Dear Cousins:
I had been meaning to write a long letter to everyone letting you all know about what has happened to the extended family this past year. We've had a quite eventful year here in Los Angeles, and several of you were nice enough to call after our latest calamity. The entire Schoenberg family survived the big 6.6 earthquake of January 17,1994 without too much damage. A few more cracks in the old Schoenberg house that my grandparents bought in 1937, and some broken glass and china were the only real problems. Other family members weren't as lucky. Doug, Paula and Ryan Schwartz (see Kolisch tree) lost their home in Granada Hills, not far from the center of the quake. The psychological damages and post-quake inconveniences have also been difficult. The quake broke the freeway that connects our homes in West Los Angeles with downtown, making the commute to work twice as long for my father. The old hospital in Santa Monica where I and my three siblings were born has been condemned. But life goes on and we're all adjusting to the new realities.
The big event before the quake was the marriage of my sister Marlena to Zoran Fejzo of Belgrade, Serbia. Zoran, at 6 feet 4 inches, adds some much-needed height to our branch of the family. I've enclosed some family pictures so you can at least see what we look like when we dress up. Zoran and Marlena are living in Boston where Zoran is finishing his PhD in electrical engineering at Northeastern University and Marlena is working on her PhD in genetics at Harvard University. Their pre-quake plans were to move back to Los Angeles when they both finished in a couple of years. No word yet on whether those plans have changed.
My brother Ricky graduated from Brown University and has moved on the graduate studies in probability and statistics at the University of California at Berkeley (near San Francisco). His final words before flying up north on January 15 were that he was leaving early to miss the earthquake, whereupon my mother reminded him that the danger of a quake was just as great in San Francisco. Well, he's now one-for-one in predicting big quakes. We had heard that the Berkeley probability and statistics program was good, but we had no idea!
My little sister Melanie is carrying on the family's musical traditions, playing piano and learning some music theory as she finishes her second to last year of high school. My mother is teaching a new German course at Pomona College on "Vienna 1900." She brought the students "Sachertorte mit Schlag" for the second day of class. Why didn't I ever have professors like that? My father the judge is laying low and has managed to avoid some of the more famous trials that have been taking place. No Menendez brothers or Bobbitts. I put in a little time at my firm on the Michael Jackson case, but that looks like it will be ending soon. Earlier this year I helped defend the actress Kim Basinger, but we'll have to wait for the appellate court to overturn the jury's outrageous $8 million verdict. The rest of my work is not quite so glamorous, although the clients, Guess Jeans or MGM studios are well-known.
I have sent everyone the entire family tree, which I hope will interest you even though it contains branches to whom you are unrelated. Amazingly, I have not come across any connections between the branches of my family. But it is certainly possible (if not probable) that some of you may find other connections to other branches of the family.
Many of you have corresponded with me and kept me up-to-date on your families. What follows is a quick summary of events:
Schoenberg Family
Two family members died this year. Gerta Hartl, mother of Wolfgang Hartl and Hanna Hirsch, was an accomplished and acclaimed Austrian author of many novels and children's books. Hanna is now taking care of her father Johann, and lives near her three children, Eva, Georg and Erich in Vienna. Eva and Georg are lawyers. Erich works with his uncle Wolfgang as a concert agent. Wolfgang's daughter Elisabetta is fluent in German, Italian and English, which should come in handy when she joins her father and cousin as a concert agent.
We also lost Irmgard Jontof-Hutter, mother of Ronnie Jontof-Hutter, who was the last member of her family left in Cape Town, South Africa. Ronnie went back to South Africa to sell the family home and send his parents' things over to his new house in Doncaster, Australia. He also has started up a company for the treatment of TB by laser.
Melanie O'Callaghan traveled from her home in Ireland to our ancestral home in Prague. Wolfgang Hartl literally ran into my aunt Nuria Nono at a performance of "Boris Godunow" in Berlin. Nuria has been setting up an archive for her late husband Luigi Nono in Venice, Italy and is spending the winter in Los Angeles preparing with my uncle Larry a touring Schoenberg exhibition that will open in Paris in the fall of 1995. Silvia Nono moved into a new apartment in Rome this year. Silvia and Serena both had small parts in Silvia's boyfriend, Nanni Moretti's latest film. Serena played a "reflexologist" and Silvia played herself. Julie Schoenberg came back home for Marlena's wedding and again for Christmas but then returned to Madrid, Spain where she has been living for the past two years. Arnie Schoenberg returned home to San Diego, California after spending some time in Central America. Larry has stopped teaching Calculus and is now the dean of students at Palisades High School, meting out punishment to all the delinquent students there. Anne is helping translate some unpublished Schoenberg writings. Camille is applying to colleges and finishing her final year of high school where she is both a cheerleader and star mathematics pupil -- a rare combination indeed.
You may recognize a new branch that's been filled in. The Greissles live in New York and Florida. Trudi Davidoff lives in upstate New York with her mother Rosemary, husband Steven and son Jason. She has told me lots about her father Hermann, who was a very respected painter, who studied with the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, and was working as a copyist on a score for Leonard Bernstein when he died. Barbara Barbieri is an account executive at Newsday, the only daily newspaper on Long Island, New York. Her sons, Christopher and Andrew are both musical. Christopher, at age 22, is the youngest supervisor at UPS, a worldwide mail and shipping company. Karen Greissle Burberry lives in West Melbourne, Florida with her husband Lee and two daughters. She does work for the American Association of University Women, raising funds for higher education and legal assistance for women.
