By Rebecca Goodman
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Mrs. Mack

Elaine Mack was one of those women who work behind the scenes to make the important machinery of society run.

She spent hour upon hour making lists, hanging crepe-paper streamers, serving tea and cake, organizing, planning, raising money, giving.

Toward the end, the Hyde Park resident modestly minimized her decades of work by saying it was all fun.

Mrs. Mack - the great-granddaughter of a Jewish immigrant to Cincinnati who established a family tradition of giving back to the community - died Monday of a stroke at University Hospital.

At 93, she completed a culturally rich and happy life filled with art, travel and community service.

Mrs. Mack was born in 1910 to Arthur Joseph. Her great-grandfather was Joseph Joseph, who immigrated from near Frankfurt, Germany, in the mid-19th century. The Joseph family was in the textile business and helped found Jewish Hospital.

Mrs. Mack grew up immersed in European culture - especially the arts, food and the French language. She toured Europe with her father and spent part of her childhood living with an aunt and uncle who owned a palatial hotel in the south of France.

She had a cousin who was curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and she once sat on the lap of the composer Shostakovich.

Along with the blessings of such a life, Mrs. Mack inherited and perpetuated a legacy of philanthropy and humanitarian works.

A longtime subscriber to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, she was also the original president of the Contemporary Arts Center and supported the School for the Creative and Performing Arts.

During World War II, she worked for the Red Cross and recalled, in a 1996 interview with Enquirer columnist Laura Pulfer, serving coffee, tea and cakes "to the boys at the Terminal."

Mrs. Mack was active with the Nature Center and founded the French Club of Cincinnati. She also worked for the Garden Lovers Club, the USO, the Modern Art Society, Longview State Hospital and the Crippled Children's School in Avondale.

During the 1930s, she helped organize a city tennis league for children, insisting that black children be included.

She played tennis competitively until well into her 80s. And at 40, while eight months pregnant with her third son, she hit a hole-in-one at Losantiville Country Club.

Mrs. Mack had the "greenest of thumbs," according to that son, John A. Mack of Indian Hill. She also was a gourmet cook.

Mrs. Mack was preceded in death by Edgar J. Mack Jr., her husband of 67 years, in 1998.

In addition to her son John, survivors include: two other sons, Edgar J. "Ted" Mack III of Mount Adams and Stephan J. Mack of Vail, Colo.; a sister, Nancy Newman of San Francisco; a brother, William Joseph; eight grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

Services are 11 a.m. today at Weil Funeral Home, 8350 Cornell Road, Symmes Township. Burial will be at the United Jewish Cemetery in Walnut Hills.

Memorials: Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, 1229 Elm St., Cincinnati 45210; Cincinnati Nature Center, 4949 Tealtown Road, Milford 45150; or School for Creative and Performing Arts, 1310 Sycamore, Cincinnati 45202.

E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com