Ealing's Oldest Person Dies Aged 107

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Gertrude Levitt had three children including a Nobel Prize winner

Gertrude went on holiday in Las Palmas two months before her death

Ealing’s oldest resident passed away earlier this month at the age of 107.

Gertrude Levitt (nee Sterne) was born in Johannesburg on 24 March 1915 and left school in 1930, working as a secretary until her marriage in 1942.

After her first child, Peter, died tragically at the age of 2 years in 1945 she worked as a volunteer, tracing holocaust victims. When her children were old enough, she started and ran a house construction company with a friend.

In 1964 Gertrude emigrated to England with her children. In 1968, at the age of 53, she qualified as a teacher at Gypsy Hill College, Kingston, and then taught at Ellerslie Infants’ school, Shepherd’s Bush, rising to the rank of Head Mistress .

Gertrude Levitt came to England in 1964

After compulsory retirement from government employment in 1980, she worked as a private tutor, and then as Headmistress of Manor House School, Hanwell. From 1983 to 1998 she and her youngest child Jonathan started and ran a school, designed to implement her approach to child development and education. The school, called ‘Corfton Hill’, was geared to helping intelligent children not achieving to potential and was run in the lounge of their flat in Ealing.

From 1998 she worked as a private tutor but was forced by failing eyesight to retire from tutoring in 2017 at the age of 101.

She secured her MA in education with applied linguistics from the Open university (at the age of 92), proofread academic papers for her children and wrote a book about her family history.

Gertrude Levitt in her degree gown

She went camping until the age of 94 and drove a car until the age of 101. Gertrude enjoyed travelling, the sea, hill walking, nature programs, seeing flowers, hearing music and being with family and friends. She completed her last holiday in Las Palmas less than 2 months before she passed away.

Gertrude is survived by three children (Michael, Ruth and Jonathan), five grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. Michael is a professor and a Nobel prize winner, Ruth is a retired professor, and Jonathan a senior research fellow. On the day of her passing , there were only 93 people older than her on the list of oldest living people in Britain, and she was the only person in Ealing.

Gertrude was buried on Monday, 25 July at Mortlake Cemetery.

Jonathan Levitt

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August 1, 2022