Gertrude Mokotoff, Ex-Mayor and a Bride at 98, Is Dead at 100

Gertrude Mokotoff, who was 71 when she became the first female mayor of Middletown, New York, and who drew even wider attention more than a quarter of a century later by marrying a 94-year-old man when she was 98, died Oct. 17 at a hospital in that city. She was 100.

The cause was congestive heart failure, her eldest daughter, Susan Reverby, said.

“My mother has always been a very bold woman,” Reverby told The New York Times in August 2017.

Reverby was interviewed then for a Times “Vows” article about her mother’s wedding only days earlier to Alvin Mann, a retired businessman and fellow nonagenarian. Both had been widowed from previous marriages. They had been introduced to each other at the gym where they both worked out twice a week. The article quickly found a remarkably wide readership online.

The wedding, as it happened, came just days before Mokotoff’s birthday.

“So I’m 99, 98, it’s just a number,” Mokotoff said. “But today, I’m still 98, right? So let’s not rush things.”

She was born Gertrude Fox on Aug. 20, 1918, in Brooklyn to Anna and Abraham Fox, a tailor. She graduated from Brooklyn College and received a master’s degree in education from Columbia University before marrying, at 23, Dr. Reuben Mokotoff, a cardiologist from Manhattan.

Eleven years later, the couple moved to Middletown, where Reuben Mokotoff set up a new practice and Gertrude Mokotoff became a biology professor at Orange County Community College (now known as SUNY Orange). There she started the first training program for electron microscopy technicians, while raising four children.

She had never considered retirement, choosing instead, as she told The Times in 2017, to “give politics a try.”

She was twice elected an alderwoman in Middletown, winning her second election by a single vote. She went on to become City Council president before running for mayor as a Democrat.

She took the oath as mayor in January 1990, for the first of back-to-back two-year terms. In office she spearheaded the creation of a modern library and the restoration of the city’s historic Paramount Theater movie palace.

“She always had an interest in helping other people,” Reverby said. “Despite being a Democrat in a largely Republican town, she was still elected mayor, which gives you a pretty good idea as to how people around here felt about her.”

With Mayor Joseph DeStefano presiding, she and Mann exchanged vows Aug. 5, 2017, before family and friends at Middletown City Hall. Reverby, at 71, served as maid of honor; Mann’s son, Mark, also 71 at the time, was best man.

In addition to Reverby, Mokotoff is survived by her husband; another daughter, Eve Mokotoff; two sons, David and Charles, a well-known classical guitarist; nine grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. She is also survived by her stepson, Mark Mann, and a step-granddaughter. She had been married 61 years when Reuben Mokotoff died in 2002.

Mokotoff and Mann were both opera lovers, and she liked to tell the story about one of their late-night drives home from the Metropolitan Opera House in Manhattan. As they headed north, she thought Mann was going to propose. When he didn’t, she decided to buck tradition.

“I asked him to marry me,” she said, laughing. “I was tired of chasing after him.”