Deborah Goodman, retired speech therapist, dies at 70

Each night in their Syosset home, Deborah Goodman focused on needlepoint in her office while her husband read in his office.

They didn’t need to be in each other’s space constantly — the “comfort” of knowing the other was nearby was enough, said Peter Goodman, her husband of 45 years.

“Our interests were quite different, but we were complementary,” said the retired Newsday music and arts critic. “We fit together.”

Deborah Goodman died of COVID-19 on Aug. 17 at age 70.

She was a speech therapist who worked for the Elmont school district for about seven years in the 1990s before setting up a private practice. Then she helped youngsters with autism for about 10 years as part of the Brookville-based AHRC Nassau, a nonprofit that caters to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She retired about 12 years ago, her husband said.

Family members described her as a “loyal friend” and “overjoyed grandmother” who babysat her grandson every weekend, gave her needlepoint artwork to loved ones and never bragged about her many talents, including how she could fill crossword puzzles with a pen.

But most of all, she was supportive, those who knew her said.

Susan Tregerman, a best friend and former neighbor, remembers Deborah's open door policy, especially after Tregerman's husband’s death left her with three young children. Her children “didn’t need to knock," said Tregerman, now of Seattle, Washington. "They were always safe because there was Peter and Debbie’s house across the street. The kids always knew they could watch TV and plop themselves down.”

One of the Goodmans’ sons, Stephen of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, recalled the time he ran away to a friend’s house during his troubled teenage years. His mother came to get him; she was calm and worried but not angry.

“She just was always adamant about treating people right and being fair to everybody and being the bigger person,” he said.

Relatives sought her out for advice, said son Leo Goodman, of Astoria, Queens. “She was kind of a connective thread for parts of the family,” he said.

Growing up in the small Wisconsin town of Sheboygan, Deborah had an open mind and liked to try different activities, such as ballet, said her brother Jack Axel, of Buffalo Grove, Illinois.

After she graduated in the 1970s with a social work degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she moved with a college friend to the Bronx. She earned a master’s degree in speech pathology from Hofstra University in the early 1980s.

Religion was important to Deborah Goodman, Tregerman said, and she wanted to live in a city with a large Jewish community and find a nice Jewish guy to marry.

It wasn’t quite love at first sight when Peter and Deborah met in 1976 at a Port Washington seder, but it came quickly after, Peter Goodman said. In their Brooklyn apartment one day, he looked at her in their kitchen and asked, “Do you want to get married?” Her reply was a simple yes. They were married in 1977.

“I liked her because she was solid,” Goodman said. “She was grounded, and if I looked or felt like I was going off in a strange direction, I could trust her to keep me from going off the rails.”

The two were almost opposites, family members said. She was an observant Jew, and as her mother would joke, “You come to New York and found the least Jewish Jew.” When he got lost driving in France while they were on vacation, he was nervous but she was calm. She was adventurous and loved roller coasters; he disliked them.

For decades, the couple held open houses for family and friends to celebrate the New Year, and Deborah Goodman undertook all the cooking and baking, from brisket to desserts. “It’s just who she was and I was so grateful,” her husband said.

The marriage succeeded because they didn’t say no to each other, her brother said.

Although she had lupus, an autoimmune disease that can cause pain and inflammation, she rarely let that affect her life, her husband said. “She never said, ‘I can’t do this because my body hurts,’ ” he said.

In addition to her husband, their two sons and her brother, Deborah Goodman is survived by another brother, Mike Axel of Beechwood, Ohio; and two grandchildren.

The funeral was private; she was buried at Mount Golda Cemetery in Huntington Station. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Lupus Foundation of America.