The Legacy of the Lorber Family!

There were 10 Lorber family members who attended FLC:

Stuart and John Egnal (Bennett’s cousins – their mother Sylvia was sister to Bennett and Harry’s father and Jeff’s father, and she found FLC through the ad in the New York Times Sunday magazine).

Bennett and Harry Lorber (brothers)

Samuel and Joshua Lorber (Bennett’s sons)

Jeff Lorber (Bennett’s first cousin)

Jonathan Pintoff (son of Bennett’s oldest cousin)

Peter Ellman (son of another of Bennett’s cousins)

Matthew Littman (son of Bennett and Harry’s sister)

Lets set aside modesty for a moment and share a little bit about each one of them.

Stuart Egnal: Stu was a camper/junior counselor 1953-1955. He was an outstanding athlete at FLC and was captain of the senior camp Red Team. Stu went to Syracuse on an athletic scholarship, but discovered a love and great talent for art and transferred to the Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts) for the rest of his college education. He went to Italy on a Fulbright Scholarship, following which he got a Master of Fine Arts Degree in painting from the University of Pennsylvania. He was a prolific painter. He died of a lymphoma at age 26.

John Egnal: John was a camper 1953-1955? John became a practicing lawyer and then a law school professor, initially at Temple University and then at Western New England College of Law in Massachusetts. He retired a few years ago, currently lives in New Haven, and plans to move to New Mexico in another year to be near his daughter and son and his grandchildren.

Bennett Lorber:  Bennett attended FLC 1954-1956 as a camper and was a counselor in 1960, 1962 and 1963. He became an infectious diseases specialist and holds the Thomas M. Durant Chair in medicine at Temple University School of Medicine where he is still working at age 73. He has authored more than 140 scientific publications and is recognized as the world’s authority on the foodborne disease Listeriosis. He is most proud of his work as a teacher and has been honored for his teaching many times. Among his awards/honors are 15 Golden Apples (awarded by the medical students and you can’t win two years in a row), The Alexander Fleming Lifetime Achievement Award from the Infectious Diseases Society of America, The Lifetime Achievement Award from the Anaerobe Society (an international scientific society), the Jane Desforges Distinguished Teacher Award from the American College of Physicians (the most prestigious teaching award in American medicine), and a Honorary Doctor of Science Degree from Swarthmore College. Bennett is also a professional painter.

You can read more about Bennett at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennett

You can see some of his paintings at: http://bennettlorber.blogspot.com

Harry Lorber: Harry was an FLC camper 1954-1956? He liked to swim and ride horses, and you might recall he was an expert lanyard maker. Harry attended Philadelphia College of Textile and Science (now Philadelphia University), and has worked most of his adult life buying and selling antique silver and handling estate sales. He lives just outside Philadelphia and has turned into a gym rat. He is strong and in fantastic shape.

Samuel Lorber: Sam was a camper 1978-1982 and a counselor 1986 and 1988. Sam’s language skills came in handy at FLC since he was able to converse comfortably with Spanish speaking campers. Sam was a music major at Swarthmore College and then got two performance degrees in saxophone from the New England Conservatory. He is a professional classical saxophonist and teacher and lives outside of Philadelphia. He gets hired by area symphony orchestras when they play a piece that has a prominent saxophone part, e.g. Ravel’s Bolero. He is a much sought after teacher and coaches the saxophone quartet at the University of Pennsylvania. Parents of his students often comment on how grateful they are that their children worked with Sam who taught them “much more than the saxophone.”

Joshua Lorber: Joshua was a camper 1979-1981 and excelled as a runner. At ages 8-11 Joshua ran in many 6K races and half marathons all over the eastern PA, New Jersey, and Delaware areas. At age 12 Joshua was stricken by a neurological disease that left him blind, without sensation in his hands, and with some cognitive problems. He continues to work out and is amazingly fit and strong. He weighs 145 pounds and can bench press 320 pounds. For the past 26 years, Joshua has volunteered two days a week at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children where he holds babies and is renowned as “the baby whisperer.” Joshua works as an artist model and is in big demand for both art classes and for professional artists because of his physique, but also because he can hold difficult poses for a very long time without moving. I’ve never known a kinder person.

Jeff Lorber: Jeff was a camper in the early ‘60s. Some will remember him as a junior camper playing the Dave Brubeck tune “Take Five” on the camp pump organ with Stu Scholl on saxophone. He attended Berkelee College of Music and is a very successful jazz musician. He was one of the founders of fusion jazz and has been nominated for a Grammy Award on seven occasions. Jeff has also done arranging for many big name musicians (Barbara Streisand, Stevie Wonder, Manhattan Transfer, etc.) and has worked as a studio keyboard player on many other folks’ recordings. He lives in California and tours all over the world. You can see/hear his music on many YouTube videos.

Jonathan Pintoff: Jon was a camper at FLC in 1969. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and is another musician. He plays bass and mostly salsa music. He is in big demand in the LA Latino music scene.

Peter Ellman: Peter was a camper in the early 1980s for at least a couple of years. He is a cardiothoracic surgeon in Virginia, married, and has twin sons. He is a very serious golfer.

Matthew Littmann: Matt was a camper/CIT for several years in the 1980s. He is in business with his father who owns a couple of fitness centers in the Philadelphia area.

You may remember Stan Lorber (Jeff’s father; Peter’s grandfather). He was the first team physician in the NBA and had two championship rings from the Sixers. He was very close friends with Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving, and Billy Cunningham among others. Stan died at age 97 two years ago. I went to Florida to give the eulogy. Dr. J and Billy Cunningham flew down from Philadelphia for the memorial service. Dr. J looked fantastic, like he could walk right out on the court and play.

Forest Lake gave me a lot. I learned to love the outdoors and the beauty of nature. I gained confidence in my abilities to meet the world as I learned to swim (thanks to Marsh Chambers), canoe, shoot a rifle, handle a bow, grind a telescope mirror (thanks to Scholly), and develop a good serve (thanks to John Hobbins) . From Al Shaler, my counselor in cabin 9, I learned the value of a well-told story. One of my all-time favorite comments from a student is, “What is so great about Dr. Lorber is that he doesn’t teach with facts, he teaches with stories.” (I was selected as the Candlelight Campfire storyteller all three years I was a counselor).

My counselor years were great. I got to know Phil and Sally Confer and enjoyed many wonderful conversations with these uncommonly decent persons. I think being a junior camp counselor helped me be a better father; it certainly made me more tolerant of unusual behavior. I made a lifelong friend in my fellow counselor John Rousseau. We spent our nights off together, and he got me in a lot of trouble. Many years later, after not speaking with John for more than a couple of decades, the phone on my office desk rang one day. I answered, and the voice on the other end of the line said, “You never write; you never call; you never send flowers.” It was John. We reconnected the following year when I was in Boston for a meeting, and shared a cabin during a FLC reunion last fall. The years melted away when we climbed to Lookout.

Another of my counselor colleagues was Don Craven. He is a distinguished infectious diseases expert based at the Lahey Clinic. We connect every year at an annual scientific meeting and always talk about Forest Lake.

When I close my eyes I can smell the pine trees. FLC = good memories for a lifetime.

Sincerely,

Bennett Lorber

_________________________________________________________________________________