William (Bill) Fink passed away on June 7, 2020 at the age of 93. He was born on June 24, 1926.

He had a full and long life. He worked hard, traveled and was a wonderful father to his two children, his grandchildren and his great grandchild. If any word could describe Bill it would be the word "educator". He loved teaching; from his profession as an industrial arts teacher in a city high school, his interest in cooking, in art, in music, in the fight for equality and the environment. He loved the ocean and fishing and would teach anybody who asked how to cast or bait a hook.

He had a quick wit, wrote many poems, and with a dry martini in hand was always ready for life's adventures. He will be missed.

We grieve the passing of Kathy Sonderman who died peacefully in her home on Ninth Street. Kathy was the wife of Bob Levine, and a loving mother to Brian and Emily. She had lived with Parkinson’s disease since 1986 and participated in their Unity Walk every year. As her illness progressed she bravely underwent groundbreaking surgeries involving implants of deep brain stimulators over a period of 20 years to slow down the progression of this terrible disease. Her brain was donated to the Neurological Institute at Columbia so that the research may help future patients with Parkinson’s.

Kathy led a very full life in Park Slope. She taught special ed in New York City public schools; she was an active congregant at Brooklyn Heights First Unitarian Church, enjoying many summer vacations with her family at Star Island, a close affiliate. She was a member of a local sewing group with her friends and she was an early organizer of a successful Park Slope babysitting group. Her volunteer work included the Cuddler program at Methodist Hospital helping to cuddle babies.

More recently Kathy attended many Good Neighbors events, despite being wheelchair-bound, with the devoted help of Bob. Our love and prayers go out to Bob, Brian and Emily at this sad time.

Jasmine Melzer and Pat Bernstein

It is with great sadness that we mourn the death of Jules Peemoeller, a member of Good Neighbors of Park Slope and our friend.

Jules was engaged in the very early days of our organization's founding and began by playing scrabble!  He then took his long- time experience as a Big Apple Tour Leader and  volunteered to do tours for our members. The first offerings filled slowly but his reputation grew.  Within a few months, his tours were filled as quickly as they were posted.  He often repeated tours to certain areas of New York City to accommodate his followers. He reveled in the city’s neighborhoods and in the enjoyment experienced by the members that went on his tours.

Those who knew his art and saw it displayed at Good Neighbors events came to realize that he had taken his particular view of the various parks on his tours and had artfully transferred them through his work on paper.

He will be surely missed.

Dick Nininger, colleagues and Good Neighbor friends mourn the passing of Walter Bernard. A sharecropper’s son, he was a man of culture,a creature of humble piety and soaring spirit, a story teller, a wit, a librarian and man of wisdom.  

Bob Ohlerking, a friend and neighbor remembers Walter as a friendly, sociable, genteel man of the South. "He would greet neighbors and passers-by with a great smile and a happy expression.   If you stopped to chat he would tell you of his day or his childhood in North Carolina.  His conversations with you would be peppered with quotations from the Bible studies from his early life as a son of sharecroppers or with quotations from the early Roman philosophers from his studies and work at Columbia University.   One always left encounters with him happier and enlightened."