1. Ariel Durant was a Ukrainian-born American researcher and writer.
11 Facts About Ariel Durant
1. 2.
Ariel Durant was the coauthor of The Story of Civilization with her husband, Will Durant.
3.
Ariel Durant was born Chaya Kaufman in Proskurov, Russian Empire, to Jewish parents Ethel Appel Kaufman and Joseph Kaufman.
4.
Ariel Durant had three older sisters, Sarah, Mary, and Flora, and three older brothers, Harry, Maurice, and Michael.
5.
Ariel Durant met her future husband when she was a student at Ferrer Modern School in New York City.
6.
Ariel Durant was then a teacher at the school, but resigned his post to marry Ariel.
7.
At the time of the wedding, on October 31,1913, Ariel was 15 and Will Durant was nearly 28 years old.
8.
The couple had one daughter, Ethel Benvenuta Durant and adopted a son, Louis Richard "Lipschultz" Durant who was the son of Ariel's sister Flora Kaufman Lipschultz and her former husband, Joseph Bernard Lipschultz.
9.
Ariel Durant legally changed her first name to Ariel after the character from Shakespeare's The Tempest, which was the nickname her husband gave her because he said she was "strong and brave as a boy, and as swift and mischievous as an elf".
10.
In 1977 they were presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Gerald Ford, and Ariel Durant was named "Woman of the Year" by the city of Los Angeles.
11.
Ariel Durant told Ethel's daughter, Monica Mehill, that it was their differences that made them grow.