All in a Lifetime by Dr. Ruth Westheimer with Ben Yagoda

"There is a doll in Germany called a Stehaufmannchen. It has lead in its base, and when you put it down flat, it stands right back up again. That's me. Instead of being devastated by this failure, I went right on to the next project."
                 -Dr. Ruth, from the autobiography

I doubt I would have ever discovered and read this autobiography if I had not recently attended the delightful one-woman play "Becoming Dr. Ruth" by Mark St. Germain. My husband and I were lucky enough to have tickets for the talk-back show. After final bows the actress talked about her experience with the role and answered questions from the audience. It was revealed that Dr. Ruth had written (at least one) autobiography. I found this one at our library.

Dr. Ruth Westheimer was born Karola Siegel in Frankfort, Germany. In 1939 at the age of 10 she is sent by her parents on a train to Switzerland where she will be safe from Nazi oppression and threats. She never sees her family again. At the Swiss orphanage where she lived with other Jewish refugee children, she kept a journal and shares numerous entries in this book that reminded me somewhat of Anne Frank's diary. As a seventeen-year-old she emigrated to Israel for a time, where she changes her name, and by the time she arrives in the United States, she has lived in 5 countries. She dreams of becoming a kindergarten teacher as a young person so it is pretty surprising to me that she ends up as a college professor and famous sex therapist.

I am rating the book a 3.5. It might have been higher if I had not been so familiar with the story. Much of it was disclosed in the play. Also the sequence of events was a bit confusing at times. However, the warmth and humor of this remarkable woman comes through in both book and play. In "Becoming Dr. Ruth" the audience is treated as friends who have come to visit and the book is similar, in that she says a few times, "You know me well enough to know..."  An example of humor is that she shares that she is SO short (under 5 feet) when she goes to restaurants she asks for phone book(s) to sit on!

The title is fitting for the autobiography of a woman who packed so much more than most people into one lifetime! And she is still going strong at 91, best I can tell!