Gertrude Jeanette Blend Weisman was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to Louis and Bessie Fedman Blend on January 5, 1924. By the time she was a year old, the family had moved to Tulsa where her parents opened the New York Bakery and Delicatessen at 913 S. Main. She was valedictorian of her 9th grade class at Horace Mann Junior High. She graduated from Central High School at age 16, and then attended the University of Oklahoma for two years. She graduated with a major in French and minor in Russian from the University of Wisconsin, where she studied in a special language program which, in part, provided multi-lingual recruits for officers during World War 2. After graduation, she lived in Chicago, working in the front office of a company that was bought by 3M, and afterwards moved to New York City.

In December 1946, she met William Israel Weisman on a blind date. A perfect match, they married on March 9, 1947. Always active in civic and educational programs, she taught a before-school French class at Holmes Elementary School in the 1950s. A longtime member of the B'nai Emunah Synagogue, she served on the board of B'nai Emunah Sisterhood and served as President of the National Council of Jewish Women, Tulsa Chapter, from 1972 - 1974. Two of her proudest achievements with Council were helping the Tulsa Public Schools initiate a local program that evolved into the national Head Start in the 1960s and participating in the committee that established a youth job program, which ultimately evolved into Youth Services Inc. Another of her endeavors was volunteering at the Tulsa Psychiatric Center for many years. She was on the initial board that established the Tulsa Jewish Retirement Center, where she lived the last seven years of her life. We will miss her open heart and gregarious personality, her wit and lively sense of humor, her passion for the arts and social justice, saying goodnight and sweet dreams.

She was preceded in death by her loving and beloved husband, Buddy; her parents; her sister, Rose Blend Schlanger; and several brothers- and sisters-in-law. She is survived by her daughters, Ann of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Eleanor (Jay Hanes) of Meadville, Pennsylvania; and son Robert (Nancy) of Bethesda, Maryland. She also leaves behind five grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and numerous relatives and friends.

You are one with the Divine now. We wish you well on your journey. Travel in bright joy like meteors weaving a shining velvet darkness capable of holding love between the stars.

Donations honoring her life may be made to the American Cancer Society, B'nai Emunah Synagogue, or Planned Parenthood of Oklahoma.

Funeral Services will be Sunday, 1:00 p.m., B'Nai Emunah Synagogue. Interment will follow at Rose Hill Memorial Park Cemetery.

Fitzgerald Ivy Chapel 918-585-1151