Obituary of Gerri Binger

ALBANY – Gerri Binger, 90, passed away on Friday, October 17, 2014 at the Daughters of Sarah Nursing Center. Gerri was born Gertrude Kriegsman to Harry and Bertha on January 2, 1924 in Brooklyn, NY. She attended PS167 and graduated from Tilden High School in 1941. She took classes at City College of New York and became a bookkeeper and property manager. Gerri married Larry Binger in 1952 and they moved to Sunnyside, Queens. After their daughter was born, they moved to Long Beach, NY where they loved living by the ocean. After her retirement, Gerri moved to Voorheesville to be closer to her family and was a devoted Guga to her grandsons. She easily made friends and found an instant connection to the people and programs at the JCC in Albany. She loved playing canasta there each week and also served on the Senior Executive Committee. As someone who was perpetually cold, she spent many winters enjoying the warmth of Florida. She was predeceased by her husband in 1981 and then enjoyed traveling and became a community volunteer. She served as a literacy volunteer in the Albany city school district and knitted blankets for patients at Albany Medical Center. She was one of the recipients of this year’s Senior Lifetime Achievement Award for her volunteer efforts in the Capital District. Gerri was known for her intelligence, sense of humor, kindness, and most of all her devotion to her family. Always beautifully dressed, she was a skilled seamstress who in her younger years made all her own clothes, as well as all the dresses her daughter wore to elementary school each day. She was an avid reader, loved doing crossword puzzles and had an amazing vocabulary. She was fluent in Yiddish and with her good friend Phyllis Ross ran Yiddish groups at the Albany JCC and Massry Residence. Gerri was a loving sister, mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother. She is survived by her sister Evelyn Albert of Boca Raton, Florida, daughter Thea Reed and son-in-law Peter of Guilderland, and grandsons Billy of California and Brian of Guilderland. The family would like to thank the staff at both the Massry Residence and The Daughters of Sarah Nursing Center for their loving care and support. The funeral will be Sunday, October 19th on Long Island. Friends are invited to visit at the home of Thea and Peter on Monday and Tuesday from 7-9pm. Donations in Gerri’s memory may be made to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, 60 East 56th Street, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10022.