Rita Saltz

Rita was one of a handful of people in my life whom I loved deeply, completely, effortlessly. Perhaps what she meant to me is best expressed in her own words which she wrote in 2003, which I now share here:

23 January 2003

To: The Nieman Selection Committee

This letter is in reference to Kanthan Pillay, Executive Producer at etv, South Africa’s first independent free-to-air television channel where he also serves as deputy editor-in-chief of news, and runs the channel’s journalism learnership program. Kanthan has applied for a Nieman Fellowship.

I have known this person since the mid-1980’s when he appeared at Princeton University as a first-year student. He had been political editor for a black South African newspaper during a time of extreme censorship and military control. Having crossed one authority too many, he left his home before he was taken from it by force, and found his way to Princeton. Kanthan responded to my campus advertisement seeking first-year students as potential computer consultants. He explained he had no knowledge of, or experience with, computers—but had used a terminal to enter his copy as a journalist and was interested in learning more about the technology.

Although at the time I’d already engaged the intended complement of knowledgeable undergraduates, there was something compelling about this man that made me add him to the mix. It was a fateful decision.

Within a few weeks, Kanthan had learned enough about the multi-platform resources to match the best of our experienced senior student consultants. He became a technology tutor for the other student consultants. Within a few months, our senior systems and networking professionals were coming to Kanthan for information, advice and collaboration. The Vice President for Computing and Information Technology began suggesting assignments for him, and Kanthan began coding his own more creative inventions for support of the campus clientele–and for pursuit of personal diversion.

I might have provided a personal letter of reference for Kanthan Pillay by saying only this: he almost certainly is the most extraordinary person I’ve ever known. You don’t know me, so may not understand what a high compliment that is. Let me be more specific. The man is bright and a very rapid learner. He is monumentally engaging and diverting; he remains legend among those who knew him during his time here. He is a man of relentless insight and irrepressible humor, of extreme generosity and intense loyalty. And sometimes, he is the person who steps one pace over the line just because that line has been drawn. Is it bravery? Perversity? A little of both, I think.

If you take Kanthan Pillay as one of your international fellows, he will learn something from the experience: it’s as natural to him as breathing. The other fellows will learn more than they otherwise would, not just from Pillay’s sharing his knowledge and experience, but because his very presence stimulates others to become better at whatever they do, including the art of being human. When I first met him, it was the decision of a moment to take him on as an employee. The longer-lasting consequence was to accept him as a friend for life. Both were decisions with joyous results. I hope you will share the pleasure.

Most sincerely,

Rita Seplowitz Saltz
Associate Director, Information Services
Princeton University Computing and Information Technology

(Sent by email and therefore unsigned)

In the last few years, Rita and I fairly regularly traded recipes and reminiscences via email. She was on a very restricted diet, and perhaps reading about food was the only way she was still able to enjoy it. The offerings at Shady Pines sounded bland and institutional, but she would still manage to look forward to some of the meals. But sometimes she could only fall back on humor, for example, pointing out the typos and inadvertent puns in the menu (‘Pork Lion’, for example). Rita’s continual good cheer, despite her increasingly poor health and being denied one of her great pleasures, is truly admirable and courageous.

Since I’m on the topic, here are a couple of food-related anecdotes. She and Marty (her then husband) had gone on vacation to Trinidad, I think this would have been in the early 1960s. They went to eat in a restaurant and spotted a bottle of ‘Trinidadian Hot Sauce’, which they requested for their table, and added to their dishes. Rita said that the patrons and servers were covertly eyeing them, expecting the tourist couple to explode in coughing and wordless requests for water. Instead, Rita and Marty quite happily went on with their meal, and their audience broke into smiles. I think Rita brought a bottle of the sauce back home.

I would guess sometime in the early 70s, I was over at Rita’s apartment (she was no longer living with Marty, though they still regularly saw each other). Rita had just received a large jar of some spicy mustard she had mail-ordered (I no longer remember the brand), and sugggested we’d test it out for lunch. She made simple cheese sandwiches and lightly spread a little mustard on the bread. Disappointingly the sandwiches had no kick. So she spread a little more mustard and we tried again. Still no kick. This time she slathered on the mustard, and after about the second bite, our sinuses were stinging. It almost hurt to breathe, and tears were running out of our eyes–we looked at each other and started laughing, crying at the same time.

