Mildred Cantor, an early resident of Levittown and a
founder of the community's public library, died of cancer Monday at her home
in Philadelphia. She was 88.
Cantor grew up in Brooklyn, but like many city residents of her era moved to Long
Island after World War II. She taught dance, knitted crafts and lobbied
for spending more money on public education as Long Island made the transition
from farms to suburbs, said her son, Dan Cantor of Brooklyn. "One of the
things that makes community life robust is people like Millie Cantor and
thousands of others," he said.
Cantor raised three children in Levittown while helping to form community
institutions and establish local traditions, her son said. She was a member of
a crafts and knitting group called Master Crafters and judged handiworks at
the Nassau County Fair, he said.
Driven by thriftiness and a passion for reading, she helped to found the
Levittown Public Library in 1950 and served as president of its board for 30
years, Dan Cantor said. In 1955, he said, his mother joined the fight to
defend the library when some residents tried to close it, citing what they
viewed as exorbitant costs and books written by leftist authors.
"The library for her was a great symbol of what a
community needs to have," said Cantor, executive director of the state
Working Families Party.
Mildred Cantor majored in speech at Brooklyn College, where she graduated in
1941. During World War II, she joined the U.S. Signal Corps to test signal
circuits at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey. Dan Cantor said his mother got the
job because she had taken math classes in college.
She met Herbert Cantor, an Army serviceman, at a folk dance at Fort Monmouth.
They married in January 1946 when he returned home after serving in China,
Burma and India. The couple moved to Levittown in 1948. Herbert Cantor ran an
auto-parts store in Valley Stream and died in 2000, Dan Cantor said.
Before her children were born, Mildred Cantor worked as a librarian in Long
Beach. She organized folk dance lessons in her living room and supported the
Better Education League, which advocated for increasing public school budgets,
her son said.
In recent years, she was interviewed by students and researchers interested in
the early days of Levittown. "She would regale these PhD students,"
he said. "She was not famous but a real contributor to community
life."
She moved to Philadelphia in 2005, he said.
Besides her son, Cantor is survived by a brother, Jack, of El Cerrito, Calif.;
another son, Phil, of Montclair, N.J.; and a daughter, Madeline Cantor, of
Philadelphia.
Funeral services will be Friday, at noon, at I.J. Morris Funeral Home, 46
Greenwich St., Hempstead. Burial will follow at Mount Judah Cemetery in
Brooklyn.