Evi Levin, effervescent partner to famed violinist Walter Levin, dies at age 96
They fled amid rising anti-Semitism, traveling to Italy and Spain. In Barcelona, she recalled a man in military garb boarding their boat and shouting fascist slogans.
“He goes over to my father, whispers in his ear, ‘I’m a Hungarian Jew. Come with me,’ ” she told the Sun-Times.
He led the family to temporary safety. Later, the Mayers came to New York, where she married a fellow Bulgarian. He left her, though, souring her on romance.
When she met Walter through friends, he was still seething about the loss of another violinist in the quartet.
“Oh, I loved that intensity,” she recalled in the 2015 stories.
In 1949, when the quartet was in residence at Colorado College, she found out “faculty girlfriends” had to pay tuition. Faculty wives didn’t.
“They got married so she could take classes for free,” said David Levin. “She was utterly devoted to him and really a free spirit.”
Before settling in Chicago, they divided their time between Cincinnati, where the quartet was in residence at a conservatory, and Switzerland, where the quartet spent summers.
Once, Mrs. Levin encouraged David to listen closely during equestrian lessons at summer camp in Switzerland. “You never know when you’re going to have to flee a country on horseback, so pay attention,” she said.
“I was, like, ‘Wait, what?’ I thought I was just going to summer camp,” David Levin said.
Mrs. Levin loved the family German shepherd Anka — Bulgarian for “little Ann.” And she enjoyed new operas and theater — the more experimental, the better.
When Walter was home, the Levins ate dinner at the same time every day. The children kept quiet as their father napped between performances. But while he was on tour, Mrs. Levin invited over lots of friends, neighbors and artists.
“When he went out of town, it turned into party central,” David Levin said.
At Montgomery Place, Mrs. Levin helped organize movie nights and immersion dinners where people conversed in German, French or Russian, according to David Levin. And she helped edit the “Montgomery Messenger” newsletter.
Funeral arrangements are pending. In addition to her sons, Mrs. Levin is survived by four grandchildren.