Teresa Heinz Kerry

Paul Pitlick writes: "I Googled "Teresa Heinz Kerry", and this was about 10th on the list. Says her father was a physician. <http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04116/305510.stm>.  Sounds from this that she didn't meet Heinz at a Rio conference, although it sounds like she got to know Kerry better in Rio, although she wasn't his official interpreter". RH:The source Paul quotes says: "Born in Mozambique, her Portuguese passport was stamped "second class."  This was the level of citizenship assigned to someone born outside Europe. It was, for this daughter of a doctor, a childhood now impossible amid the turmoil of the African continent. They were not especially rich by American standards, but there were servants, boarding schools and a big, rambling house near the water in the capital, then called Laurenco Marques".  Perhaps this second-class citizenship made her angry about the Portuguese dictatorship. Her full name is  of Maria Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira Heinz. Thierstein (presumably her father's name) is not Portuguese. Can  anyone tell us more about him? Was he Swiss or German? He may have indoctrinated her.

Edgar Knowlton writes: "Re Teresa Heinz Kerry, she mentioned living under a dictator in Mozambique--I was not even sure who the dictator was, didn't Salazar stay pretty much in Portugal?--but gave more attention to her experience as a student in South Africa where she saw, and marched against apartheid. I met Maria Pia, illegitimate daughter of King Carlos, on a train in southern France and rode with her in a train compartment to Lisbon--she was bitter against Salazar who had even tried to destroy evidence of her birth. Like Mrs. Kerry, she was a proficient linguist. Both women seem(ed) to me to be able and likeable. Speaking of First Ladies, didn't Lou Hoover also have merit (as a LatIn scholar) and courage (inviting a woman of color socially to the White House before the impressive days of Eleanor Roosevelt)?"

RH: Here is what the Kerry/Edwards campaign says about Teresa Kelly: "Born in Mozambique, fluent in several languages, she has combined compassion and common sense to become a force for innovation and social progress as leader of one of the nation's large private foundations. After studying at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and the University of Geneva, she moved to the United States and got a job working for the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations. In 1966, she married Senator John Heinz whom she met when they were graduate                    students and with whom she had three sons. Shortly after celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in 1991, she lost her husband in a plane crash. Turning down offers to seek election to her husband's Senate seat to take care of her sons, family and professional responsibilities, she became chairman of The Howard Heinz Endowment and the Heinz Family Philanthropies. Under her leadership, the Heinz foundations are widely known for developing innovative strategies to protect the environment, improve education and the lives of young children, reduce the                   cost of prescription drugs, promote the arts and help women achieve financial economic security. She established the Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement in 1996 to educate women about pensions, savings, and retirement security.

Their mutual interest in environmental issues brought Teresa and John together. She was first introduced to John Kerry by Senator Heinz at an Earth Day rally in 1990. In 1992, she met Kerry again at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro when President George H. W. Bush appointed her as part of a State Department Delegation  representing U.S. non-governmental organizations. She and Senator.Kerry were married in the presence of her three sons and his two daughters on Memorial Day weekend in 1995. Teresa has received numerous awards and 10 honorary degrees for her many works. In September of last year, she was presented with the Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for Humanitarianism, for her work protecting the environment, promoting health care and education and uplifting women and children throughout the world.  She was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and  Sciences in 2001.

RH: I am glad to have this information about her. The media had mentioned only her abusive dismissal of an abusive right wing journalist. Another source said she met Senator Heinz when she went with him as an interpreter toan earlier Rio summit.  I have seen no explanation as to who her father was. Perhaps he was exiled to Mozambique as an enemy of the Portuguese dictatorship.  Portugal was ruled from 1928 tp 1968 by Salazar, who treated the Portuguese African colonies as integral parts of Portugal.  I attended a session of the Portuguese legislature at which they were represented. In Mozambique his regime was viewed as an imperial dictatorship.