—————-

I first met Rita in the mid 1960s in Morgantown, West Virginia. I think I was nine or ten years old. I was with my mother at a performance at West Virginia University’s Creative Arts Center; during intermission she stepped out, but I remained in my seat, nose deep in a book. A person behind me started a conversation, we talked about the book; that was Rita.

I was a precocious child. Rita and Marty treated me almost as an adult; I no longer remember how the acquaintance deepened, but we became friends. Their house was across town, and I would walk over there to visit (such freedom didn’t seem unsafe in those days, and in general my parents sanctioned the visits–a professor and his working wife had to be a good influence).

A few details of those visits now come to mind: paging through art books; listening to a Lenny Bruce record (“The Sick Humor of Lenny Bruce”, the vinyl was a translucent red); B. Kliban’s book of cartoons (“Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head”). One time, they had mail-ordered some chocolates, perhaps from the Netherlands, made with liqueur. I wouldn’t touch a drop of alcohol in those days, but Rita said these candies were extraordinary and I might consider making an exception. To this day I remember the chocolate shell of the candy dissolving in my mouth, and a little rush of Poire Williams on my tongue. It was like tasting the pure essence of pear.

Rita was a Science Fiction enthusiast who attended many Fandom conferences. She and Marty had shelves and shelves of science-fiction paperbacks, which I used to treat as a library, borrowing a handful to take home and read, bringing them back on the next visit. Rita introduced me to Alderson Fry, an elderly man (probably about my age now). He had been a Fan since the days of Hugo Gernsback and had met or hung out with a number of the authors whose books I’d been reading. (Alderson was the designer and head of the medical library at WVU; in retirement he took up playing the piano, wanting to learn to stride like Art Tatum.)

—————-

Rita was a wonderful writer. Back in 1970, as part of her work at the WVU Computing Center she wrote a manual called ‘The WVUCPUWATRJE* Primer’. This was unlike any other colorless computer manual you’ve ever read. It started with the subtitle:

‘Or, Give It a Try,It Can’t Be Worse Than The Title.’, before filling in the footnote: ‘*West Virginia University Computer Programming Using WATFOR Accessed Through Remote Job Entry’ and continuing on page one:

“BEFORE WE BEGIN

“This document was planned to present the computer through WATFOR, a relatively simple computer language, to those who, like the writer, know a little about language and much less than that about computers.

“The computer sophisticate will find these instructions both unpalatable and unenlightening, much as the cook who bakes her own bread would find the instructions on a slice-and-bake cookie package. If you, the reader, are by experience or by inclination a computer sophisticate, stop reading immediately and find something useful to do. You will learn nothing here.

If you are not yet knowledgeable in the ways of the computer, but have the potential for becoming a sophisticate, you may just as well begin with this relatively painless introduction. Once you have come to speaking terms with our machine, you may continue on your own to develop an intimacy with the computer and his many modes.”

At some point, I expressed an interest in learning to program. Rita brought me into the computing center at WVU and introduced me around. I was learning APL (in those days one of the few languages accessed via terminal rather than punch cards). Rather too frequently, I would ask people at the center for help when I got stuck on an exercise. Rita came by and very gently explained that the people at the center were busy, and teaching me the basics was not in their job description. Furthermore, she pointed out that one of the great features of programming is that it is easy to test things out, try to fix them, and test again. It seems almost inevitable that I eventually became a software developer, and try, fix and try again my modus operandum.

—————-

Rita and Marty befriended a man named Phillip who identified as gay (in a much more difficult era to be out), who was studying to become a set designer. They became very close, and I would often see the three of them together. I’m not sure of the timing, but Rita left Marty and perhaps with a pause in-between, she and Phillip moved in together.

One way my mother used to keep up with people in town was by reading the newspaper. But she was a busy person–on the floor six days a week at our clothing store–she also did the bookkeeping–and raising three boys (though we did have a housekeeper)–so she always fell behind in her reading. She would literally keep the back issues around for months until she was able to catch up. When Rita and Marty eventually got divorced, Rita called to let me know. She said I’m letting you know it’s official because in six months your mother will read it in the paper. Sure enough, that actually happened.

