Dolores Rogers
Services:
Memorial Service
April 11, 2023 4:00PM
Plaza Jewish Community Chapel
630 Amsterdam Ave
New York, NY 10024
Additional Information:
Dev (Paul) Rogers – beloved wife, mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, and friend to so many – passed away on Friday, April 7, 2023 at Mt. Sinai hospital in Manhattan. Dev was born to immigrant parents in Buffalo, NY, where she grew up among cousins who did their best to recreate the shtetl-feel that their parents had to leave behind in Ukraine. After attending Vassar College for two years, Dev graduated summa cum laude as Valedictorian of her class at SUNY Buffalo (1951) with a degree in sociology, and soon after moved to New York City to pursue a career in Occupational Therapy. Dev met cellist Bruce Rogers in NY through a mutual friend and they married in 1964 – they had just celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary at the time of her passing. She had a long history as an OT, working for different hospitals throughout Manhattan where she often used her Spanish skills. She went back to school in her 50s and got a Masters in Public Health Administration from NYU, and went to work for the Health Systems Agency of New York City. However, Dev had little tolerance for red tape and incompetence, and after a few years she decided to return to OT work so she wouldn’t have to spend every day raging about the impotence of the system. She continued her OT career well into her 70s at the Jewish Guild for the Blind.
It was in her early 70s that Dev got inspired to follow her real dream: to be a performer. She took lessons in acting, singing, playwriting and comedy, and loved all of it. Dev performed in numerous productions with the St. Bart’s Players, The Space Ensemble and the American Theater of Actors. She had two one-act plays produced by the Samuel French OOB Festival, in 2004 and 2006. She wrote and performed a song about single payer health care which she performed with the Raging Grannies. Dev’s television appearances included an episode of Broad City (Comedy Central) and a superbowl commercial which co-starred her husband, Bruce. She adored participating in the podcast “The Young and the Weary” with her co-creator, comedian Jeremy Pinsley – the two produced 27 episodes of off-the-cuff musings on comedy and life.
Dev was devoted to the cause of social justice on many fronts: in particular she was a longtime and vocal advocate for Universal Health Care coverage. You can see her passion about the topic so beautifully captured in this video. Those who knew her remember her well for her lightning-fast retorts and comments, and her incredibly articulate excoriations of all kinds of hypocrisies, corruptions and injustices that she saw every day. Dev also saw beauty everywhere: she would often stop still in the street, struck by the profundity of a flowering tree or the first leaves of Spring, exclaiming in wonder. She was always, always up for a party, and constantly looked for compatriots in revelry. Dev was unbelievably kind, hilarious and caring, and she wanted every single person to have the best life possible. She was a complex, loving, wonderful human and we miss her tremendously.
Dev is survived by her husband Bruce; her son Mark and his wife Stephanie, and their children Lucy and Leah; her daughter Elizabeth and her husband Eugene; niece Marilyn and nephew David, and countless other beloved cousins and numerous friends. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation towards the cause of Universal Health Care with the Physicians for a National Health Care Program: Dev had a donations page set up long ago, and it is still active here.