Thank you for this fascinating article. As a child I had the good fortune of working with Ellen Auerbach at the Educational Institute. I was having difficulty in school and my parents sent me there for a couple of years in the late '60s. She was a wonderful woman. She let me drink Yoo-Hoos and shared her Edam and pumpernickel sandwiches with me. She encouraged me to write and draw and took me on a field trip to MOMA. As a gift, she compiled my poems, stories, and artwork and bound them in a book. In the back was an "author's" blurb with a portrait of me that she took. In the blurb she correctly predicted that I would someday become a writer. What she didn't know was that, like her, I would also become a special education teacher. I never knew she was a famous photographer, finding out only after researching her for a novel (she is the inspiration for one of its characters, a magical teacher who flees Germany to teach in the United States.) She was a great inspiration and a warm and friendly presence. How was I to know that the lady sitting across from me taking my picture was such an important artist? I only knew that she made me feel special, capable and smart.
Thank you for this fascinating article. As a child I had the good fortune of working with Ellen Auerbach at the Educational Institute. I was having difficulty in school and my parents sent me there for a couple of years in the late '60s. She was a wonderful woman. She let me drink Yoo-Hoos and shared her Edam and pumpernickel sandwiches with me. She encouraged me to write and draw and took me on a field trip to MOMA. As a gift, she compiled my poems, stories, and artwork and bound them in a book. In the back was an "author's" blurb with a portrait of me that she took. In the blurb she correctly predicted that I would someday become a writer. What she didn't know was that, like her, I would also become a special education teacher. I never knew she was a famous photographer, finding out only after researching her for a novel (she is the inspiration for one of its characters, a magical teacher who flees Germany to teach in the United States.) She was a great inspiration and a warm and friendly presence. How was I to know that the lady sitting across from me taking my picture was such an important artist? I only knew that she made me feel special, capable and smart.