Ramona Lenny Alpern, retired speech therapist, actor, and onetime telephone voice of 411, has died at 97

Ramona Lenny Alpern, 97, formerly of Radnor, retired speech therapist, versatile actor, author, special-needs advocate, and onetime telephone voice of 411 directory assistance, died Friday, June 6, of cardiac arrest at Texas Health Hospital in Frisco, Texas.

A natural actor with a flair for connecting with people and projects, Mrs. Alpern moved to Radnor in 1966 and constructed an eclectic 60-year career that was highlighted by pioneering speech therapy sessions at the Delaware County Intermediate Unit and in Philadelphia suburban parochial schools.

She was an expert in dialect and accent, and focused for years on correcting speech abnormalities among preschool children with learning disabilities. She was inspired by her daughter Jill to champion special-needs education, and she created what came to be known as the Alpern paradigm.

“The method is based on the concept that the speech dysfunction is treated as an integral part of an entire educational process designed to overcome specific learning disabilities,” she told The Inquirer in 1984. “Of course, this is not as glamorous as the acting work, and it doesn’t get my voice on telephones all over North America, but it is what brings me the greatest satisfaction.”

Mrs. Alpern also coached corporate executives and others in public speaking and language skills, and told the Daily News in 1993 that one of her goals was to turn Phillies players John Kruk and Lenny Dykstra into broadcasters. “She could talk to anybody,” said her son Ed. “She could find what connects people. But her love was acting. She loved the attention.”

So she became a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Screen Actors Guild, and got jobs as an extra in movies filmed locally such as Rocky, Unbreakable, and Trading Places. In 1981, she was hired as a dialogue coach for movie star Nancy Allen and the film Blow Out.

Eventually, she said, she was motivated to share her voice as an actor after studying the characteristics of speakers who stutter. She did voice-overs, TV commercials, lots of political ads, and radio shows.

In 1983, she interviewed with Telesciences Inc. to be the voice of its new telephone Audio Response System. She told The Inquirer she tried to sound like “a 35-year-old woman from the middle of the country, very straight, pleasant, efficient, polite.”

She got the job and recorded numbers zero through nine and several sentences, including “The number you have reached has been disconnected.” A few years later, her recordings were replaced by other human and computer-generated voices, and she told the Miami Herald in 1990 that the computer-generated responses were “not as friendly.”

On stage, Mrs. Alpern directed and acted in plays at Har Zion Temple in Radnor and Gladwyne, and elsewhere. Later, she directed productions near her recent home in Texas.

“She was interested in people and their stories,” said her daughter Kyle.

Her research on speech was published in Academic Therapy magazine and other journals. In 2006, she published Life in the Slooow Lane, a 124-page whimsical examination of retirement. “This lighthearted book is dedicated to the people who face serious challenges every day,” she said in the book’s online description, “and who have also chosen to laugh and enjoy life.”

Ramona Lenny was born May 18, 1928, in Brooklyn, N.Y. She enjoyed summer camps and many adventures as a girl, and went on to forever retain her enthusiasm, her family said.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in dramatic arts at New York University and a master’s degree in speech pathology at Northwestern University. She met Melvin Alpern at Northwestern while doing radio dramas and told the Daily News in 1993 that she “fell in love” with his melodious voice.

They married in 1950 and had daughters Jill and Kyle and a son, Ed. They lived in New York, Mississippi, and Long Island, and moved to Radnor to be near a school for her daughter Jill. Her husband died in 2009, and she relocated to Texas.

Mrs. Alpern was a whiz at bridge, mahjong, and Wii Sports games. She lived in her own house, played the ukulele, took a college math class just because she wanted to, and did puzzles every day until recently.

She never stopped advocating for children with special needs and told The Inquirer: “You can see the results, and it’s very gratifying.” Her daughter Kyle said: “She reinvented herself several times. She was a lifelong learner and a mom to everybody.”

Her son said: “Everyone who knew Ramona was inspired by her. She lived her life her way until the very end, with her strong opinions, intelligence, sharp wit, patience, and love.”

In addition to her children, Mrs. Alpern is survived by seven grandchildren and other relatives. Her sister, Audrey, died earlier.

A funeral service was held June 10.

Donations in her name may be made to Melmark, 2600 Wayland Rd., Berwyn, Pa. 19312; and Tikvah AJMI, 10100 Jamison Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19116.