Peter William Schramm, 1946-2015

[Valin]

The Weekly Standard:

WILLIAM KRISTOL

Aug 16, 2015

 

Just about six weeks ago, I had the honor of participating in a tribute at Ashland University for Peter Schramm, who had been diagnosed with a terminal disease. It was a very moving event, and Peter summoned all his energies to give truly wonderful and memorable remarks (which you can and should watch here).

 

Peter passed away today, peacefully, cared for by his wife and friends, at home in Ashland, Ohio.

 

Peter was born December 23, 1946, in Gyor, Hungary, son of the late William Joseph and Rose Anna Schramm. He and his family risked their lives to flee communist Hungary in 1956 to come to America.

 

(Snip)

 

Peter wrote to a friend in his last days, “I cannot believe my great good fortune that nearing the end of life I can—with friends and happy allies—employ whatever gifts I have left on behalf of saving our country and making it worthy of the saving.” Some of that remarkable spirit of enlightened patriotism is captured in a piece Peter wrote for us in 2007, where Peter describes coming to America as a ten-year-old. His family was fleeing Hungary in the aftermath of the 1956 uprising, and he asked his father where they were going:

 

 

"We are going to America," he said. "Why America?" I prodded. "Because, son. We were born Americans, but in the wrong place."

 

 

Peter continues:

 

 

I've spent the better part of the last fifty years working to more fully understand these words. Mind you, everyone understood America to be a free and good place where one might prosper unmolested. But in saying that we were "born Americans, but in the wrong place," Dad, in his way, was saying that he understood America to be both a place and an idea at the same time. Fundamentally, it is a place that would embrace us if we could prove that we shared in the idea. We meant to prove it.

 

Peter proved worth of our country. Our challenge, going forward, is to prove worthy of his achievements and his memory.

 

 

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