Elizabeth "Tiz" Block

Elizabeth Block, December 12, 2023, of Philadelphia, wife of a devoted husband, Bruce

Kuklick, and mother to four loving children, Marya, Stan, Casey, and Jake.

“Tiz” was born June 7, 1946, in Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois to Jean Friedberg Block and

Samuel Westheimer Block. She graduated from the Faulkner School and Pomona College, and

went on to receive a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature – Latin, Greek, and English – at the

University of California, Berkeley in 1977. Tiz subsequently taught Classics at the University of

Pennsylvania, and Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges. But her primary and fundamental

concerns were her children, and she devoted her adult life to their upbringing, ultimately doing

full-time volunteering at their grammar and high schools. As an empty nester, Tiz continued to

work in the Philadelphia public schools and in various local charitable organizations. She

continued this involvement into her seventies, adding to it active membership on the condo board

in the building into which she and her husband moved after Marya, Stan, Casey, and Jake were

launched and left their center city town house. In later life, her love extended to her dog Dover,

with whom she would walk along the Schuylkill River trail each morning.

The family spent much time overseas where Bruce had teaching engagements, and the

parents did much Western European traveling. Back in the United States, the couple built a

second house in Oley, Pennsylvania, which became a hub for the six Block/Kuklicks and friends

and partners. Moreover, and not least, Tiz once defined her religion as “Mill Pond,” an extended-

family compound in southern Wisconsin, where some twenty to forty cousins, aunts, uncles,

children, in-laws, and grandchildren would vacation every summer; Tiz and her crew were

usually in Elkhorn for an extended period. She was always a formidable presence – there and

elsewhere.

In the summer of 2023, Tiz was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer, and a large tumor

was removed from her spine. This came as a shock to her family, especially because she was an

active exerciser, who walked nine miles a day. The four months of August, September, October,

and November were a crushing blow to Tiz, her husband, and the four offspring, who tended to

her every day. She had a slow but irrevocable decline and died peacefully in hospice. All the

members of her immediate family held her hands while they kissed her goodbye.

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