Interview with Ilse Freiberger
IntervieweeInterview with
Ilse Stein Freiberger
Austrian, 1909 - 2011
InterviewerInterviewed by
Rebecca Joseph
Date1991 October 9
Mediumreformatted digital file from audio cassette
DimensionsDuration (side 1): 28 Minutes, 37 Seconds
Duration (side 2): 28 Minutes, 42 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 57 Minutes, 25 Seconds
Duration (side 2): 28 Minutes, 42 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 57 Minutes, 25 Seconds
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
DescriptionAudio cassette tape recording of an interview with Ilse Freiberger. Ilse Freiberger was interviewed by Becky Joseph on October 9, 1991 as part of the research for the "A Sense of Place" exhibition, but her work was not exhibited.
Object number2015.196.866a-d
CopyrightIn Copyright
NotesBiographical Note: Ilse Freiberger (nee Stein, 1090-2011) grew up in Vienna, Austria, the daughter of a successful shoemaker/factory owner who served wealthy clients. Ilse received a well-rounded education, learning English and German, math, domestic science and piano. The family was involved in synagogue. She worked in the office of her father’s shoe factory, which was able to continue during the war (First World War) because it made leather products for soldiers. She married a salesman (who later worked in her father’s factory and became a teacher) who was responsible for his own family as well, and they had two young children at the beginning of the Second World War. The families hid together during Kristallnacht, and in 1939 Ilse and her husband and son and daughter were able to leave for England. After becoming widowed, she moved to the US in 1949. In Connecticut Ilse worked as a culinary pastry baker, a trained chef, specializing in Viennese pastries and cakes. She also designed greeting cards and created needle crafts, sewing doll dresses and stuffed animals for charity gift drives, and she was a classical pianist. Ilse was also skilled with needlework and textile crafts. She was born January 29, 1909, in Vienna, Austria; she passed July 3, 2011 in Bloomfield, Connecticut.She was interviewed by the first CCHAP Director, Rebecca Joseph, in 1991 for the “A Sense of Place” exhibit project.Additional materials exist in the CCHAP archive for this artist.
Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
Subject Terms
- Interviews
- Oral history
- Oral narratives
- Living Legends: Connecticut Master Traditional Artists (CCHAP Exhibition)
- Older people
- Textile arts
- Women
- Jewish artists
- Jewish artists (United States)
- Jewish women
- Jewish people
- Jewish people in America
- Austrian Americans
- Musicians
- Textile artists
- Audiocassettes
- Interviews and Oral Histories
- Bloomfield
- CCHAP Archive IMLS Museums for America Grant
- Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program (CCHAP)
On View
Not on view
Ilias Kementzides
1991 May 28
Keith Mueller
1991-1992
