Gretel Simon was the niece of a well-known Long Island family, the Driers, and had come to the United States from her native Germany to study for a year at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. At a 1932 Christmas party at the International House in upper Manhattan she met Ernst Mayr, who would become a leading Evolutionary biologist.
Gretel returned to Germany in 1933; Ernst proposed to her during his next visit to Europe in 1the summer of 1934. He returned to Europe the following spring where on May 4, 1935 they were married in Freilburg in Breisgau in the church where her father had been the minister. Gretel's brother Ludwig, who was also a minister, performed the ceremony and her brother Frieder played the organ.
Shortly thereafter the newlyweds returned to American, where Ernst resumed working at the American Museum of Natural History and their daughters Christa Elizabeth and Susanne were born. When war broke out in Europe in 1935 things began to grow tense for Germans living in America. In 1942 FBI agents searched their home in Tenafly NJ for a non-existent copy of Mein Kampf and took them to the local courthouse where they were legally arrested an "enemy illegal aliens" and released on supervised parole.
The couple became US citizens in 1950.
As a minister's daughter, Gretel was committed to "Geben ist seliger als nehmen" (To give is more blessed than to receive") and she strove to direct much of the family income towards the support of charitable efforts including conservation and science.
Gretel collaborated with her husband with her husband on several projects, notably his 1954 study of tail molt in owls and a 1956 study of the suspected correlation of blood group frequency and pituitary adenoma in humans. Ultimately she found volunteer work more fulfilling, and after their 1953 move to Cambridge she devoted herself to such efforts as reading to the blind and helping recently de-institutionalized psychiatric patients in their adjustment.
As Robert Trivers recalled Ernst was a "loving husband' who nonetheless was not immune to the social presumptions of the times.
"I once visited Ernst and his wife Gretel in their home in Cambridge, " Trivers recalled. "Ernst mentioned a paper in German that he had recently translated, when Gretel cut him off and said, 'But, Ernst, it was I who translated that paper'. Then, she turned to me and said, 'You know, Bob, Ernst and I are like one, but still it was I who translated the paper'. Ernst looked sheepish and never referred to that paper again without adding "which my wife so kindly translated for me"
See further Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy: The Life and Science of Ernst Mayr 1904-2005,
By Jürgen Haffer [2007]; Ernst Mayr: A Rememberance by Robert Trivers Published in Edge Jan 14, 2019
Gretel returned to Germany in 1933; Ernst proposed to her during his next visit to Europe in 1the summer of 1934. He returned to Europe the following spring where on May 4, 1935 they were married in Freilburg in Breisgau in the church where her father had been the minister. Gretel's brother Ludwig, who was also a minister, performed the ceremony and her brother Frieder played the organ.
Shortly thereafter the newlyweds returned to American, where Ernst resumed working at the American Museum of Natural History and their daughters Christa Elizabeth and Susanne were born. When war broke out in Europe in 1935 things began to grow tense for Germans living in America. In 1942 FBI agents searched their home in Tenafly NJ for a non-existent copy of Mein Kampf and took them to the local courthouse where they were legally arrested an "enemy illegal aliens" and released on supervised parole.
The couple became US citizens in 1950.
As a minister's daughter, Gretel was committed to "Geben ist seliger als nehmen" (To give is more blessed than to receive") and she strove to direct much of the family income towards the support of charitable efforts including conservation and science.
Gretel collaborated with her husband with her husband on several projects, notably his 1954 study of tail molt in owls and a 1956 study of the suspected correlation of blood group frequency and pituitary adenoma in humans. Ultimately she found volunteer work more fulfilling, and after their 1953 move to Cambridge she devoted herself to such efforts as reading to the blind and helping recently de-institutionalized psychiatric patients in their adjustment.
As Robert Trivers recalled Ernst was a "loving husband' who nonetheless was not immune to the social presumptions of the times.
"I once visited Ernst and his wife Gretel in their home in Cambridge, " Trivers recalled. "Ernst mentioned a paper in German that he had recently translated, when Gretel cut him off and said, 'But, Ernst, it was I who translated that paper'. Then, she turned to me and said, 'You know, Bob, Ernst and I are like one, but still it was I who translated the paper'. Ernst looked sheepish and never referred to that paper again without adding "which my wife so kindly translated for me"
See further Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy: The Life and Science of Ernst Mayr 1904-2005,
By Jürgen Haffer [2007]; Ernst Mayr: A Rememberance by Robert Trivers Published in Edge Jan 14, 2019
Gretel Simon was the niece of a well-known Long Island family, the Driers, and had come to the United States from her native Germany to study for a year at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. At a 1932 Christmas party at the International House in upper Manhattan she met Ernst Mayr, who would become a leading Evolutionary biologist.
