Rhoda Gordon, passionate special-ed teacher, 'renaissance woman,' dies at 86

Rhoda Gordon fit several challenging lives into one lifetime -- the longtime educator was a gifted artist, a talented cook and designer, and kept her mind sharp dabbling in the stock market.

"She was a renaissance woman. She was way ahead of her time," said her daughter Andrea Gordon. "She was strong, independent."

Gordon, of Glen Cove, died Oct. 25. She was 86.

Born Rhoda Lee Diamond in 1929, Gordon received her bachelor's degree in education from Brooklyn College while also studying art at Cooper Union. She met Leon Gordon on a blind date and they married in 1949, moving to Massapequa to raise a family. After Andrea Gordon was born in 1957, and her sister, Carrie, in 1960, the family moved to East Northport.

Gordon received her master's degree in education from Hofstra University in 1971 and a professional diploma in educational administration from Long Island University's C.W. Post Campus in 1986.

She spent decades in the Plainview-Old Bethpage school district as a teacher and helped set up the district's special education program. She also taught education courses at Dowling College and Adelphi University.

Gordon was drawn to teaching out of a sense of compassion, especially special education. "I think she just enjoyed children, and these were children who had special needs and she was drawn to help," Andrea Gordon said.

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She raised her two daughters with the same care and compassion, Andrea said. "She was always a mom. She never served TV dinners. It was always fresh food on the table," she said.

After her husband died in 1994, Gordon resumed her artwork and joined the Art League of Long Island, where she exhibited some of her pastels of flowers.

She also began investing in stocks as a day trader. "She just always said it stimulated her mind. Her day would start with having a cup of tea and watching [the CNBC show 'Mad Money' with Jim] Cramer and reading Barron's," Andrea Gordon said, adding that her mother "beat the market every time."

"It wasn't about the money for her," Andrea Gordon continued. "She said, 'I'm on the computer, and it stimulates my brain. I have to know what the world events are and I have to read up on companies.' Like other people use crossword puzzles, she used it to keep alert and aware."

Burial was in New Montefiore Cemetery in Farmingdale on Oct. 27. In addition to daughters Andrea Gordon, 58, of Centerport and Carrie Lowrey, 55, of Los Angeles, Gordon is survived by her sister, Harriet Carlin-Chernoff, 90, of Wantagh, and her son-in-law, Charles Lowrey. Her companion, Philip Rindler, died in 2011.