Pearl Rieger connected with kids in a way few can.
As a renowned educational diagnostician, she’d sit down with a kid, identify their obstacles to learning — such as dyslexia, ADHD or autism — chart a path forward, and work with parents and schools to implement it.
She helped thousands of kids in the Chicago area and beyond during a career that spanned nearly six decades.
Mrs. Rieger died July 23. She was 98.
“Her life’s work was saving kids,” former journalist Carol Marin said at Mrs. Rieger’s funeral.
“I choke up because she saved my own kid,” said Marin before recalling the moment she knew she needed to seek professional help for her son when he was in second grade.
“He was sitting on the steps in our house and he said, ‘Mom, will you be mad at me if I quit school?’ It was like a seven-alarm fire in my head and I talked to a friend who said ‘You have to call Pearl Rieger, there’s no one else, and she’s very busy, she’s booked day and night, see if she can fit you in, but you have to have Pearl Rieger.'”
Mrs. Rieger settled the boys nerves at their first meeting with the simple offer of “Let’s get a cookie.”
Mrs. Rieger maintained ties with the boy through his college years and became a close pal of Marin.
“It was Pearl who really helped (my son) and our family learn about his learning,” said Marin said, who equated Mrs. Rieger’s work to that of a lifesaver.
“She sees a kid in the middle of Lake Michigan drowning and with firm, strong, clear strokes, swims out and saves him,” Marin said.
Mrs. Rieger was one of the founders of the Rush Neurobehavioral Center and a former advisor to Hyde Park Day School, which works with bright students with learning disabilities who weren’t successful in traditional schools.
“She was a giant in the field,” said Hyde Park Day School Executive Director Casey Crnich.
“You didn’t want to get on the wrong side of her, if she believed in something, she believed in it very strongly and wasn’t afraid to advocate for it. She was a force to be reckoned with,” he said.
Attorney Matt Cohen, who advocates on behalf of families with children with special needs, said having Mrs. Rieger in your corner was a blessing.
“She was seen as the authoritative person on learning disabilities in both clinical and school communities, so when she was involved in a case where a child needed special services, the school would likely back off and do what she was recommending,” Cohen said.
“She was also a leader in developing programming for kids with learning disabilities, so her impact wasn’t just on individual children, it was also on how services were provided,” Cohen said.
Mrs. Rieger entered the field in her 40s after divorcing her first husband, Dr. Edward Newman, a physician whose client list included Sammy Davis Jr., Henry Fonda and former Mayor Richard M. Daley.
“He wanted a trophy wife,” said Mrs. Rieger’s daughter, Nancy Halbeck. “But she wanted more.”
Mrs. Rieger, who grew up in Hyde Park and had a degree in speech therapy from the University of Michigan, charted a new course by attending the University of Chicago where she earned a master’s in educational psychology.
“She could have been a lady of leisure,” Marin said. “But she worked.”
She ran her practice from her home in the Powhattan residential high rise in Hyde Park and worked until she was 87.
“It was comforting for students to come into her home,” said Peter Rastrelli, an educational psychologist who trained under and worked with Mrs. Rieger.
“The field has changed significantly over the years but you can still feel her influence here at our office, everything from the artwork and furniture to how you treat people and stay in touch as families need you to be available and how you communicate a child’s story throughout their educational career,” Rastrelli said.
Mrs. Rieger’s second marriage to the late attorney Mitchell S. Rieger was long and happy. For many years the two liked to roll up their living room carpet, put on music, and dance together.
Mrs. Rieger was a regular visitor to Vail, Co., where she had a home, and skied well into her 80s. She also loved traveling with her grandchildren on special trips, including one to Vietnam.
A few of Mrs. Rieger’s rules to live by included: When checking into a hotel you must jump on the bed to make sure that it is good, a lost car in a parking garage is not an inconvenience it’s an adventure, keep floors clean so one can drop down and play cards, read a book or do a puzzle, and always put ketchup in a serving bowl, never bring the bottle to the table.
In addition to her daughter Nancy Halbeck, Mrs. Rieger is survived by her son Steven B. Newman, her daughter Mary Ann Moseley, and her stepchildren Karen Gross Cooper, Jill Levi, Linda Hanan, Susan Perlstein and Geoff Felsenthal.
Services have been held.