Fritzi Cohen, the Matriarch (her term) of The Tabard Inn and president of the Chaucerian Foundation, passed this morning.

She had nerves of steel and a twinkle in her eyes till the day they closed themselves upon this world.

She and her late husband, Edward Cohen (a former financial editor with the Washington Post), saved The Tabard from being torn down for an office tower in the 1970s. It’s a series of lovely townhouses strung together with winding hallways and staircases. It feels like an old hotel in Ireland or such and features eclectic, beautiful art.

They would make The Tabard, which just turned 100, an employee-owned company.

Fritzi had been an actress and a lawyer and was involved with a host of projects over the years including filing a lawsuit to audit the military in the 1980s against then CIA director William Casey.

More recently she was at work on a project which posthumously honors a noted Pentagon whistleblower: The Pierre Sprey Roundtable, a project of the Chaucerian Foundation.