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11411 N. Michigan Road
Zionsville, IN 46077
Beatrice
Beatrice Borman Fink
d. November 2, 2017
Beatrice Borman Fink,
Latin student, newspaper reporter, special education teacher, mother of five, and wife of the late Irving Fink, Indianapolis attorney, died at home on Thursday, November 2, 2017 surrounded by family.
Beatrice was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1921, the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Lithuania. She was a standout student and leader at Scott High School and then at Toledo University.
Her parents spoke Yiddish at home, worked in manual trades, and urged all their children towards higher education. Bea assimilated her parents' ideas about remaking the world free of anti-semitism and racism and respect for all forms of labor; she proudly recalled going with her Pa and Ma to rallies to free the "Scottsboro Boys". The peak of her own activism came in 1968, when she coordinated the Indianapolis area Presidential campaign of antiwar Senator Eugene McCarthy. Later that year, she became a McCarthy delegate at the convention of the Democratic Party, and witnessed the tumultuous events on the streets of Chicago.
She was working on the city desk of the Toledo Times when she met Irving Fink, a Jewish soldier from eastern Ohio. After just a few dates, he went off on a convoy to the European theatre. Their romance blossomed through letters they exchanged throughout the war, and two weeks after he returned from the service they married in Toledo on September 2, 1945.
Their first child was born while Fink attended University of Michigan Law School and his first law job brought them to Indianapolis in 1948. They had four more children and since buying a house in1953, lived on the northeast side.
Bea and Irv faced a wrenching dilemma at the time of the birth of their fifth child in 1965, when many professionals counseled them not to bring home their child with Down Syndrome. They designed their own arrangements involving special care for Laurel with a loving family for several years until she lived full-time in the Fink household. With Bea supporting her at every step of her development, Laurel went on to graduate from North Central High School, just like her four siblings.
During the years of raising a family, Bea took on many civic and volunteer roles. She helped reorganize the Sunday School curriculum for children at the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation. She worked for Young Audiences, enlisting musicians from the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra to show and play their musical instruments for children of local public schools.
In her fifties, Beatrice pursued a teaching license and Master's Degree with a specialty in learning disabilities, then worked as a special educator in the Indianapolis Public Schools for 28 years. She was committed to building on every child's assets and capacity to learn. She received a fellowship from the Lilly Foundation in 1981 to spend several months researching and bringing back information about innovative practices in special education throughout the country. She spent time in Vermont, Wisconsin, and Illinois. While in Vermont,
approaching her 60th birthday, she challenged herself by skiing down a mountain for the first (and only) time.
She was a proactive, engaged and energetic grandmother, designing creative activities and welcoming grandchildren for days or weeks to her home during weekends and summer breaks. The year her oldest grandchild graduated from college, they travelled together to Vilna, Lithuania to study Yiddish.
In 2008, Beatrice was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. She found emotional and physical support as well as many years of kinship from the men and women of Rock Steady Boxing. Beatrice was inspired to tape up her hands, put on the boxing gloves, and practice the drills that helped combat muscle and coordination challenges of Parkinson's. She soon became known as "Killer Bea."
In spite of the Parkinson's and a hip fracture, she was able to travel out of state in 2014 to one grandson's Bar Mitzvah and another grandson's wedding. Irv, her husband of 69 years, died in 2015 and the past two years have been challenging without her lifetime anchor.
Bea had two brothers who predeceased her - Aleck and Leonard. Her younger brother, Sam, lives in Ringoes, NJ.; She leaves behind five children: Leon Fink (Susan Levine) in Washington, DC; Dale Fink (Betty Zimmerberg) in Williamstown, MA; Elaine Fink (Robert Shapiro) in Cincinnati; Hugh Fink in Los Angeles; and Laurel Fink (Larry Lingenfelser) in Indianapolis. She is also survived by eight grandchildren, Anna, Simon, Gideon, Ben, Lilly, Jacob, Julia and Claire and five great-grandchildren, Nina, Naila, Julius, Louisa and Naomi.
Funeral services will be held at Aaron-Ruben-Nelson Mortuary, 11411 N. Michigan Road, Zionsville, IN 46077on Sunday, November 5th at 11:00 AM. The family requests that contributions in her memory be made to Rock Steady Boxing, https://www.rocksteadyboxing.org/or to INSOURCE/Special Education Parent Support, http://insource.org/.
Friends may leave a message of condolence for the family by visiting www.arnmortuary.com
To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of Beatrice Borman Fink, please visit our flower store.
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