by Walter Fox
Sally Shorr, 106, a longtime resident of the Hill House apartments in Chestnut Hill, died March 21 at the Abramson Jewish Center.
Mrs. Shorr had lived at Hill House for 19 years, coming to Chestnut Hill in 1998 from Chula Vista, California, with her husband, Louis Shorr, to be close to a son and grandchildren. Mr. Shorr died in 2002, but Mrs. Shorr remained at Hill House until 2017 when she moved to the Abramson Center.
Born in Warsaw, Poland, Mrs. Shorr came to New York with her family as a 3-year-old and was raised in the Bronx and Lakewood, New Jersey, where her family had a chicken farm. She married Louis Shorr, a chemical engineer with the Domino Sugar company, in 1950 and lived for a time in Levittown, Pennsylvania, and in Jamaica, Queens.
While in New York, Mrs. Shorr, who had struggled with being overweight, became one of the first clients of the Weight Watchers organization. She accomplished her goal of losing 125 pounds and wearing a size 3 dress to her son’s Bar Mitzvah and became an entertaining and sympathetic lecturer for Weight Watchers in the New York area.
Living in Chula Vista after her husband’s retirement, Mrs. Shorr was an active member of the Temple Beth Shalom Sisterhood, organizing trips and cooking during fundraising events at the Temple.
At the Abramson Center, she was known to staff as the “fastest person they saw with a walker and knew to get out of her way.”
She is survived by sons Neill Altman and Saul Shorr; a step-daughter, Stephanie Rose; and three grandchildren. – WF
