Jeffrey Schreier

Adversities Conquered
On Sept. 11, Jeffrey Schreier pushed a mail cart out of the Church Street post office. It was 7 a.m. No time to chat, he told the counterman. He had to get to the Cantor Fitzgerald mailroom. (Mr. Schreier was rarely late in his 19 years as a messenger and mailroom employee there.)

On Sept. 11, Mr. Schreier was a happy man. And he was a successful man, brilliantly so. He was married, quietly but happily, to Phyllis. They lived a simple life in her apartment in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. "Taking a walk on the boardwalk, or seeing a movie, or seeing a sports game on television, was enough to make him incredibly happy," said his sister, Janice Hart.

He made others happy with his imitations (Shemp of the Three Stooges was a specialty) and his dazzling dancing at Cantor holiday parties. Winter was his favorite season, but his personality was like the summer. Maybe the only dark spot was not being able to have children.

Mr. Schreier was brilliantly successful because he had conquered the severe learning disabilities he was born with, unable even to feed himself as a child. But his parents, Holocaust survivors, sent him away to a special school, and he learned to take care of himself. He had a knack for getting from one place to another, hence the messenger job. "He was so self-sufficient and so independent," Mrs. Hart said. "He wanted to prove to people he could do everything himself."

Then, a wonderful achievement: he earned his high school equivalency diploma. "Next to getting married, that was the greatest thing in his life," Mrs. Hart said.

It hangs, laminated, in a quiet living room.