February 24, 1974 - July 12, 2023
It is with great sadness that we share the passing of Lila Margulies ’92, a Friends alumna and our first full-time counselor. She helped shape student support services at Friends during tenure from 2004-2019 with compassion, conviction, and kindness.
A deeply passionate person in every realm of her life; adoring mother to Maggie Rose and Sylvie Sweet - her kids who gave her endless joy, pride and delight; loving partner of 20 years to her devoted husband Brian. Lila was deeply connected to her extraordinarily loving sister Becky who moved the earth for her more times than any of us can count, reflecting a hard-earned caring relationship they both worked to develop and deepen through the years. Lila was a native New Yorker who was raised on the Upper West Side by her parents Jane Umanoff and Fred Margulies and her step-parents Bo Parsons and Teddy Slater. She resided most of her adult life in a tight-knit caring community in Brooklyn and was intimately connected to more friends than anyone can count.
Lila was a woman who juiced every kernel out of life until the very end. She received immeasurable joy from her family and circle of friends, found humor in even the mundane parts of life and was a profoundly intuitive person who had an uncanny ability to speak the unspeakable even as a young child, constantly verbalizing the things most of us either could not find words to express or did not have the courage to say. She had a disarming sense of humor, a stunning voice (and recently had joined the Resistance Revival Chorus which she cherished), a love of all crafting and an unstoppable passion for life, in all its beauty and hardship. She also had a mean hook shot, which she perfected tossing ice packs into trash cans in hospital rooms across the tri-state area.
Lila was a fierce advocate for those she loved, willing to go to the end of the earth for her people including her loved ones, but also the students and families she worked with throughout the years as a social worker and sex educator at Friends Seminary for over 14 years, and ultimately for herself as she fought to survive and extend her life during her nearly seven brutal years with lung cancer.
She was a self-taught herbalist and naturalist who became supremely knowledgeable about alternative treatments for cancer survivors and taught so many others from her learnings. She believed in the healing powers of the earth, its plants and the power of a positive mindset. She did not want to let go and never gave up; teaching us all, but especially her beloved children, about persistence, self-care, and how to hold on to hope.
Lila was a lover of adventures, especially the culinary and traveling varieties. She was enamored of Thailand after spending a semester there in college and later another year sparking a lifelong long love of travel; a city kid through and through with a piece of her heart always in the serenity of nature - two of her favorite spots being sunsets on the beach in Amagansett and the hilly countryside of the Berkshires. Lila took so many of us by the hand for thrilling plunges into cold water in lakes and oceans everywhere.
Lila picked up friends throughout her life in an unusually prolific way, building an extended loving community of lifelong friends who are not only forever connected to her but to each other. Once they met her, her friends stuck around and clung to her energy, spirit and effusive love - they were present with her physically and from afar until she passed.
She was spiritual, brilliant and insightful; fiercely loyal to her loved ones; hysterically funny to the very end. A life far too short but bolder, wilder and more love-filled than most.
As reported by Jessica Wapner ‘92
This message is to let you know that Lila Margulies ’92, amazing human being in so many ways, passed away on July 12.
Some of you have already heard this, I’m sure, and perhaps everyone receiving this message knew that Lila had been living with cancer for many years, after an inexplicable diagnosis.
Lila was someone who always seemed to be so herself to me - not swept up in trying to be someone she was not, true to who she was. We were in touch over the years and that feeling never changed. To know Lila was to be washed in her charisma, her kindness, her thoughtfulness, and her incredible courage in the face of something so deeply unfair.
Many of you knew her much, much better than me and were closer with her in recent years. It’s an overwhelming loss to you all, and I know we are all joined in sympathy for those who were close to her. This message is in no way meant as a full honor of Lila’s life.
The world is a darker place without Lila in it, but we can hold her and her family in the Light.
With gratitude for having known Lila, and gotten to stand in the light that she chose to radiate into the world.