Isabel Weil, born in Brooklyn on May 19, 1923 and the first in her family to attend college, was nominated by Hunter College to Pi Mu Epsilon in 1942, just as her father suffered a stroke and died. She found an office job in a lipstick factory, switched from Hunter full time to night classes and graduated a year late. She became a beloved New York City junior high school math teacher. She loved math puzzles and stumping nears and dears with birthday checks calculated using days, hours and years lived.
She often said her greatest regret was not joining Pi Mu Epsilon. Through the efforts of Barry M. Cherkas, chair of the Hunter College Department of Mathematics and Statistics, and faculty advisor Tatyana Khodorovskiy, on February 19, 2021, Isabel Weil Gros became the oldest new member of Pi Mu Epsilon, and maybe the happiest new member ever, 79 years after receiving her original invitation. She said she never expected to join and was thrilled to take the pledge! She died on March 17, 2021.
Her children, Melinda and Jacques, generously funded ‘The Isabel Weil Gros Award for Excellence in Mathematics’, a new annual monetary prize to be awarded to a Hunter College Pi Mu Epsilon nominee.