Obituary: Child psychologist Mary Blum Devor ‘worked hard’ to help children and families in two countries
Mary Blum Devor knew at a young age she wanted to help children.
When she was 15, she saw a child crying when she went on a class trip to a daycare centre in Ottawa.
She wanted to know why the child was crying," said her daughter, Lilly Blume. The teacher said the child was emotionally troubled. At that moment, she decided to become a child psychologist so she could help children."
The result was a stellar career, including a period during the 1970s when she was director of two mental-health clinics for children and adolescents run by the Hamilton-Wentworth health department.
She was also a part-time member of the faculty of the department of psychiatry at McMaster Medical School, and trained others who worked with troubled children such as lawyers, police and parole officers.
She later took her skills to a hospital in Jerusalem when she and her second husband relocated to Israel in 1980 for eight months of the year, and donated her salary so the hospital could hire more staff to help children. She branched into marriage counselling and family therapy, handling clients well into her 80s through visits to her Westdale home or talking by telephone.
Blum Devor, who also worked for the Catholic Children's Aid Society and the Hamilton Board of Education, died June 16 at her home at the age of 94.
Her daughter said the family has been overwhelmed by messages of condolences, and noted a former client drove in from Toronto to attend her Hamilton funeral.
I've had many email messages," said Blume (who added the e" when she was teaching in the 1970s so kids would properly pronounce it as Bloom".)
It's just been so many. It's just amazing. It's kind of overwhelming how much influence she had."
Blum Devor's son, screenwriter Len Blum ("Meatballs" (1979), Stripes" (1981) and the 2006 remake of The Pink Panther"), has recounted a time he was at Rockton's World Fair and a nun told him his mother had saved her life.
Don Mandryk, a speech pathologist who worked with Blum Devor, said she was always approachable and never hesitated to work in the field.
She didn't sit in her office and have people come in," he recalled. She was out doing her community involvement, speaking to groups, doing her presentations and meeting with families. She was just one of us and she worked hard."
Blum Devor was born Jan. 1, 1927 to Marcus and Chaya Esther Halpern in Montreal. Her parents and three siblings came to Canada from Warsaw, Poland, a few months before.
Her father spoke 13 languages and during the Second World War worked in Ottawa as a translator for the government. He was a revolutionary in Poland and the family says he used to play chess with Trotsky. Her mother was a teacher and wrote articles for the Yiddish papers in Montreal.
Blum Devor graduated from Lisgar Collegiate in Ottawa with honours and won a scholarship to the University of Toronto. She graduated with a master's degree in psychology, specializing in child development.
She came to Hamilton in 1962 when her first husband, human rights activist Sidney Blum, took a job with the Social Planning Research Council. Blum Devor put her career aspirations aside to raise her family, but went to work when her husband was diagnosed with inoperable cancer in 1966.
She served as chief psychologist at the clinics and was named director in 1973. She left in 1980 to go to Israel with her second husband, lawyer Berko Devor. She returned to Hamilton after his death.
In 2006, Blum Devor received a Women of Inspiration award from Na'amat Hamilton, a group that funds social services for Israeli women and children of all faiths.
They phoned me in Israel and I was totally surprised that they would feel I'm an inspiration," she told The Spec. I've never thought that way about myself."
Blum Devor is survived by her children Helen, Len, Lilly, Jack and Reuven, stepdaughter Tzvia, 15 grandchildren and 30 great-grandchildren. She was predeceased by her first husband, Sidney, in 1969 and her second husband, Berko, in 1993.
Daniel Nolan can be reached at dannolanwrites@gmail.com