Mechele Flaum Dies November 10

Mechele Flaum died on November 10, 2017. She was 67.

Born August 8, 1950, she was the daughter of Clara and George Plotkin, and sister of Faith Popcorn of the Georgica Association, Wainscott and Manhattan. She grew up in the East Village, was educated at the Brooklyn Friends School and earned a bachelor’s degree cum laude from American University. After college, she received a master’s degree in American folklore from University of Pennsylvania, followed by an MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business. She was recruited to Seagram’s & Sons as brand manager and went on to join Thompson Medical as brand director for Slim-Fast.

Later, after marrying Sander Flaum, a pharmaceutical executive, she went to work with her sister, becoming president of Faith Popcorn’s BrainReserve, a future-focused consultancy serving the Fortune 500. Later she formed her own trend analysis company, Marketing Fire, where she spoke nationally and internationally on consumer trends. In addition, she was responsible for running her family’s real estate company, called Fame (for Faith and Mechele).

She is survived by her nieces, Georgica Rose Popcorn and Clara Cecil Popcorn. Her extended family, Pamela and Matthew Weinberg of New York and Sagaponack and their children, Rebecca and Benjamin, as well as Tami and Jonathan Flaum of Ashville, NC and their children, Ren and Eve, also survive. Her first cousin is Richard Siegler, founder of Escola de Samba Boom, the group that drums on Sagg Main Beach all summer with wife, Nancy Winarick, of Shelter Island. Other first cousins are David Storper and wife Tina and children, Florry Wei, Wolf and Axel, of Sagaponack and New York, and Ian and Paula Storper of Brooklyn Heights, and son Josh. She had hundreds of friends, having kept in touch with people from grade school on up and sending out hundreds of (paper) birthday cards each year.

Her roots were deep in the Hamptons, starting from the time she summered at her sister’s home on Bluff Road in Amagansett and waitressed at a diner on Montauk Highway, where she said the potato farmers were the best tippers, a dollar on a well-served cup of coffee. She was fun-loving and optimistic and was often seen gracing the lanes of the East End in her perfectly restored 1971 white convertible Ford Torino. She adored her home on Kellis Pond in Water Mill with her husband, Sander, where they held an annual July 4th picnic and hosted their Fresh Air Kids, Candace and Ebony. Her favorite shopping haunt for big deco earrings was the LVIS Bargain Box and she took her nieces to the LVIS Fair each year on the last Saturday in July.

She was a gracious and giving person, survivors said. A member of the Central Synagogue, she also served on the boards of the Women’s Campaign International, Women’s Executive Circle of United Jewish Federation, the Global Organization for Organ Donation (GOOD), The Doe Fund and Brooklyn Friends School.

Marketer, entrepreneur, philanthropist, speaker, she died after a long bout with cancer, at her home in New York City. She was attended by her dedicated nurses, Jo Barr and Holly Hesse, who serenaded her with her favorite Beatles song, “Michelle, ma belle.” Her doctors, Andre Goy of East Hampton and Hackensack Hospital and Bernard Kruger of Bridgehampton and Lenox Hill Hospital, did all they could humanly do for her. Her sister Faith was holding her hand in the final moments.

Memorial donations may be made to Hackensack UMC, specify the Clara Goy Foundation, www.hackensackumc.org/donate.