I’m not sure this anecdote belongs here, but I think I will tell it any. I was visiting Rita and Philip and they had a friend over, call him J. J was a very out gay man (again in difficult times), with a campy style (I remember walking across a bridge with him one time and he said, I once thought about jumping off this bridge, but then people would say “Look at that fairy, he tried to fly.” at the time, I didn’t quite get the joke). Anyway it was the first time I met J, and when it was time for J and I to leave, Rita announced that she and Philip would drive me home. Now normally I walked, but they were insistent. It wasn’t until years later that I realized they had been protecting me from any ill-considered behavior on J’s part if we had left together.

—————-

Rita loved wordplay. Aside from recipes, we traded a lot of jokes back and forth. Here’s more on the menu at Shady Pines: ‘A few words that intermittently appear with creative orthography are “coked” (as the carrots are coked in broth); “pepers” (as in red or yellow bell pepers), and “brought,” as in the chicken is “simmered in brought.”’

Way back when she told me a tale of a headline in the Willimantic Daily Chronicle (I think this was the paper of the nearest town; her parents ran a chicken farm in the area). She brought up that story again in an email:

“To understand the Willimantic headline, you should have some context. During World War II, a factory situated on the main road through Willimantic was owned and operated by Pratt & Whitney, which manufactured aircraft engines. One of my father’s sisters worked there during the war, in a Rosie-the-riveter kind of position.

“Sometime after the war, Pratt & Whitney consolidated their plants which had been scattered around the state (and possibly elsewhere), and the Willimantic plant was up for sale. It was purchased by the American Screw Company, which operated it for several years before deciding they needed to dispose of it.”

The headline read: “Textron Inc. Makes Offer To Screw Co. Stockholders”. You can see it on line: https://www.flickr.com/photos/76634769@N00/5355859998/

—————-

Rita was such a lovely person; a real mensch: generous, warm-hearted, vivacious, witty, bright, intelligent, open, courageous. The world is a dimmer place with her passing.

4 thoughts on “Rita Saltz”

Neil S. Plakcy March 5, 2025

I had a lively email correspondence with Rita in the weeks before she died. What a lovely person!
Kate Madden March 5, 2025

She sent me an electronic birthday card the day before she died. I found it odd, as for the first time in over 35 years she got the day wrong – two days early. I loved her very much. And even though we were in different hemispheres we kept in touch with shared laughter. Rita was a cornerstone.
Kanthan Pillay March 6, 2025

Rita was one of a handful of people in my life whom I loved deeply, completely, effortlessly. Perhaps what she meant to me is best expressed in her own words which she wrote in 2003, which I now share here:

23 January 2003

To: The Nieman Selection Committee

This letter is in reference to Kanthan Pillay, Executive Producer at etv, South Africa’s first independent free-to-air television channel where he also serves as deputy editor-in-chief of news, and runs the channel’s journalism learnership program. Kanthan has applied for a Nieman Fellowship.

I have known this person since the mid-1980’s when he appeared at Princeton University as a first-year student. He had been political editor for a black South African newspaper during a time of extreme censorship and military control. Having crossed one authority too many, he left his home before he was taken from it by force, and found his way to Princeton. Kanthan responded to my campus advertisement seeking first-year students as potential computer consultants. He explained he had no knowledge of, or experience with, computers—but had used a terminal to enter his copy as a journalist and was interested in learning more about the technology.

Although at the time I’d already engaged the intended complement of knowledgeable undergraduates, there was something compelling about this man that made me add him to the mix. It was a fateful decision.

Within a few weeks, Kanthan had learned enough about the multi-platform resources to match the best of our experienced senior student consultants. He became a technology tutor for the other student consultants. Within a few months, our senior systems and networking professionals were coming to Kanthan for information, advice and collaboration. The Vice President for Computing and Information Technology began suggesting assignments for him, and Kanthan began coding his own more creative inventions for support of the campus clientele–and for pursuit of personal diversion.

I might have provided a personal letter of reference for Kanthan Pillay by saying only this: he almost certainly is the most extraordinary person I’ve ever known. You don’t know me, so may not understand what a high compliment that is. Let me be more specific. The man is bright and a very rapid learner. He is monumentally engaging and diverting; he remains legend among those who knew him during his time here. He is a man of relentless insight and irrepressible humor, of extreme generosity and intense loyalty. And sometimes, he is the person who steps one pace over the line just because that line has been drawn. Is it bravery? Perversity? A little of both, I think.