Gretel returned to Germany in 1933; Ernst proposed to her during his next visit to Europe in 1the summer of 1934. He returned to Europe the following spring where on May 4, 1935 they were married in Freilburg in Breisgau in the church where her father had been the minister. Gretel's brother Ludwig, who was also a minister, performed the ceremony and her brother Frieder played the organ.
Shortly thereafter the newlyweds returned to American, where Ernst resumed working at the American Museum of Natural History and their daughters Christa Elizabeth and Susanne were born. When war broke out in Europe in 1935 things began to grow tense for Germans living in America. In 1942 FBI agents searched their home in Tenafly NJ for a non-existent copy of Mein Kampf and took them to the local courthouse where they were legally arrested an "enemy illegal aliens" and released on supervised parole.
The couple became US citizens in 1950.
As a minister's daughter, Gretel was committed to "Geben ist seliger als nehmen" (To give is more blessed than to receive") and she strove to direct much of the family income towards the support of charitable efforts including conservation and science.
Gretel collaborated with her husband with her husband on several projects, notably his 1954 study of tail molt in owls and a 1956 study of the suspected correlation of blood group frequency and pituitary adenoma in humans. Ultimately she found volunteer work more fulfilling, and after their 1953 move to Cambridge she devoted herself to such efforts as reading to the blind and helping recently de-institutionalized psychiatric patients in their adjustment.
As Robert Trivers recalled Ernst was a "loving husband' who nonetheless was not immune to the social presumptions of the times.
"I once visited Ernst and his wife Gretel in their home in Cambridge, " Trivers recalled. "Ernst mentioned a paper in German that he had recently translated, when Gretel cut him off and said, 'But, Ernst, it was I who translated that paper'. Then, she turned to me and said, 'You know, Bob, Ernst and I are like one, but still it was I who translated the paper'. Ernst looked sheepish and never referred to that paper again without adding "which my wife so kindly translated for me"
See further Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy: The Life and Science of Ernst Mayr 1904-2005,
By Jürgen Haffer [2007]; Ernst Mayr: A Rememberance by Robert Trivers Published in Edge Jan 14, 2019
Gretel returned to Germany in 1933; Ernst proposed to her during his next visit to Europe in 1the summer of 1934. He returned to Europe the following spring where on May 4, 1935 they were married in Freilburg in Breisgau in the church where her father had been the minister. Gretel's brother Ludwig, who was also a minister, performed the ceremony and her brother Frieder played the organ.
Shortly thereafter the newlyweds returned to American, where Ernst resumed working at the American Museum of Natural History and their daughters Christa Elizabeth and Susanne were born. When war broke out in Europe in 1935 things began to grow tense for Germans living in America. In 1942 FBI agents searched their home in Tenafly NJ for a non-existent copy of Mein Kampf and took them to the local courthouse where they were legally arrested an "enemy illegal aliens" and released on supervised parole.
The couple became US citizens in 1950.
As a minister's daughter, Gretel was committed to "Geben ist seliger als nehmen" (To give is more blessed than to receive") and she strove to direct much of the family income towards the support of charitable efforts including conservation and science.
Gretel collaborated with her husband with her husband on several projects, notably his 1954 study of tail molt in owls and a 1956 study of the suspected correlation of blood group frequency and pituitary adenoma in humans. Ultimately she found volunteer work more fulfilling, and after their 1953 move to Cambridge she devoted herself to such efforts as reading to the blind and helping recently de-institutionalized psychiatric patients in their adjustment.
As Robert Trivers recalled Ernst was a "loving husband' who nonetheless was not immune to the social presumptions of the times.
"I once visited Ernst and his wife Gretel in their home in Cambridge, " Trivers recalled. "Ernst mentioned a paper in German that he had recently translated, when Gretel cut him off and said, 'But, Ernst, it was I who translated that paper'. Then, she turned to me and said, 'You know, Bob, Ernst and I are like one, but still it was I who translated the paper'. Ernst looked sheepish and never referred to that paper again without adding "which my wife so kindly translated for me"
See further Ornithology, Evolution, and Philosophy: The Life and Science of Ernst Mayr 1904-2005,
By Jürgen Haffer [2007]; Ernst Mayr: A Rememberance by Robert Trivers Published in Edge Jan 14, 2019
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