Miriam Bostwick

Miriam Bostwick came from the deep South during segregation and Jim Crow and turned the injustice of inequality into a life?s work dedicated to social service.

Bostwick, who lived in Petaluma for the past nine years, died Aug. 26 after a stroke. She was 81.

Bostwick was the youngest of nine children born and raised in Savannah, Ga. She witnessed the racial divide between whites and blacks that influenced her desire to work with the underprivileged.

?I think she was very empathic from day one,? said her daughter, Angelique Fry of Petaluma. ?Here was this steel magnolia who had such a great drive and she wanted to make a very positive difference, and that?s what compelled her to social work.?

In 1947, Bostwick received a liberal arts degree from Armstrong College in Savannah. In 1954, she completed a bachelor of arts degree in social work from American University in Washington, D.C. After that, she graduated from Columbia University?s school of social work in New York and later returned to Savannah to be a case worker at a family service agency.

Subsequently, she was offered a scholarship to attend UC Berkeley.

In 1955, Bostwick married the late Charles E. Bostwick and immediately became the step-mother of two daughters, settling in Marin County. A year later, she gave birth to Angelique and set school aside to raise her children.

Although, Bostwick would not have considered herself a feminist, her daughter said, she always believed in women?s equality and encouraged her daughters to move forward.

At home, Bostwick established herself as a natural southern cook who also tried the French recipes Julia Child masterminded.

?She was the Martha Stewart of her time,? Fry said. ?She painted, did watercolors and also tried cake decorating.?

She returned to work as family case worker for the Marin County social service agency and completed her master?s degree in 1964.

In 1972, she discovered the Serenity Spiritualist Church in San Anselmo.

?That really opened a new door and dimension in her life,? Fry said. ?That became the turning point from a traditional career in social services to a spiritual path.?

Bostwick became an ordained minister, healer and medium. During the past 15 years, Bostwick wrote five books that tackled spiritual psychology and was in the process of writing her sixth book about the spiritualist understanding of the King James Bible.

In addition to her daughter, Bostwick is survived by stepdaughter Susan Barber of Nashville, Tenn., and sisters Cecelia Flowers of Brunswick, Ga., and Irene Schiel and Elizabeth Greenway, both of Mobile, Ala.

A service was held at the Golden Gate Spiritualist Church in San Francisco.

Donations may be made to the Petaluma Animal Shelter, Delta Fund or Humane Society of the United States.

? Tracie Morales