family, playing bridge, talking about the day’s news, traveling, and enjoying their grandchildren and great grandchildren until Abe died in 2016. An avid reader, lover of crossword puzzles and opera, and lifelong learner, Sophie went back to school in the mid-1960s and earned a master’s degree in library science from SUNY at Albany, and she later worked at the university library as a cataloguer, a role well suited to her clear thinking and organizational skills, as well as her penchant for making lists. Sophie continued her education after she and Abe moved to Tallahassee, Florida. She earned a certificate in computer programming, where she learned early computer languages, such as FORTRAN and COBOL, and helped her much younger student colleagues with their homework. But for all of Sophie’s educational accomplishments, she was most proud of, and took the most joy in, being a loving and supportive mother, grandmother and great grandmother. Sophie is survived by her daughter Judy Doling, son Howard Lavine, granddaughters Amy Doling and Rachel Shapiro and husband Joel Shapiro, and great grandchildren Molly, Cooper, and Leah. The family wishes to thank the doctors, nurses, and staff at the Eddy Village Green at Beverwyck nursing home in Slingerlands for the excellent and attentive care Sophie received while living there.
Sophie will be buried in Temple Israel Cemetery on Tuesday, Dec. 21 at 11:00 a.m. Contributions are welcome to the Alzheimer’s Association, www.alz.org or The American Cancer Society, www.cancer.org.
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