If you take Kanthan Pillay as one of your international fellows, he will learn something from the experience: it’s as natural to him as breathing. The other fellows will learn more than they otherwise would, not just from Pillay’s sharing his knowledge and experience, but because his very presence stimulates others to become better at whatever they do, including the art of being human. When I first met him, it was the decision of a moment to take him on as an employee. The longer-lasting consequence was to accept him as a friend for life. Both were decisions with joyous results. I hope you will share the pleasure.

Most sincerely,

Rita Seplowitz Saltz
Associate Director, Information Services
Princeton University Computing and Information Technology

(Sent by email and therefore unsigned)
Jonathan Cohen March 9, 2025

In the last few years, Rita and I fairly regularly traded recipes and reminiscences via email. She was on a very restricted diet, and perhaps reading about food was the only way she was still able to enjoy it. The offerings at Shady Pines sounded bland and institutional, but she would still manage to look forward to some of the meals. But sometimes she could only fall back on humor, for example, pointing out the typos and inadvertent puns in the menu (‘Pork Lion’, for example). Rita’s continual good cheer, despite her increasingly poor health and being denied one of her great pleasures, is truly admirable and courageous.

Since I’m on the topic, here are a couple of food-related anecdotes. She and Marty (her then husband) had gone on vacation to Trinidad, I think this would have been in the early 1960s. They went to eat in a restaurant and spotted a bottle of ‘Trinidadian Hot Sauce’, which they requested for their table, and added to their dishes. Rita said that the patrons and servers were covertly eyeing them, expecting the tourist couple to explode in coughing and wordless requests for water. Instead, Rita and Marty quite happily went on with their meal, and their audience broke into smiles. I think Rita brought a bottle of the sauce back home.

I would guess sometime in the early 70s, I was over at Rita’s apartment (she was no longer living with Marty, though they still regularly saw each other). Rita had just received a large jar of some spicy mustard she had mail-ordered (I no longer remember the brand), and sugggested we’d test it out for lunch. She made simple cheese sandwiches and lightly spread a little mustard on the bread. Disappointingly the sandwiches had no kick. So she spread a little more mustard and we tried again. Still no kick. This time she slathered on the mustard, and after about the second bite, our sinuses were stinging. It almost hurt to breathe, and tears were running out of our eyes–we looked at each other and started laughing, crying at the same time.

—————-

I first met Rita in the mid 1960s in Morgantown, West Virginia. I think I was nine or ten years old. I was with my mother at a performance at West Virginia University’s Creative Arts Center; during intermission she stepped out, but I remained in my seat, nose deep in a book. A person behind me started a conversation, we talked about the book; that was Rita.

I was a precocious child. Rita and Marty treated me almost as an adult; I no longer remember how the acquaintance deepened, but we became friends. Their house was across town, and I would walk over there to visit (such freedom didn’t seem unsafe in those days, and in general my parents sanctioned the visits–a professor and his working wife had to be a good influence).

A few details of those visits now come to mind: paging through art books; listening to a Lenny Bruce record (“The Sick Humor of Lenny Bruce”, the vinyl was a translucent red); B. Kliban’s book of cartoons (“Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head”). One time, they had mail-ordered some chocolates, perhaps from the Netherlands, made with liqueur. I wouldn’t touch a drop of alcohol in those days, but Rita said these candies were extraordinary and I might consider making an exception. To this day I remember the chocolate shell of the candy dissolving in my mouth, and a little rush of Poire Williams on my tongue. It was like tasting the pure essence of pear.

Rita was a Science Fiction enthusiast who attended many Fandom conferences. She and Marty had shelves and shelves of science-fiction paperbacks, which I used to treat as a library, borrowing a handful to take home and read, bringing them back on the next visit. Rita introduced me to Alderson Fry, an elderly man (probably about my age now). He had been a Fan since the days of Hugo Gernsback and had met or hung out with a number of the authors whose books I’d been reading. (Alderson was the designer and head of the medical library at WVU; in retirement he took up playing the piano, wanting to learn to stride like Art Tatum.)

