Peter Schjeldahl Children: Meet Ada Calhoun

Peter Schjeldahl was a popular American art critic, poet, educator and the father of Ada Calhoun Schjeldahl.

Ada Calhoun Schjeldahl is a nonfiction author. She has written about her childhood fascination with the suburbs in The New York Times Magazine.

As a teenager, she visited India and met Mother Teresa. In 1998, she changed her name to Ada Calhoun to avoid confusion with her father.

She is the author of St. Marks Is Dead, a history of St. Mark’s Place in Manhattan’s East Village; Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give, a book of essays about marriage.

She has also been a critic, frequently contributing to The New York Times Book Review; a co-author and ghostwriter, having collaborated on three books by Tim Gunn; and a freelance essayist and reporter.

Peter Schjeldahl passed away on October 21, 2022, at the age of 80. Although the cause of death of Schjeldahl has not been officially determined, he was diagnosed with lung cancer at the age of 77 in 2019.