I was born in Zagreb, Yugoslavia on July 26,1938, on the eve of WWII in an extensive family of wealthy and established businessmen and professionals scattered throughout the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. The family were Jews, but non-observant, with already at that time intermarriages with Roman Catholics and Serbian Orthodox.
My immediate family survived WWII, some in Italy, some who managed to immigrate to Mexico. Much of my mother’s extensive maternal family was wiped out during the war, many through suicide.
Our immediate family survived in Italy, was there when the allies liberated Rome and was brought over to the United States by the US Army as a PR gesture in August of 1944. We were interned behind barbed wire until well after the war’s end as the US government debated what to do with us. By Executive Order, signed by President Harry S Truman, we were shipped out to Niagara Falls, Canada and then allowed back in “officially’ in January 1946. My immediate family was the “poster group” for the same kind of anti-immigrant attitudes which rile the United States today only then it was Congress that played the role that Trump does today. Truman, by his Executive Order, was our “savior” and “liberator.”
I went to a superb public high school in New York City – Hunter College High School, graduating in 1956.
Barnard College, BA. 1960
Johns Hopkins University, MA. 1961
Harvard, Ph.D. Romance Languages and Literature, 1967
University of Chicago, JD. 1973
My work history involved:
Assistant Professor University of Illinois, Chicago, French Department
1967-1970.
Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, 1973-1976, including heading up one of the first rape prosecution task forces in the United States.
Sidley & Austin, 1976-1989.
Law Offices of Edna Selan Epstein, 1989 about 2005.
I have been exceedingly active politically and civically in Chicago, serving on many boards. Among them:
Chicago Civil Review Police Board (2 terms)
Illinois Humanities Council (2 terms)
Mayor Jane Byrne’s Transition Task Force
Democratic Convention Delegate 1980, Rules Committee
Music of the Baroque Board.
I am an author of a couple of books in the law, including a treatise on Attorney-Client Privilege and the Work Product Doctrine, with the 7th edition pending publication. Another book on conflicts of Interest. Many articles in various professional magazines.
I am married to the same man, Dr. Wolfgang Epstein since 1961, or 64 years. We have three very adult children and seven grandchildren.
Like many immigrants, I am exceedingly grateful for the opportunities I have had in the United States to receive an excellent education and to lead a good and fulfilling life. I have felt a deep need “to give back.”
Born where and when I was and what I was, a Jewish child, marked for extermination for that identity alone, I have spent a lifetime believing and wishing that human beings could genuinely see each other for who and what we are at our best, not our worst, and that we must reach out to one another and help one another thrive. But over a long lifetime, I have also become, what my mother often despaired of my ever becoming, a realist.
