In 1995, two years after Leopoldina Pečar was officially declared dead, her daughter Poldika finally dared to inscribe her mother’s name on the Kamnica cemetery. On a newly polished, more than century‑old marble stone, she had the names of her paternal ancestors re‑engraved, and below them added the name Leopoldina Šerag. It is telling that she returned to her mother the surname of her first husband, thus expressing once and for all her rejection of her stepfather Bogomir Pečar.
The surname of Leopoldina’s first husband appears in the registers over two centuries in many forms: Sherbah, Scherrag, Sherragg, Sherak, Scherak, Scherag, Žerak, Šerak. Only in the Kamnica cemetery does it appear as a hybrid: the Slovene form Šerak combined with the German Scherag. The surname Šerag, which Leopoldina never actually bore, somehow best expresses her mixed national identity and connects her to the happiest period of her life.
