Naomi Litvackoff Tumarkin, 98, social worker

Naomi Litvackoff Tumarkin, 98, a retired social worker who tutored children in Philadelphia public schools until she was 94, died Monday, Jan. 31, at Stapeley in Germantown, a retirement residence.

Mrs. Tumarkin was the only child of Russian Jewish immigrants. She grew up in West Philadelphia, where her mother, a pharmacist, operated a drugstore. After graduating from Philadelphia High School for Girls, she earned a teacher's certificate at New York Normal School, now Hunter College.

In 1932, she married William Tumarkin, and they lived in the Soviet Union for several years while he was studying engineering there. In 1938, on their way home, they traveled by rail through Eastern Europe as Hitler was closing borders behind them, their daughter, Barbara Dunham, said.

Back in the United States, while her husband pursued a career with Budd Co., Mrs. Tumarkin cared for their two children in Logan and earned a bachelor's degree from Temple University and a master's degree in social work from Bryn Mawr College.

She was a social worker in the department of psychiatry at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and then was on the staff of the Children's Aid Society in Philadelphia before retiring in the late 1970s.

Mrs. Tumarkin and her husband moved to West Mount Airy in the late 1960s and were founding members of Weaver's Way Co-op in 1973. For years she tutored children at the Houston and Henry Schools until macular degeneration made it impossible for her to continue, her daughter said.

Mrs. Tumarkin moved to Stapeley in 2003, a year after her husband died.

In addition to her daughter, she is survived by a son, Raymond; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 19, at Stapeley, 6300 Greene St., Philadelphia.