The Wallerstein Suite is named after my mother, Anneliese (Ann) Wallerstein Dorzback, and the Wallerstein ancestors who contributed to the person I am today. In June 2023, mom will be 102 years old and she lives in her own home, cooks her own meals, Zooms with her four children, five grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren, and is most proud of getting in and out of the bathtub and walking up and down stairs independently.
We can all learn about humanity, resilience, resourcefulness, and hope from Ann. As a victim of Nazi persecution, she was fortunate to escape Germany in 1938 and live in London for a year before emigrating to New York. Her stories of her first years in the United States tell so much about who she is. Unable to get a job due to her accent and immigrant status, she utilized her exceptional skill as a seamstress and opened an alterations business with her sister. Her first investment was in a well-made sign for the shop – one had to “look the part” in order to attract fashionable New Yorkers to their business. She had marketing savvy in putting her “Wallerstein Alterations” label into the coats she altered, and exceptional creativity in removing customers’ Bonwit Teller and Bergdorf Goodman labels from their clothing and sewing them into hers in order to impress gentleman suitors. Describing her first week as an American, she says “I became an employee, a consumer, and a taxpayer on my first day, doing “piece work” in my uncle’s hairnet business, buying my first lipstick for $.25, and paying $.01 sales tax.” Eventually, Ann owned her own handbag manufacturing business, and married her life partner, Richard. A keen observer of life and strong believer in the adage “find a niche and fill it,” Ann predicted the baby boom as men returned from war, and she swiftly enlarged her bags to include plastic pockets for diapers, bottles, and related products. Although never patented, Ann is the inventor of the with first diaper bag prototype.
Making many of our outfits for school and dance performances, we were always aware of Ann’s talent as a seamstress. And at 102, she continues to sew – for Halloween 2022, she gave 77 home-sewn, colorful, pillows to neighborhood children who have been collecting for the past few years. And long before the world became environmentally conscious, Ann reused and repurposed, wood scraps from the local lumber yard into sculptures in our elementary art classes, crocheted vase holders with strips cut from colorful plastic grocery bags, and quilted colorful blankets with our theater production, marathon, and college T-shirts.
Ann has been a devoted volunteer – teaching art in our elementary school, translating German for heart transplant patients, serving as a Girl Scout leader, donating the proceeds of her pussy-willow sales, and serving as an event planner for a not-for-profit organization. She never preached to “pay it forward,” but we grew up understanding the giving imperative – we were raised knowing that our grandfather gave his seamstresses free wedding dresses from his factory, let them use his car on their wedding day, and because her mother wrote poems and songs for family events, we grew up understanding that the greatest gifts are created by combining our observations with language and music. Through Ann’s storytelling, she raised four children who revere our past, pivot in response to adversity, create from our hearts, and give from our souls.
I am deeply proud to be a Wallersteiner, and am grateful to all my relatives for the values, skills, and approach to life with which they imbued us.
Irene Dorzback
Eldest daughter of Ann Wallersteiner Dorzback
January 2023