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Chloe Loewe (née. Klatzkin), d. 23rd February 2013

Chloe Loewe was a chemist and researcher; she was awarded a PhD in Biochemistry (c. 1950) from the University of London. She was registered as a Pharmaceutical Chemist in 1940 and worked as a researcher at King's College, London in the laboratory next door to the one where penicillin was discovered. In 1948 when the National Health Service began she was working as a hospital pharmacist, and she became a fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain in 1954. She published several research papers including a project she worked on with her husband, Raphael Loewe called: ‘Treatment of Calculus in a fragmentary Hebrew Pharmacopeia" [1963?]. The fragment is held in the Raphael Loewe archive and is exhibited underneath her portrait (look right).

Chloe Klatzkin grew up in Stoke Newington and aspired to be a doctor. Chloe felt that she had not been supported or prepared well enough by her school and therefore, although a doctor, she was not able to become a doctor of medicine. Her family report that Chloe was extremely proud of her doctorate and in later years when she was being cared for she was known as ‘Doctor Chloe’. In 2005 Chloe was featured in the community magazine Timeline: FUN & FACTS about Stoke Newington and Hackney History & Heritage. Chloe, aged 89, describes her school experiences: ‘when I was little, and our family lived just on the corner of the road by the school. My Pa used to have a tobacconist shop there and we lived in the upstairs, where the solicitors are now. Then I moved to a school called Dame Alice Owen’s, but they did not do all the subjects I needed to study, so I would go down on the tram to Birkbeck College. I would come back late, about 10 o’clock, and get off just outside the police courts, which was across the road from where we lived. I don’t think my parents were very happy about me doing the travelling, but they let me go so I could go to classes. I studied hard and then worked all my life as a pharmacist’ [1].

Raphael and Chloe met at a lecture about Jewish Studies in London. At this time Raphael was teaching Hebrew at Leeds University and he travelled to London regularly to visit her. Raphael proposed to her in Bevis Marks Synagogue having invited her there for the purpose. Chloe told him she would need to think about it but having done so wrote to accept his proposal of marriage and they were married in Lauderdale Road Synagogue on March 19th 1952. Their eldest daughter, Elisabeth, was born in London, during a trip to London to visit Chloe’s mother.

During the mid 1950s the family moved to Cambridge for three years, as Raphael was awarded a fellowship at Gonville and Caius. In Cambridge, Chloe continued work at the university supervising undergraduate research. Their second daughter Camilla was born in the family home during this time. In 1958, Chloe moved with her family to Carmel College (Oxfordshire), a Jewish boarding school, where Raphael started a teaching post. Chloe’s daughter, Elisabeth describes the journey to Oxford (she was four years old at the time): ‘The move was accomplished with a removal van plus Raphael in his car driving from Cambridge to Oxford while Chloe travelled by train with her baby and four-year-old daughter. The train was pulled by a big black steam engine, and the journey included an overnight stop at a hotel’.

In 1960 the family moved to London into a flat above a pharmacy which Chloe owned, managed and worked in full-time. Eager to adhere to Shabbat the shop was staffed by a locum on Saturday’s and Jewish Holidays and she did not take any profits from the business on these days. Committed to the business she commuted daily across London by taxi when the family moved, in 1968.

In the 1970s Chloe sold the pharmacy and took on a position at the Pharmaceutical Society. Chloe’s role involved working on the Extra Pharmacopeia; summarising information and proof reading. She particularly enjoyed the companionship of working with others during this time. Here Chloe became friends with her colleague Anne Prasad whom remained a great friend of Chloe’s for the rest of her life. In 2009 Anne Prasad recalls inviting Chloe out of retirement to help her work on the British National Formulary, ‘I needed her fierce judgement and her fiendish accuracy’. [2]

Chloe and Raphael had two daughters Elisabeth and Camilla. Chloe was a very successful scientist and became an immense support emotionally as well as academically to Raphael during his many years of research. Her daughter Camilla wrote: ‘...as well as working herself on some projects close to his heart [...] Mum did a great deal to enable Dad to do the work and achievements’. Jacob Haberman also writes: ‘One can only speculate that Raphael’s accomplishment is in large part due to the nurturing home life created by his life-companion and wife, Chloe’ [3].

Chloe was an active member of the community and the Loewes were members of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation in London. Chloe Loewe published parts of the Congregation's archives.  She also worked with Miriam Rodrigues-Pereira to edit and publish The Birth Register (1767-1881) of the Spanish & Portuguese Jews’ Congregation, London (London: Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation, 1993) and The Burial register (1733-1918) of the Novo (New)Cemetery of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Congregation, London (London: Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation, 1997).

The Times obituary: Chloe, beloved wife of the late Raphael James Loewe, died peacefully on 23rd February 2013, aged 96 years. Dearly loved mother, grandmother and friend, remembered by many with very great affection.
Accessed 7th June 2013.

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Chloe published the following papers before she was married:
F. Wokes and Chloe Klatzkin, ‘Protein in Malted preparations’, Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, 1 (1949) pp. 903-914.

Chloe Klatzkin, ‘Quantitative determination of Amino-acids separated by paper partition of Chromatography’, Nature, 169 (1952), p. 422.

Chloe Klatzkin, F. W. Norris and F. Wokes, ‘Riboflavin in Malt extract’, from the Ovaltine Research Laboratories and the Department of Industrial Fermentation, University of Birmingham, 5th June 1946.

Chloe Klatzkin, F. W. Norris and F. Wokes, ‘Nicotine Acid in Cereals, 1: the effect of germination’, Biomedical Journal, 42, no. 3 (1948), pp. 414-420.

Chloe Klatzkin, F. W. Norris and F. Wokes, ‘The Chemical Estimation of nicotine Acid, using p-Aminopropiophenone’, The Journal of the Society of public analysts and other Analytical chemists, 74, no. 881 (1949), pp. 447-454.

Chloe Klatzkin, F. W. Norris and F. Wokes, ‘Fluorimetric and microbiological assays of riboflavin in malted preparations’, The Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, 1 (1949), pp. 915-930.

 

Raphael and Chloe’s combined project:
Raphael and Chloe Loewe, ‘Treatment of calculus in a fragmentary Hebrew Pharmacopeia’, Journal of Jewish Studies, 15/1-2 (1964), pp. 57-79.

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