Ellen "Ellie" LeVine

ELLEN BARBARA “Ellie” LeVINE (née Albert), 72, of St. Petersburg, died October 21. Born in Montréal, Québec, Canada on February 12, 1951 to Leonard and Mildred “Millie” Albert, she was the younger of two children. Ellie was a graduate of McGill University and of Northwestern University, where she earned her Master’s degree in communication disorders, specializing in deafness and hearing impairment. She then worked as a student teacher of deaf children in the greater Chicago area public school system, in which capacity she taught a little Jewish girl named Marlee Matlin, who would grow up to win the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1986. By then, Ellie was married and a mother many times over. She moved to St. Petersburg in 1984 when her beloved husband, the late Mitchell Lee LeVine, M.D., joined his father Morris and brother Steven in forming LeVine Surgical Associates, P.A. She was also a tiny but mighty warrior, renowned for the grace with which she raised and wrangled a 6-pack of well-behaved, well-educated, kind and gifted children. Popular wherever she went, Ellie was always being asked the same question: “How do you do it?” And she always responded with the same wisdom: “You just do it.” Survivors include Ellie’s six children Stacy LeVine, Robyn Kane (Eric), Scott LeVine, Esq. (Rebecca), Andrea Kay (Eric), Matthew LeVine, Ph.D. (Andrea) and Leslie Weingarten (Sam); seven grandchildren; elder brother Brian Albert (Irene), and; in-laws Steven LeVine, M.D. (Susan), Sharon Rosenthal (Dave) and David LeVine, M.D. (Janice). The family suggests memorials to Menorah Life, Congregation B’nai Israel or the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation.