Friederike Fearney

Friederike Fearney, CoDirector of Hergl School, Dies at 88.

It is no exaggeration to say that Friederike Fearney spent her entire life involved with children whose primary diagnoses fell within what we now call developmental disabilities. Mrs. Fearney was one of those rare individuals whose life and work were inseparable. To talk about her without talking about the School that was her life would be impossible.

Hergl School was founded by Mrs. Fearney’s mother, Hedwig Hergl, in the 1920s in Vienna at a time when Professor Eugen Bleuler was only beginning to apply the term autism to mental tendencies that he thought were misdiagnosed as schizophrenia.

Vienna at that time has been described as a cauldron of intellectual ferment, and Mrs. Fearney’s mother was at its center and open to much of the challenging new ideas. Childhood schizophrenia was just one of her many interests. She began studying these children and eventually took them into her home and developed a treatment program, which in short order became a formal pedagogy and the foundation for Hergl School.

It was into this environment that Mrs. Fearney born in 1928. She would say that she never recalled a time when she didn’t live with children who needed help.

On 12 March 1938 Austrians voted for Anschluss, the term used to describe the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany. Mrs. Fearney was just nine years old. Mrs. Fearney’s mother and father were horrified by the Nazi Party and had voted against Anschluss and knew that with the loss of Austrian independence they could no longer live in good conscience in the country of their birth. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the former Minister of Public Security, had become the governor of Austria. Seyss-Inquart, himself, signed the order permitting Mrs. Fearney’s family to leave Austria.

The Hergl family was officially stateless. They made their way to Antwerp and were awaiting passage to Australia when the Nazi Army overran Belgium. Mrs. Fearney’s father and uncle were immediately arrested. Mrs. Fearney with her mother and aunt joined other refugees and walked from Antwerp to Paris. Along the way they passed through the burning rubble which was all that was left of the ancient city of Amiens. Mrs. Fearney said that the only building untouched by the Nazi bombing was Amiens’ famous Gothic Cathedral.

In Paris they crossed to the right bank in front of the Hôtel de Crillon, which was being used as the Nazi Headquarters. Mrs. Fearney remembered that the Crillon was draped in a large swastika that covered most of the front of the old building. “From now on we no longer speak German,” said her mother.

Through a Quaker relief agency they learned that Mrs. Fearney’s father and uncle had been interned in a detention camp in the south of France. So they made their way south, bribed the prison guards to release Mrs. Fearney’s father and uncle, and fled further south to Marseille where they lived in the poorest quarters while hiding from the Vichy Police.

In 1942 Mrs. Fearney and her family finally escaped to Switzerland and safety. The remarkable thing is that Mrs. Fearney’s mother’s reputation preceded her wherever they went. The families of disabled children somehow always seemed to find her.

In Marseille her mother was asked to work with jewish children who today we would say were suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Mrs. Fearney said that the only time her mother contemplated giving up working with children was in Switzerland when she learned that the jewish children she had worked with in Marseille had been taken to a camp and exterminated. Mrs. Fearney said that on learning of this her mother’s despair was so great it threatened everything she valued in life. But as happened so often the father of a child heard of her work, sought her out, and pleaded with her to help with his young daughter and Hergl School started again in Switzerland. It was also in Switzerland that Mrs. Fearney started again her formal education, which had been interrupted when she left Austria at the age of 10.

After the war Mrs. Fearney’s mother moved the School to New York, where Mrs. Fearney attended Barnard College. In 1952 Mrs. Hergl moved the School to San Francisco, where it has been ever since

When Mrs. Hergl died in 1969 Mrs. Fearney decided to keep the school open and continue with her mother’s work. She asked her mother’s last aide, Sandra Carroll, to be her partner and together they continued with Hergl School for the next 49 years until their retirement.

Hergl School was very small. The most children it ever had at one time was ten. Mrs. Fearney and Sandra Carroll were hands on. They were often asked to start other schools based on their program. While the basic structure of the program could be reproduced readily enough, they understood that the essential piece of the program would always be missing. Simply put, for the program to work teachers were needed who would be willing to work as they worked — that is, who would live with the children 24 hours a day 7 days a week. In the 49 years as co-directors of Hergl School they only found one other such person, Theo Boudreaux, who now runs the Hergl Center in Berkeley.

Mrs. Fearney belonged to that now vanishing generation of post war European intellectuals who came to America bearing great gifts. She loved music, art, reading, and travel. She had a unique power for observation, the ability to listen, compassion, and a strength of personality that continued to attract and affect everyone who met her, until the last days of her life. She always believed her greatest honor was to have contributed to making life more meaningful for the children and families who came Hergl School.

Mrs. Fearney was predeceased by her husband of 50 years, Frank Fearney, a biochemist. She is survived by her partner, Sandra Carroll. She has asked that in lieu of flowers that donations be made either to the San Francisco Arboretum or Audubon Florida at Florida Coastal Islands Sanctuaries, 410 South Ware Boulevard, Suite 702, Tampa, FL 33619.