My Mother and Me, Making it in New York After Making it Out of Berlin and Beirut by Peter Schrag ’55. This charming memoir saves a great deal of information about the life of Ilse Schrag from falling into oblivion and preserves a record of her struggles to make a life for herself and her son, the author, in New York, when Germany became too dangerous for their survival. She and the father of her child ended their short relationship in Beirut; she eventually linked up with the artist Karl Schrag, who adopted young Peter. The intensity of the mother-son relationship was a mixed blessing. Peter has to face the challenge of asserting his own identity and making his own choices. Many of the remembrances are funny and reveal Ilse’s strengths and weaknesses, one in the same since she was quite overbearing. Peter was admitted to Friends Seminary back when Mr. Prinz was the principal. Ilse is convinced that her hat was the key element in the admission’s process. Mr. Prinz liked that hat, and Peter got in. (Times have changed). Peter is haunted by his desire to know his biological father; the closest he comes to condemning his mother is on this subject. He does his own research and does meet his father, who ended up in Australia. The book is chock full of details; I can only imagine how valuable it will prove to Ilse’s grandchildren.
