Legal Commentary

An Obituary With Bite (and Affection)

By Professor University of Miami School of Law

Most obituaries in the Miami Herald are kind of boring. Not this one, Herald librarian one of a kind, for Rose Klayman, a former Herald librarian, sometime Playboy bunny, and neighborhood fixture:

A hard-drinking, two-pack-a-day smoker who swore like a sailor, Rose Klayman died of respiratory failure.

…

She loved management conspiracy theories and gossip, and treasured her grudges.

In a bad mood — which was often — she could be mean as a snake. But she cared deeply about the colleagues she liked and turned herself inside out for them.

“She was a natural news researcher who loved the news, loved the work and loved helping reporters,” said one-time boss Elisabeth Donovan. “But it requires a calm demeanor, and Rose was never calm.”

She was, however, frequently kind, attentive and motherly, committing small acts of generosity like bringing a colleague designer jeans from a thrift shop and reminding another to keep his head up and “not let the bastards get you down.”

Former library colleague Ruthey Golden recalls that her friend “was always buying some homeless man or woman food. I know one cold day she came to work with no coat, crying. I said, ‘Rose, what’s the matter?’ She said, ‘I had to do it, Ruthey… . I just gave that woman laying in the street my coat. I feel bad for her.’ That’s just how Rose was.”

She loathed and loudly cursed the officious, and abusers of power.

And those are only some of the choice bits.

Full post as published by Discourse.net on March 28, 2008 (boomark / email).