Suzanne Rottman

Suzanne (Gammie) Friedman Rottman was born July 7, 1939 in Cherry Hill, NJ, and died in Los Angeles CA, August 24th, 2025 at the age 86 from unexpected complications from hiatal and morgagni hernia surgery. She is survived by a son, Andrew (Andy) Rottman, his fiancée Christine Evans, daughter Julia (Julie) Rottman Grody, son-in-law Jeremy Charles Grody, beloved granddaughters Jess and Jo Grody, and her niece Jill Rednor.

A teacher to her core, her passing was timed perfectly to allow Julia to skip opening faculty meetings. (Her irreverence and rejection of shame are perhaps additional legacies.) In her last moments, she had one hand in Julie’s and the other on a Baltimore Raven’s teddy bear that had belonged to Leonard (Lanny, deceased), her husband of over 50 years, of whom she was a major fan.

The city of Baltimore, and the decades of her life that it represented (from marriage through her retirement), were close to her heart. She valued her deep and wide circle of Baltimore friends and chosen family, with whom she shared Jewish holidays, game nights, New Year’s Eves, travel, and the ups and downs of parenting. She felt their love during her final moments, as well as during the annual Rottman/Grody crab feast, during which she and Jeremy bonded deeply over the importance of thorough “picking.”

Her years teaching chemistry, first at Essex Community College, then at University of Maryland Baltimore County, made good use of her Master’s Degree in Chemistry, the first Columbia university ever awarded to a woman. She began her career working at Dupont Labs, and found her love for teaching when Andy and Julie were in elementary school. She was particularly proud of founding the peer-to-peer chemistry tutoring center at UMBC, as well as her work developing the *Myerhoff Scholars program. The program’s focus on building connections between the students was a central part of her vision. Generations of students who passed organic chemistry thanks to her, and Julia and Jess’s careers as a teacher are just a part of her legacy.

After her move to Los Angeles, she again developed a wide and deep group of friends, particularly through her involvement at SAGE Learning in Retirement (through CSUN) and during her time at The Village at Northridge. There, she participated in as many book clubs, movie groups, political history lectures, and more as she could without compromising her newfound love of watercolor painting of flowers that evoked her childhood. That artistic bent was shared with her granddaughter Jo, and those watercolors will be used by Jo as she studies Visual Arts/ceramics in college.

Suzanne often spoke of her determination to break the cycle of dysfunction in her family of origin, and in her final conversations, she expressed faith and pride in having done so with both Andy and Julie. Jess and Jo represented to her the ultimate proof of that generational healing, and they gave her more joy than can be imagined.

The family is still talking about how best to celebrate her life but is not sitting shiva this week. In lieu of flowers, etc, donations in Suzanne’s memory are welcome. They can be sent to The UMBC Foundation (1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD, 21250. Tax ID 52-1125663) and earmarked for the Myerhoff Operating Funds.

*The Meyerhoff Scholars Program is at the forefront of efforts to increase diversity among future leaders in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics by supporting students who intend to pursue a Ph.D. or combined M.D./Ph.D. in STEM. The UMBC Meyerhoff family is now more than 1600 strong with over 1400 alumni across the nation, which includes over 300 students enrolled in graduate and professional programs.