Rename the Coolidge Corner School the "Ethel Weiss School"
Petitioner: Larry Ruttman
Special Town Meeting, November 2019
The former Devotion School should be named after the amazing late centenarian Ethel Weiss, who nurtured Devotion School children for seventy-six years from 1939 to practically her dying day in 2015. Ethel Weiss' life was that school, and its life was heavily indebted to her influence. Ethel Weiss was endowed with a singular spirit of moral uprightness, helpfulness, and natural wisdom which she generously shared with the tens of thousands of kids who passed through her tiny store over that enormous span of time. Indeed, she was the heart of the whole surrounding North Brookline community. No person, no matter how famous or honored, can match Ethel Weiss' right to have this legendary school bear her name. It is unlikely that Ethel Weiss' seventy-six continuous years of service to a public school and its children has ever been matched. That service is factually described in a chapter entitled, Ethel Weiss, Guardian Angel, in the book, Voices of Brookline (2005), by Larry Ruttman, which ends with the words, "In August 2004, Ethel Weiss turned ninety, and is still flying around her shop as a guardian angel, with no plans to alight." In fact, Ethel continued to fly around her shop guarding Devotion School children for over another decade until she reached the age of one hundred and one.