A few weeks back at work, in our cafe they posted a question on white board to name a woman that inspired you, as part of Womens history month.
I wrote the name helen segall, my Russian adviser as an undergrad about 40 years ago. Helen was a great teacher and wonderful person, and also the most formidable woman I’ve ever met. A polish Jew who survived both the communists and the nazis, she decided after the war that she would never, ever, let anyone tell her what to do for the rest of her life. And she didn’t, yet slways with good cheer. Resistance to Helen was really futile. Just ask the soviet border police who tried to prevent her from bringing an entire suitcase of Marlboros into the ussr. You can google her oral history for the holocaust museum. Helen passed a few years ago at 87 from a cardiac event while swimming at a lake in Maine.
In any event, this afternoon I got a text out of the blue from my sister in law, an endocrinologist here in dc, asking if I knew a Helen segall. I told her yes and gave her the short version. Turns out she’d met with Helen’s granddaughter this afternoon. She was wearing my alma mater’s sweatshirt, which led to her mentioning Helen.
Eerie csb
I wrote the name helen segall, my Russian adviser as an undergrad about 40 years ago. Helen was a great teacher and wonderful person, and also the most formidable woman I’ve ever met. A polish Jew who survived both the communists and the nazis, she decided after the war that she would never, ever, let anyone tell her what to do for the rest of her life. And she didn’t, yet slways with good cheer. Resistance to Helen was really futile. Just ask the soviet border police who tried to prevent her from bringing an entire suitcase of Marlboros into the ussr. You can google her oral history for the holocaust museum. Helen passed a few years ago at 87 from a cardiac event while swimming at a lake in Maine.
In any event, this afternoon I got a text out of the blue from my sister in law, an endocrinologist here in dc, asking if I knew a Helen segall. I told her yes and gave her the short version. Turns out she’d met with Helen’s granddaughter this afternoon. She was wearing my alma mater’s sweatshirt, which led to her mentioning Helen.
Eerie csb
