Jean Beckerman, a Princeton resident for more than 50 years, died Tuesday morning, June 23rd. She was 93.

Jean did library work for much of her life.  Originally with the New York Public Library system, she worked during the late 1950s as librarian of The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, where she had a nodding acquaintance with such future stars as Robert Duvall, Suzanne Pleshette, Tammy Grimes, Tuesday Weld, and Sydney Pollack.

Born Jean Rose Friedburg in the Bronx, the daughter of a vaudeville and silent movie pianist, Jean attended Hunter College beginning at age 15. She worked with Hunter classmates Barbara Cohen Holdridge and Marianne Roney Mantell, founders of Caedmon Records, when in 1952 they began to amass recordings of the world's great writers, including Dylan Thomas, T.S. Elliot, and Sylvia Plath. In 1954, she married librarian Edwin Beckerman. They had three children.

Following Edwin's career path, the couple moved from Manhattan to Leicester, England to Albany to Yonkers to South Brunswick to West Windsor and finally, in 1968, to Princeton. Edwin became the director of the Woodbridge Public Library System, served as president of the New Jersey Library Association, and was on the board of the Princeton Public Library. Jean worked, for a time, at the Ewing Branch Library, Mercer County.

Jean was funny, opinionated, literate, a voracious reader. She loved theater, music, swimming, museum-going, vodka martinis, The New Yorker, and -- somewhat incongruously -- Dr. Phil. She loved certain movies: "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir," "Fahrenheit 451," "The Maltese Falcon." And she loved Princeton.

She will be missed by her husband Edwin, a South Brunswick resident, her sons Jim Beckerman of Sayreville, Lee Beckerman of South Brunswick, Peter Beckerman of Pittsburgh, their spouses Tom, Wendi and Eileen, her grandchildren Max, Amelia, Maia and Lydia, her niece Susan Braun and nephews Michael Braun, Jonathan Beckerman and Michael Beckerman.

In lieu of flowers donations can be made to the Mr. Rogers' Neighbors Kindness Project feeding hungry Princeton families

https://mrrogersneighbors.com/