Esta Kossack Friedman was born on July 4, 1941 in the Bronx, New York and died suddenly and unexpectedly on May 21, 2020. She is survived by her husband Frank (’62 CC and ’65 Law) and her daughters Drs. Amy Friedman Bender and Emily Kiedman, her sons-in-law Marc Bender and Charles Kiedman and her grandchildren Noah, Elana, Dylan and Jordan (JoJo).
Frank writes: Esta and I first met when she was 18 and I was 19 when we were both sophomores, visiting a mutual friend at the St. Luke’s Infirmary. We were married after our senior years in between finals and graduation. Despite a long and difficult commute, Esta was active in college. She had an interview program on WKCR and later became the first female Vice-President of the Columbia-Barnard Young Democrats.
Esta was a government major but taught in elementary school when I was in law school to pay for our living expenses and tuition. Esta would have been an excellent lawyer and over the years toyed with going to law school. She even took the law boards and scored higher than I had. When our kids were at a stage where law school for her was possible, extensive foreign travel opportunities presented themselves and were too tempting to turn down. Esta loved to travel and she logged over two million miles on United Airlines. We were particularly fortunate in being able to do extensive foreign travel at an early age. I was an officer of a company with many foreign interests and Esta was able to accompany me on most of my foreign travel, ranging through Asia, Europe and South America. [However, the company received considerable value on these trips. Esta’s warm and receptive manner gained the confidence of the wives of many of the expatriates in these locations and they would volunteer much valuable information that at times their husbands were reluctant to reveal. Often people put off travel for later years; we were fortunate to have those opportunities when we were young, able to meet people and travel to many places that simply were not available to tourists.
One person aptly described Esta as “always kind and smart and calm and most of all... present. I always felt like she was a simply available person in her mind body and spirit every time we were together.” Another friend said that “she always was so delighted to see you. When she said ‘How are you?’, it was not an empty greeting. Esta really wanted to know; she was keenly interested in other people. She cared about them, their health, their activities, their families.”
Esta also loved literature. She was well read and had a keen analytical mind. Esta’s love of learning, intellectual curiosity and particularly her ability to be “present” was transmitted to our daughters, Amy and Emily, as part of their own relationships, both with each other and their families. It also influenced their choice of profession. Both are practicing clinical psychologists with doctorates in their field. Their children also display Esta’s warmth and intellectual abilities. My daughters have noted that many daughters have significant unresolved issues with their mothers at the time of their passing, but they did not.
We had planned to have many more years together, but a minor fall when you are on blood thinners can be catastrophic. I greatly miss my best friend and the love of my life.