Pearl Golden, known as “Pepper” most of her life, died April 11. A patron of the arts, her passion and knowledge of antiques led her to a fascinating second career as an antiques dealer, known for her participation in numerous antiques shows.
She was born in 1918 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where her parents, Louis and Anna Gross Baum, owned a Victorian hotel in this city of summer society, baths and horseracing.
Her family spent winters in Miami Beach, Fla., where she attended school until her senior year when the family moved to Lakewood, N.J. After graduating from New Jersey College of Women (then the women’s college of Rutgers University) with a degree in sociology, Pepper earned a master’s degree in psychiatric social work from Smith College Graduate School of Social Work. While on her field work training assignment in Boston in 1941, Pepper met her husband, Frederick Golden, a Harvard Business School student, in Cambridge’s Harvard Square. They were married in 1943 in New York City.
Her career was as diverse as the people whose lives she touched. During World War II, Pepper rode the ferry from New York to New Jersey to her social work position in Hoboken, N.J. After her husband returned from World War II, two daughters were born.
With the family moving to Atlanta, Ga., in 1957, Pepper became a “pioneer” in the field of school social work. She was a professor of field work at Atlanta University, Spellman College Graduate School. She often had lunch at Pascal’s Restaurant where her colleagues and civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King and Julian Bond would also frequent. When they moved back north to Westport in 1965, Pepper taught at UConn’s School of Social Work. Soon thereafter, she became New Canaan High School’s first clinical social worker, retiring in 1983.
Her interests, hobbies and talents were as varied as her professional life. With an amazing sense of design and color, her talents were observed in her home, her garden and her own personal sense of style. She had a brilliant mind, impeccable taste, was compassionate, loving, exuberant and was never afraid to call it the way she saw it.
Pepper was a dedicated and loving wife, mother, sister, grandparent, great-grand-parent, relative and friend. She was proud of her family and worked hard to maintain a close bond with them. She was predeceased by her beloved brothers, Joseph Baum, a restaurateur well known for creating and managing Windows on the World, the renewed Rainbow Room, the Four Seasons and others; and David Baum, head of pediatric cardiology at Stanford University School of Medicine.
She is survived by her devoted husband of more than 65 years, Frederick Golden; her daughters, Roberta Putterman and her husband, Lawrence, of Lewisburg, Penn., and Laurajean Meyers, and her husband, David, of Westport, Conn.; her grandchildren, Jonathan and Julie Putterman, and Aaron, Steven and Benjamin Meyers; and her great-granddaughter, Taylor Putterman.
