Faris Cas­sell, a jour­nal­ist and writer, lives with her hus­band in Eugene, Ore­gon. She earned a B.A. in his­to­ry from Mount Holyoke Col­lege and an M.S. in jour­nal­ism from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon. Her decades of research into Alfred and Hed­wig Berg­er’s sto­ry was sup­port­ed by a Mount Holyoke Alum­nae Schol­ar­ship and by the gen­er­ous coop­er­a­tion of the Berg­er family.