| Benjamin Stolow, at 98; tutored JFK in debating
By Bridget Samburg, Globe Correspondent, 6/15/2004 Benjamin Stolow was a man you could depend on. He attended 78 Harvard commencements. He was married to the same woman for 74 years. For the past 30 years he paid weekly visits to the residents of the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for Aged, who called him Mr. Ben. President John F. Kennedy depended on Stolow, to help him improve his debating technique. ‘‘He was a bad student,’’ Dr. Stolow once said of Kennedy. ‘‘He never wanted to study. He was full of fun all the time.’’ Dr. Stolow, who taught public speaking at the Staley College of the Spoken Word for decades, died Sunday at age 98. On Thursday, he attended Harvard’s commencement — he hadn’t missed one since his own in 1926. ‘‘He was essentially keeping himself alive for that goal,’’ said his son Robert, of Winchester. ‘‘He waved and smiled and greeted people.’’ Dr. Stolow often wore a crimson tie with the letter ‘‘H’’ and the number26 dotted along the fabric, as a reminder of his alma mater. Dr. Stolow lived on Beals Street in Brookline with his wife, Ida (Gross). They were married in 1930, in the same house where he had grown up. Rose Kennedy was a longtime neighbor, and he remembered watching her push the future president in a pram. After Harvard, Dr. Stolow went on to earn a master’s degree and later a doctorate in education. He became a public speaking teacher at Staley, where he taught until 1960 when the school closed. It was there that he was reunited with Kennedy, who was getting ready for his presidential debates against Richard Nixon, the first-ever presidential debates to be televised. Dr. Stolow was chosen as his private tutor. Dr. Stolow felt that Kennedy won them all. ‘‘I’m proud, but I don’t want to brag,’’ he once said. In 1975 he began volunteering at the Hebrew Rehab Center in Roslindale, where his father was a resident. He continued visiting at least once a week until he broke his hip in December. Dr. Stolow was the center’s oldest volunteer. ‘‘He was always very dapper-looking in his suit and tie,’’ said Jodie Portman, the center’s volunteer director. Portman said Dr. Stolow routinely spent his time visiting with residents and trying to make their days more special, often with a joke or two. ‘‘He really cared genuinely about the residents.’’ He also cared about children. Dr. Stolow’s pockets were often full of bubble gum. ‘‘For the great-grandchildren,’’ said his son. ‘‘He had amazing rapport around the children.’’ Dr. Stolow loved a good game of Scrabble or Boggle and taught everyone in the family to play gin rummy. Robert Stolow said his father was beating opponents up until his final days. ‘‘He was the champ,’’ his son said. Dr. Stolow said his close connection with his family was one reason for volunteering at the center — because not everyone was so lucky. ‘‘The purpose of it is to keep people from getting lonely,’’ Dr. Stolow said last October in a Globe interview. ‘‘Loneliness is the worst disease.’’ In addition to his wife and son, Dr. Stolow leaves another son, Arthur, of Brookline; five grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren. This story ran on page B9 of the Boston Globe on 6/15/2004. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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