Sender: Rare book and manuscripts <EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
I feel a little bit like an ambulance chaser, but would this woman's
papers be of interest?
Cheers,
Honor
Honor Moody
Cataloger
Schlesinger Library
Radcliffe Institute
10 Garden Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel.: (617) 495-4223
Email: hmoody@radcliffe.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: Rare book and manuscripts [mailto:EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU]
On Behalf Of David Netzorg
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 4:07 PM
To: EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU
Subject: [EXLIBRIS-L] Petra F. ("Pete") Netzorg, obituary/biography
March 14, 2008
Petra F. ("Pete") Netzorg died of old age on January 1, 2008, at the
age of
84.
Petra F. Netzorg was one of the foremost dealers in Antiquarian books
on the
Philippines and surrounding areas; her bookstore, The Cellar Book Shop,
was
located in Detroit, Michigan for most of her adult life.
Petra F Netzorg's life was anything but average. She was born in
Berlin,
Germany in 1923, into an upper-middle-class German Jewish family. The
family
members were separated in the late 1930's, due to the Nazi oppression of
the
Jews. In 1938, at age 15, Petra escaped to the U.S.A. After arriving in
the U.S.,
she worked her way through high school in New Jersey, and then went to
The
University of Nebraska on a scholarship. (She went to Nebraska because
she was
intent on becoming a fully assimilated American, and she knew she would
have
to get away from the influence of the crush of European Jews on the
East
coast in order to do this).
After her marriage to Morton J. ("Jock") Netzorg in Michigan, together
they
set up an Antiquarian bookstore in Michigan. The bookstore was named
The
Cellar Book Shop and Petra was the primary active partner. Petra worked
full
time running the bookstore in addition to looking after her husband (a
noted
Philippine Studies scholar, as well as an Operations Research expert
and
innovator) and the two children who soon came along.
When asked her profession, Petra always listed herself as an
Antiquarian
Book Dealer.Over the years, The Cellar Book Shop in Detroit, Michigan
became one
of the major Antiquarian bookstores in the world, and one of the very
few
dealing primarily in books and maps concerning the Philippines, the
rest of
Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Rim. The majority of the clientele
consisted of
university libraries (including Special Collections), university
scholars,
and book dealers, in all parts of world.
Over the years, Pete and Jock Netzorg accumulated one of the largest
private
collections of Filipiniana in the world. Philippine Studies scholars
from
many countries came to Detroit to use the research resources provided
by the
Netzorg collection. After Jock's death in 1995, the Netzorg Filipiniana
collection was sold to a Foundation in the Philippines, in order to
assure that the
collection would be preserved in its entirety in one place.
A few years ago, Petra semi-retired: She sold the books of The Cellar
book
Shop to The Book Bin, a bookstore in Corvallis, Oregon, and then she
set up an
Internet bookstore to sell some of her personal collection of books.
The Philippines was always the biggest focus of The Cellar Book Shop,
and
Petra was connected with many of the important people in Philippine
academia,
public life and the arts, on both sides of the Pacific. She carried on
a
regular correspondence with a number of those people, as well as
exchanging
visits. In addition, through her bookshop, Petra had close contacts
with other
individuals in all parts of the world. So, in her many travels (to the
Philippines, other parts of Southeast Asia, Europe, and other parts of
the world), she
always received a friendly welcome and a place to stay in the home of a
librarian, a scholar, a book dealer, an artist, a government official,
or some
other person whom she might previously have known only through an
extended
exchange of friendly correspondence. Thus, she exemplified the saying:
"Selling
books may not make you rich, but it will make you rich in friends."
Sincerely,
David M. Netzorg (Son)
Detroit, Michigan, USA
Phone (248) 943-3292
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