Gertraude Heineken (87) died in her home in Marion, Massachusetts, surrounded by her family, after a long battle with heart failure. She was an accomplished musician, potter, forest industry researcher, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend.
Gertraude was born in Bremen, Germany, the youngest of four children. She earned her childhood nickname, Hexlein (Little Witch) when she was too little to open the front gate and talked passersby into opening it for her. Her earliest memories were of her father, Walter Heineken, a mild-mannered, kind engineer, and her mother, Lucie Charlotte, who laughed a lot, cared for her garden, and loved her chickens.
The 2nd World War brought bombings, nightly flights to the air raid shelter, a return home to find a wall of the family’s home destroyed. From age five to nine she was separated from her parents, when German children were sent to the relative safety of the countryside. For part of that time, she lived with strangers, and later in a boarding school where her eldest sister was a teacher. At war's end, ill and weak, she and her older sister Barbara (Gara) fled from what became East Germany on foot and by train. As an adult, Gertraude had few memories of those years, but she was a child of war, which both scarred her and shaped her thinking.
In 1954 at the age of 18, Gertraude was the German representative to a youth peace conference run by the Brethren, co-led by David Briggs, an American conscientious objector and pacifist, who joined the Brethren Alternative Service program. They fell in love, and he asked her to marry him. Her father agreed to support the marriage and, as a farewell gift, gave her a small portable typewriter “so that she would always be able to make a living.” Gertraude arrived in the U.S. in the fall of 1955 and lived with David’s family in Newton Highlands, Mass. While he worked on his PhD in counseling psychology, she worked various jobs, including in the post-operative ward at Mass General Hospital, where she assisted on a study on the effects of anesthesia.
Gertraude and David’s first child, Barbara, was born in 1959. The family moved to Augusta, Maine in 1960, where David got a job as a psychologist at the Togus Veterans Administration hospital. Their son Benjamin was born in January 1961. Daughters Charlotte and Kristine were born in 1962 and 1963.
For many years, Gertraude believed that since she was not an American citizen it was not appropriate for her to express political opinions, but in the 1980’s she decided she had a responsibility to her adoptive home to speak up and cast her vote. In 1987 she became a citizen of the United States, deciding at that time to change her legal name from Gertraude Briggs back to Gertraude Heineken.
She strove to fill her children with self-confidence, independence and a sense of adventure. She was intentional and mostly successful in shielding them from the fears–of fire, explosions, hunger, and separation–acquired as a child of war. But she was also intentional and
transparent, using her own stories to teach her children to oppose violence, avoid conflict and defend those victimized–and also that good people can find themselves involved in bad things. She taught her children the rootedness (and responsibility) that comes with belonging to a family on the wrong side of the holocaust, loving the polluted river in one's home town, citizenship in a country that commits wrongs in the world.
Gertraude had received musical training as a child and was an accomplished recorder player. During the 60s and early 70s she helped form a number of groups playing Baroque, Renaissance and early American chamber music, playing concerts throughout Central Maine including opening nights at the Monmouth summer Shakespeare theater.
In the early years in Augusta, David was a member of the Jaycees (Junior Chamber of Commerce), and Gertraude joined the Jaycee Wives and was elected president for two back-to-back terms, a testament to her effective, even-handed leadership.
In 1972 she took a single pottery course, and then went on to teach herself advanced techniques, glaze chemistry,and everything else she needed for a successful pottery business. The Potting Shed boasted three wheels and a kiln. Gertraude became a production potter, selling dishes, plant pots, vases, candle holders, and lamps on the crafts fair circuit. She also taught classes, whose participants were also allowed unlimited studio time. The Potting Shed at 33 Eastern Avenue became a lively salon for a circle of artisans who were entertained by the Heineken-Briggs family pets, including six cats and Molly the pigeon who had free run of the house and made frequent visits to the Potting Shed in search of string for nesting material.
Gertraude became fascinated with computers in the early 80s. She and David bought one of the first programmable desktop computers and joined the Augusta Computer Club. She learned to use word processing and spreadsheet software, and enjoyed designing personalized letterhead and business cards.
In 1990, Gertraude began working with the Erland Group doing research on the forest industry, which, in addition to her computer knowledge, utilized her considerable organizing and interpersonal skills. She was tasked with surveying several dozen very busy U.S. and Canadian factory owners and managers each week, by phone and with faxed forms, to gauge industry trends. They were hard to catch, but she was persistent and engaging–and the information she generated was valuable. Soon, in addition to rote responses, she was gathering more qualitative assessments, which she incorporated into the consulting group’s weekly newsletter “Eastern Quotes and Comments.”
For many years, Gertraude and David enjoyed living in Augusta in the winter, and the family’s “summer place” in Marion, Massachusetts in the summer and fall. In 2005, they decided to make Marion their year-round home. Gertraude took charge of designing and overseeing the conversion of the summer cottage on Delano Road. She was always proud of the result, especially “the Kroom,” her cozy, sunlit study.
As she struggled increasingly with congestive heart failure, she and David remained relatively well and lived independently until the last few months of her life. Until the day she died, she continued to love music, good food, baking her own bread, plants, people—especially young people—the latest technology, and wonderful memories of the life she shared with her family and friends.
Gertraude leaves behind her husband of 67 years, David Briggs (Marion, Mass), and four children, Barbara Heineken Briggs (Steve Chase) (Washington, DC), Benjamin Briggs (Samileh Mozafari) (Austin, TX), Charlotte Briggs (Mary Deslonde Parkinson) (Easthampton, MA), and Kristine Briggs (Arlington, MA). She is also survived by grandsons Eamon (Jennifer) Briggs (Austin, TX) and Neima Briggs (Daniella Rainero) (New Haven, CT) and their families, including a great grandchild, and her sister Njuta Simoneit-Zeuner and family (Germany).
Her funeral arrangements are private.