Jerry Samet, who died this month of covid-19, was devoted to youth-leadership programs. From that wo
Jerold Samet, who died this month of covid-19, a week before his 76th birthday, was a gregarious sort, a lifelong networker, a “collector of friends,” as one of them put it. “If there was a physical funeral, which there won’t be, you’d have more than a thousand people showing up,” said Doug Wolf, who knew Samet for 40 years.
A former grand master, or president, of all Masonic lodges in the District, a local political activist and owner of a haberdashery, he immersed himself in youth-leadership programs for decades, mentoring thousands of teenagers.
Samet never married, though. “He just loved being around too many people,” another friend said. “He could never focus on any one person,” meaning a life partner. “He was one of those bachelors who could never settle down.” He never had a biological child, never held a baby of his own in his arms, and this troubled him as he grew older.
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So in 2008, when he was 64, he approached his dearest acquaintance, Michael Dixon, then 45, with an unusual proposal. The two had first met when Dixon was 17 and involved in one of Samet’s youth programs, and he later worked in Samet’s clothing store.
“One day he just said to me, ‘I want to talk to you about something,’ ” recalled the old friend, whose name isn’t Dixon anymore. “And we sat down, and finally he said, ‘I want to adopt you.’ And of course it was a long conversation.”
Soon, Michael Dixon legally became Michael Samet, now a 57-year-old home inspector who lives in Montgomery County, Md. Two years later, in 2010, Michael Samet and his wife had a baby, Lyla Samet, giving Jerry Samet a granddaughter to dote on.
“I was very happy and very proud that he felt that way about me,” Michael Samet recalled of the adoption. “I mean, I was already a son to him, anyway, so it was really just a formality at that point.” Still, the legality of it was important to Jerry Samet, who had a deeply felt conviction about family and the end of life.
“When the time came, Jerry wanted a son, an actual son, to bury him,” Michael Samet said. “That’s what he always told me. It meant a lot to him.”
Today, with the death toll in the coronavirus pandemic surpassing 10,000 in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, Jerry Samet’s ashes are in an urn. He died Dec. 2, isolated from his loved ones in a hospital. Perhaps a year from now, if his many friends can gather without fear of infection, a funeral will be held, and his son will bury him.
A native Washingtonian, Jerry Samet joined the Masons when he was 21 and, his friends said, devoted himself to the group’s stated mission of promoting “a way of life that binds like-minded men in a worldwide brotherhood that transcends all religious, ethnic, cultural, social and educational differences.”
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For years, he was a “chapter dad” in DeMolay International, a Masons-sponsored program that seeks to build character and leadership traits in teenage boys and serves as a path to Masonic membership. In 1997, he founded a similar mentorship program of his own, the now-defunct Youth Leaders International, which included thousands of academic high-achievers, boys and girls alike, around the globe.
“He took people under his wing,” said Neal Jarvis, 56, of Ellicott City, Md., who joined DeMolay as a youngster and remained close friends with Samet.
“What Jerry taught me was, you get respect by giving respect,” Jarvis said. “It didn’t matter what religion you were; it didn’t matter what color your skin was. He taught kids not to fear anyone’s differences, but embrace them. He saw the good in people, whether or not others did, and he brought it out of you.”
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Friends said Samet, who lived in the Spencerville area of Montgomery County, bought a decades-old D.C. haberdashery, M. Stein & Company, in 1969 and ran it until he retired from the business in 2001. And for years, he was a fixture in Democratic politics in Montgomery as a well-known fundraiser and organizer.
“He always had more confidence in people than sometimes they had in themselves,” said Wolf, 66, of Gaithersburg, Md., a fellow Mason. “He was the only person I knew who’d go out to a restaurant, and when he left, he was Facebook friends with everyone there. I mean, the wait staff, the dishwasher, the doorman, the owner. Didn’t matter.”
Michael Samet said he was a child of divorce, mostly uninvolved with his biological father and in need of a male role model when he joined DeMolay in 1981 and met Jerry Samet. After high school, he went to work in the clothing store, and later helped his future adoptive dad manage Youth Leaders International until it closed six years ago, having never recovered from the 2008 financial crisis.
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After Jerry Samet, a diabetic, was diagnosed with a heart ailment in 2016, his son, by then divorced, moved in with him.
But in the end, he could not hold his father’s hand.
“It’s just been devastating to deal with, because Jerry died alone” in Washington Adventist Hospital, two weeks after being admitted, Michael Samet said.
“The one time we were allowed to see him, they took us upstairs, and we had to stare at him through a window. We waved, and he waved back a couple times, but he wouldn’t really look our way, because I think he knew he was dying.”
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