Interesting Facts

When Dr. Epstein was four, she was traumatized by a mock initiation into Neptune’s Kingdom on crossing the equator. She was traveling to Argentina with her family because he father had a branch of his business in Argentina.

As a child, Dr. Epstein had more dreams of living, rather than dreams of intellectual achievement. She imagined “she could marry some articulate and poetic rich man and maintain a salon to which [she] would invite the brilliant minds of the era, providing good food and a good ear” (Epstein 1990: 352). At other times she would fantasize about being Wonder Woman or an abandoned princess who had been left at the doorstep of her parents, who were unappreciative. Her mother actually caught on to this fantasy and began calling her Cinderella, taunting her with this name for many years.

Information from "Personal Reflections with a Sociological Eye" by Cynthia Fuchs Epstein in Authors of Their Lives edited by Bennett M. Berger. 1990. Los Angeles: University of California Press, Ltd.