Irma “Immie” Feldman was a former serials librarian for the Lippincott Library of the Wharton School, she was also a former restaurant owner with her family, and a devoted supporter of family and friends. Immie was born into the Ciancaglini household on 1422 S. 16th Street in South Philadelphia on April 3rd, 1927. She passed peacefully in the early morning hours of December 11th with her son by her side just as an unusual spring-like weather system briefly graced the day. She lived in Center City.

Immie graduated from South Philadelphia High School for Girls in 1945, where she made many lifelong friendships. She married shortly after graduation in 1946, but this marriage ended in divorce in 1955. She traveled on her own to Europe in 1959, spending time with relatives in Italy. Later in life her travel experiences became more frequent, making numerous trips to Europe, particularly to Italy.

Immie began work at the University of Pennsylvania in 1950 as a clerk and was appointed as a professional serials librarian in 1962, handling the school’s massive periodical collection for the Lippincott Library of the Wharton School. She was at the forefront of the digital transformation in library science and was one of the first at the University to implement CD-ROM technology in the early 1980s. Her quality of work, efficacy, and people skills saw her advance into management, a post requiring a Master's Degree in library science. She enrolled in many classes at Penn for her own pleasure, taking classes in literature, poetry, and history, and in later years, classes in folklore.

After an introduction by Professor Francis Seidman she met and married Harold Feldman in 1961. She retired from the University in 1991.

Vincent, her only child, was born when she was 39 years old. Doctors, for 20 years, informed her she would never be able to conceive a child.

After retiring from Penn, never one to settle into idle time, she worked for her friend Sylvia Glickman, a pianist, composer, teacher, and prominent promoter of music by women composers. She assisted Sylvia with her work for her publishing company, Hildegard Publishing, for several years. When her son moved out of her large home in Overbrook, she started a B&B and hosted many dozens of guests between 1989 and 1994.

In 1992, Immie and her sister Livia opened a cafe and art gallery with their sons Vincent and Ernest at 1521 Spruce Street, in Philadelphia. It was called 1521 Cafe Gallery. Livia and Immie prepared much of the food and baked goods following Italian traditions handed down from their mother Hortense DelMonaco Ciancaglini. The cafe expanded into a full-service restaurant and was renamed after Ernest, who managed the business. Immie, whose organizational skills were unmatched, oversaw the business side of the restaurant until she began to care for her ailing sister in 2012.

She was a very active grandmother to her grandchildren Kai and Yuma. She volunteered as a librarian at the Greenfield Public School, where they both attended until a broken hip in 2019 interrupted her life’s busy activities.

Immie’s kindness, warmth, empathy, and wit were very special and left lasting impressions on so very many people. She was a petite and very gentle woman but one who’s voice would be raised if she witnessed injustice. From attending MLK Jr.’s March on Washington in 1963 to protesting the war in Vietnam to speaking up for fellow employees or setting the record straight within a family dispute, Immie could draw on a force that rose beyond challenge and reproach. Immie possessed a moral authority, drawn from her depth of understanding and warmth, which was of great comfort to her friends, coworkers and family.

Immie was preceded in death by her husband, Harold Feldman (1919-1986), and her sister, Livia Salandria Corman (1930-2014), stepson Fred Feldman (1942-2018) . She is survived by her son, Vincent David; her daughter-in-law, Kaori Ikeuchi; her stepdaughter, Dorothy Miller; and her grandchildren, Kai Vincent Feldman, Yuma Nicole Feldman, Ethan Hart Feldman-Anmuth, and Noah Miller.

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