| A Brief Biography of an Extraordinary Woman
If anyone could be considered a "woman of the world," it was Edith Simon Coliver, International House alumna, who served on the I-House Board of directors. Fluent in German, French and Spanish, and conversant in Tagalog, Portuguese and Mandarin, she had also lived in Manila and Taipei.
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Born Edith Simon in Karlsruhe, Germany, Coliver left for London with her family in 1936 and moved to the United States, settling in San Francisco. She received her bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley, summa cum laude, studying international relations and languages. She joined the U.S. Office of War Information and, in 1945, worked as a translator at the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco. In September 1945, she returned to her native Germany to work as an interpreter and research analyst at the Nuremberg trials. She was the first woman to serve as a field office director for the Asia Foundation, and the first woman to serve as vice president of the World Affairs Council of Northern California.
Edith Coliver died in 2002. She was a great admirer of I-House's Festival of Cultures and I-House is quite honored today to be able to continue the Festival tradition thanks to the Edith Coliver Fund. |
Edith Simon Coliver as a student
in 1940 and in 1999 as I-House
Alumna of the Year.
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