As for Maria Pia, King Carlos of Portugal was murdered  in 1908.  His successor Manoel II abdicated in 1910, and Portugal became a republic. The upper classes still favored the monarchy.  I remember in 1935 at a diplomatic luncheon in Madrid, the Portuguese ambassador kept saying that everyone in Portugal wanted a monarchy, which was patently untrue. I know nothing about the claims of Maria Pia.

Lou Henry Hoover was indeed a remarkable woman. She translated from the Latin Agricola's De Re Metallica (1556). Herbert Hoover, a mining engineer, provided technical advice.  The translation was attributed to both of them. Georgius Agricola was the Latin pseudonym of Georg Bauer (1495-1555), the German  founder of modern mineralogy. De Re Metallica appeared posthumously.

I pointed out that Thierstein, the name of Mrs. Heinz Kerry's father, is not is not Portuguese. Randy Black says: "Does the "Thierstein" in Mrs. Kerry's maiden name indicate that she is descended from the secret Jews or Morranos of Portugal? From the Guardian: The daughter of a prominent Portuguese doctor, Heinz Kerry, née Maria Teresa Thierstein Simoes-Ferreira, grew up in Mozambique. She attended a school run by British nuns, and later studied Romance languages at senior school in South Africa, where she became involved in the nascent anti-apartheid movement of the late 1950s. At university in Geneva, she was a classmate of Kofi Annan at the city's School of Interpreters. Now fluent in five languages, she graduated and went to New York to become an interpreter at the United Nations, before marrying Heinz in 1966.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1130650,00.html

I also found this: Teresa Heinz Kerry’s maternal grandfather, Albert Thierstein, was born in Malta. He spoke five languages and upon finishing his schooling at the age of 21, left Malta to seek his fortune. His parents had died when he was a small child, and he was raised by his French grandmother. As a young man, Albert was forced to figure out how to make his own way in the world. He put three names in a hat: Africa, America and Australia, and vowed to go to the place he picked out. He picked Africa and left for South Africa to work for a French company. When the Boer War broke out, Albert Thierstein was forced to leave because he was a British citizen. He went into exile in Mozambique, where he met his wife Maria (Teresa's grandmother). They had three daughters. One was Teresa's mother. He fell in love with Mozambique and never returned to South Africa.

Teresa was born in Mozambique in east Africa. She often says the wildness and beauty of Africa made her an environmentalist because it taught her respect for the natural order. But her country had a dark side. Its people lived under the oppressive thumb of Portuguese dictators. There was no civic life and no one dared talk of politics outside the privacy of home. Her father, a highly regarded doctor, did not vote until he was 71 years old. This experience left her with a deep and abiding appreciation for democracy and freedom. Ms Heinz Kerry recalls that her late mother visited a cousin in Malta, Maria German. Maria was one of many children of Ernest Thierstein and a countess. Another child was Roberto who was a young major in the British Army during World War II and fought in the African front .
http://www.maltastar.com/news.asp?newsitemid=11837&date=

RH: One daughter of Albert Thierstein was the mother of Teresa, which was therefore her mother's name. Was the father Simoes Ferreira, which is a Portuguese name?

Randy Black says "Despite the fact that the Kerry campaign criticized Dubya for his personal friendship with Ken Lay (Enron), Mr. Seeley is obviously not familiar with the fact that Mrs. Kerry invited Mr. Lay to serve on the Board of Directors of the Heinz Foundation prior to his fall from grace. Further, John and Teresa Kerry owned $250,000 of Enron stock dating to the late 1990s. Even after the Enron scandal, Mrs. Kerry served on a different charity board with Mr. Lay. Additionally, John Kerry accepted campaign donations, never returned, from Enron executives.  Lay stayed on the board (of the Heinz Foundation) after Enron's collapse and a Heinz Foundation spokeswoman defended Lay in news reports amid the fraud accusations as having “a good reputation in the environmental community.”
 
Source: http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=34958
 
As far as Bill Clinton’s speech, he is the only man in America who can convince the 50 percent of the American taxpayers who pay no taxes that the Republicans have stolen their tax payments".  RH: What about those who do pay taxes?