#TuesdayTopic: Inspiring Women Featuring Dr. Miriam Aronson

Reprinted from an IG post

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In honor of Mother’s Day, today’s #tuesdaytopic is about my late mother-in-law, Dr. Miriam Aronson (AKA Mimie), a brilliant woman who made great things happen in the 2nd half of her life through her important work as a nationally renowned gerontologist and as one of the founders of the National Alzheimers Association (which she helped to create at age 40). 

Mimie graduated from Barnard, and was on a path to a medical degree in her 20’s, but stepped away to have a family.  However, after divorcing in the 1970’s, and while raising three young sons, she somehow managed (with a lot of grit and determination) to go back to Columbia University and earn her graduate degrees, beginning a highly impactful career in gerontology that helped shape the field and improve the state of elder care in this country. 

Mimie accomplished great things in midlife— in addition to helping found the National Alzheimer’s Association, she was a clinical professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, she led a 10-year landmark study on aging and dementia, lectured nationally and internationally, wrote books on the topic, and was a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America (and a distinguished member of numerous other organizations). In her later years, she dedicated her career to guiding the elderly, their families and eldercare facilities through the caregiving process, touching countless lives along the way as she helped people navigate through incredibly challenging times.

In an “in memoriam'‘ I wrote after she passed, I included a quote by Henry James that so aptly applied to the way she lived: “The great use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.” Mimie’s imprint was deep and expansive, and as good as she was in her professional roles, she was equally dedicated to her family and managed to balance it all, leaving a beautiful legacy that lives on.  Happy Mother’s Day in heaven to this inspirational woman whom I was so fortunate to know and love.