Obituaries

Eileen B. Levi Head Start Director

Eileen B. Levi, 80, who directed the Montgomery County public schools' Head Start program for many years, died Oct. 4 of congestive heart failure at Manor Care nursing home in Potomac.

Dr. Levi spent 25 years as a Montgomery schools administrator, including 18 as director of Head Start. She retired in 1994.

Eileen Beulah Cummins was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduated from Fordham University in New York. She received a master's degree in social work from Atlanta University in the early 1950s and a doctorate in early childhood education from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in the early 1980s.

She was a public school administrator in Livonia, Mich., before moving to Montgomery in 1969. She lived in Bethesda before moving to Potomac.

Dr. Levi was a co-founder of the Reginald S. Lourie Center for Infants and Young Children in Rockville and of a Montgomery chapter of the National Black Child Development Institute. She was a member of Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church in Potomac and the Potomac Valley Alumnae chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

Her husband of 49 years, Walter C. Levi, died in 2004. Their son Kevin Levi died in 2003.

Survivors include two sons, Neville Levi of Gaithersburg and Travis Levi of Silver Spring; a sister; and a grandson.

-- Matt Schudel