Her name is an instant clue to Carmen Friedman's multi-faceted heritage, and multi-cultural is a bit of an understatement when Carmen describes her family origins. Her four grandparents came from four countries on three continents: Cuba, Hungary, Germany and South Africa. She didn't know all of them, but lovely portraits commemorate some of them in her Lakeview home.
Her father, of Cuban ancestry but Spanish by nationality, was a businessman, an importer of raw cocoa beans in the seaport of Hamburg, Germany. There Carmen attended school until 1943. By then her father was the Spanish Consul in Hamburg, and he was advised that Germany was no longer safe for his wife, who was Lutheran by upbringing, but had a Jewish background. Within 24 hours the family was on its way to Spain – but Carmen relates it was a very difficult time after the Spanish Civil War. Trilingual, she continued her education by attending business school in Madrid; by age 20 she headed for New York City.
When Carmen's Spanish boyfriend urged her to marry him and return to Spain, they parted ways. An aunt, a friend of the minister of a Unitarian Church, encouraged her niece to attend a young people's club at the church. There Carmen met her husband-to-be, a native New Yorker to whom she was ultimately married for 57 years before his death three years ago. They lived in New Jersey for thirty years. Their son and daughter were in high school when Carmen, who had never before attended school in the USA, earned her GED. She completed college, earned a Master's degree in foreign language education at New York University, and taught high school German and Spanish (her favorite job) in New Jersey. Upon her husband's retirement they moved to California to be near their daughter. She taught Spanish at John Burroughs High School and then, full and part time, for nineteen years at The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks.
Carmen's son and daughter and their families are a big part of her life. Her son is a physician in New York, married to a woman from the Dominican Republic. He has traveled to Cuba and is very much interested in music – perhaps due to genes inherited from his Cuban great grandfather, a recognized concert pianist and composer. Carmen's daughter is a licensed marriage and family therapist and yoga instructor in Malibu.
University Village reaps the rewards of Carmen's energy and versatility as she shares her Spanish language with others here, as well as participating on both the Library and the Hospitality Committees. She is a faithful devotee of the exercise classes, walks with the Rabbits and is active in the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Newbury Park. Thanks, Carmen, for the Noteworthy Neighborly way you share your talents with us.