Helen Nilsson has taken her grandfather's name (Fuchs) and is working on her master's thesis on Swedish stained glass production. Her brother Anders is a designing engineer. Her sister Anika and her mother run a little bistro.
I am still waiting for Wolfgang Hartl to send me the address of John Neschling, a conductor in Vienna, so we can reestablish contact with the Goldschmied family, some of whom live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I wrote to Gerald Orthof at his last-known address there but received no answer.
Kolisch Family
Mischa and Brigitte Seligman came down to Los Angeles for Marlena's wedding as did their son David who lives in Los Angeles. Mischa still works as a travel agent part-time. Daughter Nicole has moved to Tennessee with her husband Gerald Davitz where they can more easily pursue their love of horses.
Doug Schwartz, as I mentioned above, has had a very rough and eventful year, beginning with the birth of his first child, Ryan, in June. He had to move to a new law firm at the end of the year and now has lost his home in the earthquake. It turns out, Doug and I both went to Princeton University (at different times) and we have several friends in common. I owe the connection to George and Lilly Field, who traveled to Vienna this year and sent me some photographs of Kolisch tombstones from the Zentralfriedhof. They have also obtained some information on the Kolisch family from the archives in Prague where they have records from the Jewish communities of Moravia and Bohemia. Lilly and George's daughter Ruth now lives in Paris, and daughter Deborah lives in the Hague. Their son Alan will graduate law school this year.
Through the Rudolf Kolisch archive at Harvard University I tracked down Victor Gurewich, a cardiologist in Cambridge. He is planning to send me more information from his branch of the family. We still haven't established the connection from Adolph Kolisch to the rest of the Kolisches of Koritschan, but there seems little doubt that Adolph was the son of Rudolf and Maria Kolisch, since both those names are repeated many times in our family.
Michaela Navratilova plans to come from Prague to visit us in Los Angeles this summer with her daughter Caroline. She says that there is also a Maria Kolisch in Prague who is a TV producer but she hasn't established the connection yet. She has promised me names and dates for her brother's family, but forgot to put it in her last letter. Michaela writes that 40 million people visited Prague this summer. She and her family escaped to England for their vacation. Despite the crowds I recommend a Prague visit to all members of the family tree. There is little doubt that the Jontof-Hutters were an old Prague family, and most of the rest of the family comes from that area as well. The city is beautiful and very well-preserved. The old Jewish synagogues and cemetery are now (sadly) unique in central Europe.
Dick Hoffman has decided not to continue teaching his annual summer Schoenberg course at Mödling. When we spoke in October, he was leaving for Vienna to visit a sick friend. His daughter is also getting married.
Zeisl Family
The Zeisls were well-represented at Marlena's wedding. Heinz Bauer and Judy Shemper came all the way from Atlanta and the Polsfuss-Schachter clan from San Francisco. Katie Zeisl was the flower girl and nearly stole the show. David Polsfuss looks like the most likely family member to be able to play on a football team.
Irma Sanders passed away in June. Her son Paul recently retired after 31 years at Georgia Tech in civil engineering, but has been asked to come back and work part-time. Paul and his wife Martha live just north of Atlanta and help take care of their grandchildren Jane (2 yrs old) and Max, who arrived on September 15 of this year. (Max is the youngest member of the family tree to the best of my knowledge.)
Carol Bower is a career counselor who lives with her husband Pete and son Nicholas in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Her father Heri spends his winters in Florida and is a great source of family information.
Schwarz Family
I tracked down Martin Schwarz, a French Professor in Greenville, North Carolina, just where his father Edgar said he was in a letter to my grandmother 15 years ago. Martin has in turn led me to his cousin Hanna Klaus, who runs the Natural Family Planning Center of Washington, D.C., and his nephew Paul Franke, a resident internist in Pittsburgh. Paul and his wife Karen are expecting their second child in March. Paul's brother, Joseph Franke just married Lisa Marr, also a doctor, and recently published a natural history and national park guide of Costa Rica. Joseph and Lisa live in Eugene, Oregon. Paul and his parents, Irving and Suzanne, are planning to move to Madison, Wisconsin in July, where Paul will be training to be a cardiologist at the University of Wisconsin. Martin and Paul think they may also be related to Steven Spielberg, whose latest film, "Schindler's List" I recommend very highly.
Hanna put me in touch with George and Edith Steiner of Englishtown, New Jersey. George's son Richard is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Utah and lives in Salt Lake City. His other son Kenneth is a professor of Philosophy and History at the John Dewey Academy in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. George gave me the address of Gerhard Friedländer in Paris, but I haven't heard from him yet.
George and Sonja Teller called from Dusseldorf to congratulate Marlena and Zoran. They visited us in Los Angeles several years ago. Their son Nicky lives in London, and daughter Monica in Germany. I still need to fill in some of the other gaps in the tree, notably Peter Gilbert, presumably in New York, and Ruth Erez in Israel. I wrote to Susan Smith in England but haven't heard back from her yet.
I am still tracking down lost branches of the tree and of course appreciate any news from those of you whom I have already "found." Please stay in touch and tell me if you move. You are all more than welcome to come visit me in Los Angeles -- if you dare. In the past four years we have had drought followed by floods, riots, fires and earthquakes. Still, it was eighty degrees and sunny on the day of the earthquake (January 17). There's something to be said for that too. Thanks again to all of you who called, faxed or wrote. Please keep in touch!
Your cousin,
Randol Schoenberg
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