Mary "Chrissie" Reinert Kaplan Karp

Mary “Chrissie” Reinert Kaplan Karp was born October 1, 1948 in Thunderbolt, Georgia to Raye and Henry Kaplan. She admired her grandmother, “Miss Mary” Toomer, who ran a successful shrimping business from the docks of that small river town, and thrived in the close-knit community she found there and in Savannah’s Sylvan Terrace, on the outskirts of the Jewish Educational Alliance, where she would meet her lifelong friends.

She was proud of her work for the Savannah Science Museum, where for 6 years she served as the director’s assistant, and was formally recognized for her dedication “to the educational goals of the Museum… for her enthusiastic and sincere efforts to make new friends for the Museum… and for her contribution to the improvement of the management of the Museum”, from which she retired to start a family with her husband, Arnold Karp. If you asked her, it was the birth of her two sons, Evan and Miles, that provided her life’s purpose; she was always there for them, never missing so much as a game of basketball, baseball or soccer.

When she loved, she loved you “to the moon and back” – she felt everything deeply, which may have been her life’s great challenge. She was a mom to more than her own, arriving, inevitably, with late night snacks for ‘her boys’ and their friends, who often also became her friends. For many years, she supervised the JEA’s preschool program, where the kids knew her affectionately as Miss Kissie, and she ran the front desk there while the boys went through middle school, welcoming people into the same building she’d grown up in at their age.

She never wanted a funeral – for her it was always to be music and food, wine and laughter. She died at home in Rincon, Georgia on March 20, surrounded by her beloved sons and siblings, Sarah (John) Epstein, Joel Kaplan and Adam Kaplan (Robin). Information about a future memorial service, circa March ’25, will be announced here. All remembrances should be sent to The American Cancer Society or Congregation Mickve Israel.