—————-

Rita was a wonderful writer. Back in 1970, as part of her work at the WVU Computing Center she wrote a manual called ‘The WVUCPUWATRJE* Primer’. This was unlike any other colorless computer manual you’ve ever read. It started with the subtitle:

‘Or, Give It a Try,It Can’t Be Worse Than The Title.’, before filling in the footnote: ‘*West Virginia University Computer Programming Using WATFOR Accessed Through Remote Job Entry’ and continuing on page one:

“BEFORE WE BEGIN

“This document was planned to present the computer through WATFOR, a relatively simple computer language, to those who, like the writer, know a little about language and much less than that about computers.

“The computer sophisticate will find these instructions both unpalatable and unenlightening, much as the cook who bakes her own bread would find the instructions on a slice-and-bake cookie package. If you, the reader, are by experience or by inclination a computer sophisticate, stop reading immediately and find something useful to do. You will learn nothing here.

If you are not yet knowledgeable in the ways of the computer, but have the potential for becoming a sophisticate, you may just as well begin with this relatively painless introduction. Once you have come to speaking terms with our machine, you may continue on your own to develop an intimacy with the computer and his many modes.”

At some point, I expressed an interest in learning to program. Rita brought me into the computing center at WVU and introduced me around. I was learning APL (in those days one of the few languages accessed via terminal rather than punch cards). Rather too frequently, I would ask people at the center for help when I got stuck on an exercise. Rita came by and very gently explained that the people at the center were busy, and teaching me the basics was not in their job description. Furthermore, she pointed out that one of the great features of programming is that it is easy to test things out, try to fix them, and test again. It seems almost inevitable that I eventually became a software developer, and try, fix and try again my modus operandum.

—————-

Rita and Marty befriended a man named Phillip who identified as gay (in a much more difficult era to be out), who was studying to become a set designer. They became very close, and I would often see the three of them together. I’m not sure of the timing, but Rita left Marty and perhaps with a pause in-between, she and Phillip moved in together.

One way my mother used to keep up with people in town was by reading the newspaper. But she was a busy person–on the floor six days a week at our clothing store–she also did the bookkeeping–and raising three boys (though we did have a housekeeper)–so she always fell behind in her reading. She would literally keep the back issues around for months until she was able to catch up. When Rita and Marty eventually got divorced, Rita called to let me know. She said I’m letting you know it’s official because in six months your mother will read it in the paper. Sure enough, that actually happened.

I’m not sure this anecdote belongs here, but I think I will tell it any. I was visiting Rita and Philip and they had a friend over, call him J. J was a very out gay man (again in difficult times), with a campy style (I remember walking across a bridge with him one time and he said, I once thought about jumping off this bridge, but then people would say “Look at that fairy, he tried to fly.” at the time, I didn’t quite get the joke). Anyway it was the first time I met J, and when it was time for J and I to leave, Rita announced that she and Philip would drive me home. Now normally I walked, but they were insistent. It wasn’t until years later that I realized they had been protecting me from any ill-considered behavior on J’s part if we had left together.

—————-

Rita loved wordplay. Aside from recipes, we traded a lot of jokes back and forth. Here’s more on the menu at Shady Pines: ‘A few words that intermittently appear with creative orthography are “coked” (as the carrots are coked in broth); “pepers” (as in red or yellow bell pepers), and “brought,” as in the chicken is “simmered in brought.”’

Way back when she told me a tale of a headline in the Willimantic Daily Chronicle (I think this was the paper of the nearest town; her parents ran a chicken farm in the area). She brought up that story again in an email:

“To understand the Willimantic headline, you should have some context. During World War II, a factory situated on the main road through Willimantic was owned and operated by Pratt & Whitney, which manufactured aircraft engines. One of my father’s sisters worked there during the war, in a Rosie-the-riveter kind of position.

“Sometime after the war, Pratt & Whitney consolidated their plants which had been scattered around the state (and possibly elsewhere), and the Willimantic plant was up for sale. It was purchased by the American Screw Company, which operated it for several years before deciding they needed to dispose of it.”

The headline read: “Textron Inc. Makes Offer To Screw Co. Stockholders”. You can see it on line: https://www.flickr.com/photos/76634769@N00/5355859998/

—————-

Rita was such a lovely person; a real mensch: generous, warm-hearted, vivacious, witty, bright, intelligent, open, courageous. The world is a dimmer place with her passing.

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