Cyrille Ada Young

Our mother, Cyrille Ada Rubinstein Young, born in Antwerp, Belgium, on June 26, 1927, died peacefully at home in Houston on February 21, 2025—the same date her mother died 37 years ago. Her quiet passing came as no surprise, not only because she had long suffered from dementia, but because it characterized her outward life. In many ways, Ada—as she was known to most people (though she was always Adayoung to our dad and Luche, a name she gave herself as a child, to her earliest family members and acquaintances)—lived her life in the background. She was small, quiet, almost unnoticeable, often invisible. Our dad Kenny was the front person. But those who knew her knew that she was smart, witty, funny, perceptive, and caring. And we knew her as the best mom we could have imagined.

Ada thought of herself as someone who hadn’t accomplished a lot in her life. Here are some of the things she did:

 --Around the age of 13, she and her mother fled Nazi-controlled Europe, literally on the last train out, leaving behind all of their possessions. They made their way on their own to join her father in South America. By that time she already spoke three languages, Yiddish, Flemish, and French.

 --She lived for three years with her parents in a completely foreign culture in Ecuador where she learned Spanish.

 --She and her parents moved to New York—another completely foreign culture—where she attended high school and, on her own, learned English.

 --She attended college at NYU, again on her own, taking the train to classes from Long Island.

 --As a female Jewish immigrant—a member of three groups, all unlikely to go to college at that time—she obtained her NYU bachelor’s degree in international business and foreign languages.

 --She met our father on the train going to and from her college classes, married him, and moved with him for his work as a geologist to Hobbs, NM—yet another foreign culture—and then to Houston.

 --She had two kids in two years. She quickly decided that was enough. While raising the kids, she helped Kenny start a successful business out of nothing and worked there for 50 years.

 --Late in life, she went back to college at Rice University as a “nontraditional student” (as if she had ever been a traditional one) and got a Master’s in Accounting.

Along the way, Ada admittedly did acquire a number of serious addictions: most prominently, mysteries, crossword puzzles, Sudoku, and especially folk dancing. She also became a tireless recruiter for each of these activities, bringing in countless new practitioners. She taught folk dancing to generations of beginners; in fact, throughout the second half of her life, the Houston folk dancing community became her extended family.

Although over the past few years we began to suspect she would outlive us all, Ada did leave behind both of her daughters, Mallory and Rowena Young; their husbands, Craig Clifford and Myron (Buddy) Steves; two grandsons, Michael and Joshua Steves; and daughter-in-law Laura Kurash. She is also loved, missed, mourned, and remembered by people whose lives she touched all over the world. 

Her memory is, and will always be, a blessing.

Graveside Services for Ada will be held Sunday, March 2nd, 11:30am, in Emanu El Memorial Park, 8341 Bissonnet, in Houston. Cantor Tunitsky will officiate.

For those who would like to make a charitable donation in her memory, we suggest three of her favorite causes:

The Aishel House: https://www.aishelhouse.org

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL): https://www.adl.org

Houston International Folk Dancers (HIFD): https://www.folkdancers.org