Obituaries

Rose Karol Schwimer was born September 27, 1923 in Passaic, New Jersey where her parents Sarah and Henry Karol settled afteremigrating from Vilnius, Lithuania. When she was 16, she, her four siblings (her beloved brother Sidney, Lillian, Estelle and Joey) and parents drove across the country like the Jewish Grapes of Wrath to Los Angeles, California to seek a better life. When she was eighteen and while walking down Fairfax Avenue with her sister, she met a twenty-year-old dashing Leonard Schwimer who would become her inseparable soul companion and love of her life for fifty years. Rose was a devoted mother who fiercely protected and propelled her three children to their best personal success, Sandee Karol Russell, Stanford Robert Schwimer and Scott Edward Schwimer, fulfilling the American dream by having her children become the first generation ever to attend university and post graduate studies. When looking up “Jewish Mother” in the dictionary, one will find her picture as the preeminent example of everything that title implies. Brilliant, Feisty, and sharp minded to the end, Rose celebrated her children’s lives as her greatest accomplishment and most fulfilling endeavors every day of her 93 years. She prided herself as a self-taught bookkeeper and real estate entrepreneur and worked on the books and properties until a few weeks before her passing, computing numbers in her head faster than a calculator. She leaves behind her three grateful and loving children Sandee, Stanford and Scott, her children’s longtime spouses, respectively, Jim Russell, Randi Schwimer and Michael Hadley Epstein; a host of nieces and nephews, great-nieces and great nephews, five grandsons – Michael and his wife Schuyler, Kevin and his partner Nora, Jeffrey and his partner Danielle, Gregory and his partner Zoe and Spencer, a granddaughter – Jordan and her husband Justin, three great grandchildren – Jackson, Audrey Rose and Ida – and a variety of fuzzy dogs who made her smile with joy every time she saw and kissed them. She had strong opinions and always made them clear to anyone who would listen, but not without telling a new favorite joke or story with the wit, delivery and timing of a Borscht belt comedian. From family members to bank tellers to strangers she might meet in a restaurant, Rose Schwimer could always make you laugh and feel included and loved. She forever reminded her family that when she got to heaven she would once again be united with her irreplaceable Lenny, filling him and the heavens with love and laughter.
Rose was intensely Jewish minded and planted a memorial woodland of trees in honor of her beloved Lenny through the Jewish National Fund, growing that forest of trees with donations. In lieu of flowers, nothing would be dearer to her than continuing the growth of that forest in her name toward the betterment of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. There will be a service at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City Sunday, February 19, 2017 commencing at 3PM.