Humanitarian Helpers Virginia and Michael Spevak

By Joe Holley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 1, 2008; Page B06

Virginia Spevak and Dr. Michael Spevak, the husband and wife who were killed in their home in the Chevy Chase area of the District on Nov. 20, left twin legacies of community involvement and concern for others.

Mrs. Spevak, 67, known to friends as Ginny, was a former development office coordinator at Green Acres School in Rockville, where she also taught fifth- and sixth-grade science. She retired in 2001, largely to devote time to caring for a girl in the D.C. government's foster-care program.

"She's one of the people who lived her life in the most ethical way," said Nan Shapiro, a friend and Green Acres teacher. "She really did the things she believed in."

A few years ago, Mrs. Spevak and another friend, Prue Hoppin, began a program called Quilting for Good, in which volunteers sewed quilts and gave them to women who had no insurance for prenatal care. Last year, she traveled to New Orleans with friends from Chevy Chase Presbyterian Church, where she was an elder and a deacon, to rehabilitate houses damaged by Hurricane Katrina. At her church, she also arranged an adult-education forum series on the criminal justice system, with emphasis on restorative justice.

She served as an elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner in the 1970s and 1980s and continued to speak out on development issues as a member of the Friendship Neighborhood Coalition.

Dr. Spevak, 68, a psychiatrist in private practice for more than three decades, specialized in dealing with troubled adolescents. He had been the primary psychiatrist for the District's Lorton prison facility and lectured on emotionally disturbed inmates.

He, too, was involved in development issues and was active in fighting suburban sprawl.

Together, the Spevaks transformed their house on Belt Road NW into a model home for solar power. Their solar electricity system was so successful that at times they produced enough electricity to send back to the Pepco power grid. They also were enthusiastic organic gardeners.

"These were people who were very willing to do whatever they could to show that there are better ways to live on this planet than what most of us are doing," said Peter Lowenthal, executive director of the Solar Energy Research and Education Foundation.

Michael Bart Spevak was born in Schenectady, N.Y. He received his undergraduate degree in science from George Washington University in 1961 and his master's degree in plant pathology from Cornell University in 1966. After deciding to change careers, he received his medical degree from Georgetown University in 1970.

Virginia Anne Sager Spevak was born in Oxnard, Calif. She received her undergraduate degree in botany from the University of California at Santa Barbara and was working on a doctorate in botany and plant pathology at Cornell when she met the man she would marry. Their son, Eli Studer-Spevak, recalled that they were the only two students who showed up for a botany field trip, unaware that the trip had been canceled. They walked home together and never parted.

The couple lived in Rochester, N.Y., and Pasadena, Calif., where Dr. Spevak completed his psychiatric residency, before returning to the District in 1972.

Deeply devoted to his work, Dr. Spevak could be a bit eccentric. He occasionally shocked family members and colleagues by showing up in public wearing his Smurf-blue spandex biking outfit. "He taught me not to be self-conscious," his son told a crowd of more than 500 who gathered last week at Chevy Chase Presbyterian Church to remember the Spevaks.

They had their individual interests, their son said. Ginny Spevak was a quilter, a baker, a gardener and a conservationist who had mastered such skills as carpentry. Her husband's enthusiasms -- beyond his professional life -- were slightly less practical. He particularly enjoyed biking and running.

"Where their interests overlapped," Studer-Spevak said, "was in reforming the criminal justice system."

Survivors, in addition to their son, of Portland, Ore., include a daughter, Leah Spevak Kanach of Arlington County; Dr. Spevak's father, Sidney Spevak of Rockville; Mrs. Spevak's mother, Gen Pidduck Sager of Ventura, Calif., as well as Mrs. Spevak's brother and sister; and one grandson.