Althea Goss Pearlman, 76, of Boulder, died February 10, 2016 at AltaVita Memory Care Centre in Longmont where she had resided for the last two and a half years.
Althea was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1939 to Daniel Goss and Anne Krull Goss, both teachers of mathematics. She was raised in Utica, New York and graduated as valedictorian from Utica Free Academy in 1956. She held degrees in mathematics from Cornell University (where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa) and Harvard University. She married Elihu Hessel Pearlman, whom she had met in a first-semester chemistry class, in June, 1960.
Althea had many interests but her life revolved around her two passions: teaching and family. Althea taught mathematics at Ithaca High School in Ithaca, New York, at Warren Junior High School and Newton South High School in Newton, Massachusetts, at the City College, CUNY, in New York City, at Platt Junior High School in Boulder and, for twenty years, at Boulder High School. In 1991-92, she was an Einstein Congressional Fellow in Washington, D.C, serving as an advisor to the House of Representatives on mathematics teaching. She also spent four years as a Clinical Professor in the School of Education at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she acted as a mentor and coach to prospective teachers. For Althea, teaching was not a job or a profession, but a calling. She was an artist whose medium was chalk and blackboard. She accumulated a wall full of teaching awards, including, most notably, the Presidential Award for the Teaching of Science and Mathematics (1987), but was most gratified not by certificates but by appreciative letters from students whose lives she had influenced.
Althea was an excellent and loving wife, mother, and grandmother. She is survived by her husband, with whom she enjoyed a deep, spirited, and ever-evolving love for more than half a century, by her children Nathaniel, Benjamin and Eve, by their spouses Connie Chang, Kyla Holcomb Pearlman, and Jonathan Soglin, by her seven grandchildren: Talia and Oliver Soglin of Alameda, California, Ella and Lola Pearlman-Chang of Washington DC, Luke, Caleb and Asher Pearlman of Boulder; and by her sister Paula Goss Gombas and husband Allen Gombas of Lyman, New Hampshire. Althea's sister Phyllis Goss Murray died in 1998.
Althea's ashes will be buried in the family cemetery in West Bradford, Vermont. A memorial event in her honor will take place in the auditorium of Casey Middle School, 1401 High Street, on Saturday, March 5, at 3:00 P. M.
The family would like to thank the skilled and sympathetic caregivers at AltaVita and at New Century Hospice who made Althea's last years as comfortable as possible.
Should anyone wish to make a gift in Althea's honor, the family recommends the Althea Pearlman Memorial Fund at Boulder High School. Checks should be made out to Treasurer, Boulder High School (at 1604 Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80302) and designated "Pearlman Memorial." A scholarship will be awarded annually to an outstanding student of mathematics.
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