Remembering Miriam Bernice Dorf

Miriam Bernice Dorf’s vanity tags declared her passion for all to see: MUSIC.

Mrs. Dorf, who transitioned Jan. 7, 2025, at the age of 101, performed locally and taught students piano and the violin.

Much of the music–making took place at a stone-and-brick rancher that she and her then-husband built in 1960 in Cheswolde, a neighborhood of single–family homes near Pikesville.

After 40 years in Cheswolde, she listed her rancher for sale. It sat on a partially forested half–acre, just a few hundred yards from the county. Deer and foxes were daily visitors, but nobody showed interest in buying the sleek, H–shaped house, “a California contemporary,” and Mrs. Dorf was getting antsy.

It was at that point that our lives intersected—through the possible intercession by Jesus.

The Dorfs came from a proud heritage. For 28 years, her Austrian-born father, Dr. Herman J. Dorf, headed the pediatrics department at St. Joseph’s, at the time still in East Baltimore.

In addition to a city home, the family maintained a summer place in Anne Arundel County. As Mrs. Dorf put it, it was “off the Magothy River,” the reason being that Jews could not buy along the shoreline. 

One brother, Paul A. Dorf, had been a chief lieutenant in political boss Jack Pollack’s Jewish Democratic machine. He married the boss’s daughter and was rewarded with a judgeship.

Another relative, although Jewish, married an African-American Christian woman preacher. One day the two were on the telephone, Mrs. Dorf kvetching about her inability to sell the Cheswolde house.

The preacher lady tried to calm her down. “My sister, Jesus knows everything about your troubles. Just have faith.”

She then broke the news. Furthermore, she said, Jesus had selected the buyers. “They are an interracial couple.”

So when I and my wife, Barbara, came to see Mrs. Dorf’s house, she saw an interracial couple and knew (although we didn’t) that Jesus had sent us. 

This was our first look at Mrs. Dorf’s house. The showing was quite strange.

She warmly greeted us at the door, practically handing us the keys.

In her younger days Mrs. Dorf had sold real estate and she now shoved our agent, George Faber, aside. “This is my show,” she declared. She not only gave a rundown on the house but also identified good neighbors and troublesome ones. Then, hoping to close the deal, she announced that she would pay several thousand dollars toward closing costs.

The hitch came at the closing. Overcome by conflicting emotions, Mrs. Dorf refused to sign the documents because she was required to use her full name, including that of a long-gone husband. After some five minutes of confusion, she relented and the rancher became ours. I have now lived in it for 24 years, the longest anywhere in my 55 years Baltimore.

We kept in touch. One Hanukkah, she invited us to Blakehurst, where she eventually moved. She wanted to show us “my menorah” among other holiday decorations. It was the Towson retirement community’s first, and she had fought the board to get it included.

Part of Mrs. Dorf’s heart remained in Cheswolde. We would see her drive occasionally past “my house,” with her MUSIC tags identifying her.