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Physician, poet, patient advocate, playwright, media personality, political
activist, public health crusader—Gerald W. Deas, MD, MPH, MA, is all of
these and more. He has battled major companies and organized whole
communities to protect the public’s health.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Dr. Deas attended Boys High School and
later Brooklyn College, earning a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in
biochemistry. Drafted into the Army during the Korean War, he helped
to identify the remains of fallen comrades. Home from the war, Dr. Deas
resumed his education with a single-minded purpose: to become a
healer. After receiving a master’s in public health from the University of
Michigan, he enrolled in SUNY Downstate College of Medicine and
became an MD in 1962.
In those years, few African-Americans enrolled in medical school, but Dr.
Deas’s talents were soon evident to the faculty as well as to his fellow
students, who elected him class president.
After graduation, he performed both his internship and residency
training in internal medicine at Kings County Hospital. In addition to
joining the faculty of preventive medicine at Downstate, he served as an
attending physician a t Jamaican Hospital and at Mary Immaculate
Hospital in Queens for 35 years.
The first black medical columnist for the NY Daily News, Dr. Deas was
medical correspondent for television’s McCreary Report for 10 years,
hosting the segment called “House Calls.” He also hosted a weekly radio
show on WLIB. He continues to write regularly for the Amsterdam News
and other local papers.
Dr. Deas credits his wife, Beverly, to whom he has been happily married
for more than 45 years, for helping him through thick and thin. She
supported him through 8 years of medical training, managed his private
practice, often accompanied him on late night house calls, typed and
edited his work for the media—and accomplished all this while also
raising three children.
Lillian Berliner is originally
from Hungary. She had been
deported to Auschwitz and
then to Bergen-Belsen and
she and her mother were
liberated by the British on
April 15, 1945. Her recipes
are featured in The Holocaust
Survivor's Cookbook and
describes how she and others
planned "dream meals" while
at Auschwitz.
in Commack before moving back to Queens and The Cryder House. They are the proud parents of
Elissa Leif and her husband, David Nather, and Steven Leif and his wife, Pelin Ertuna. Elissa and
David are the parents of Judy and Bernie's two grandchildren, Jessa and Gabe Nather.
Judy and Bernie are both retired from the NYC Public Schools and currently are adjunct instructors
in the St. John's University School of Education. Bernie also supervises student teachers from
Queens College. For the past thirty-two years they have been very involved with educational travel
for the American Council for International Studies working with teachers who take their students
abroad and working on quality control/public relations for ACIS. Their travels include an annual
visit to London as well as numerous ventures within the United States and to other parts of North
American, Europe, Asia, South America, Australia and New Zealand.
They are really enjoying life at the Cryder House.
Jack Grossman and Diane Cohen are virtual newcomers to the Cryder House having relocated
from Bayside three years ago.
Diane was born in the Bronx and moved to Queens as a child, was graduated from Queens
College and has just retired from the City of New York's Community Board 8 where she was
employed as the district manager since 1991.
Gus Oluwanifise is one of our “wondrous” and “fabulous” doormen. “Ubiquitous” would also be an
equally appropriate adjective for the human dynamo who manages to be everywhere at the same time.
At any given moment he can be unloading packages at the curb, answering the phone, racing to the
back door when he spies anyone approaching from the parking lot, holding open the elevator door, or
delivering messages, and that’s on a slow day!
Gus find the daytime tour conducive to a normal family life. He is married to Margaret. He has three
daughters, Margaret; Josephina, a “Mary Louis” girl; and Oluwatoyin, a fifth grader. A fourth
daughter, Mary Comfort, died in Nigeria, which is where Gus emigrated from in order to seek a more
secure future. His move to New York was facilitated by his brother and by a friend who referred him
to a position at a Manhattan security firm. Gus’s request for a transfer to Queens is what brought
him to an assignment at The Cryder House.
Gus notes that he loves the people at Cryder House. Needless to say, the feeling is mutual.
Two special “thank you” notes to Laura Chapnick for writing the original article about Gus for the Cryder House Newsletter in August, 1998,
from which this biography is paraphrased, and to Gus for keeping his copy of the newsletter.
Danny. Lois retired from the biotech industry and is currently teaching adults Digital Photography and Computer
Science. Hank is a practicing CPA and looks forward to the end of tax season so he can turn his attentions to
tennis and bridge. Danny is a senior at Hunter HS, is often found on the basketball court, or competing in mock
trial. He will be pursuing his education, majoring in economics at the University of Chicago.
Our new neighbors....They come to us from the South Shore of LI, a condo in Lido Beach, formerly the Lido Beach
Hotel. Jeff was very favorably impressed by the condition and facilities of Cryder House. His prior condo residence
had not been properly maintained because of its owners' resistance to incur necessary assessments for
maintenance, not just improvements. This brought him back to Flushing, where he compared us with other coops
and made his choice. He had lived in Flushing until his teens, graduating from Flushing HS. He then trained in the
machine parts business and, for the past 24 years, has had his own company in Valley Stream, Industrial Drive
Components. He has 2 grown children from a prior marriage, Jonathan and Janis, who we probably will see visiting
at our pool. He also prefers the convenience of Cryder House, both to his work and to the "City." Other than to say
that he and Winnie have been together for 8 years, he left further details about her for her to tell.