Hanna’s commitment to politics, in the truest sense of public service, never wavered, and she knew exactly what she was doing. I recall her appearance at a Democratic Town Committee meeting when her vote was essential to avoid a ridiculous miscarriage of justice based on perverse loyalties. The vote was whether to re-nominate a selfish Board of Ed candidate who had turned on the Democrats and promised to vote with the Republicans if they made her Vice Chair. Why would the Democratic Town Committee sanction such a travesty by nominating her again?! Hanna arrived and clearly looked peaked - ill - but sat by the door, awaiting this one vote. She knew her vote could make the difference. But she collapsed off the bench and you, dear Bruce, had to bring her home. The candidate ran again. Hanna’s vote would have made the difference, and she did all she could to accomplish it, despite her illness.
I recall sitting in your Windham living room, rapt, listening to Hanna explaining her story coming from Germany as WWII was looming, and her father’s efforts to change history. Despite telling of such an inspiring and sad series of events, she remained calm and stoic. Grace and honesty, perhaps a little pride in her father’s integrity, balanced an exciting and heartrending account. I understood in that evening the roots of Hanna’s honor and integrity, as well as her grace and commitment to others.
And not long after we first met you two, I remember that you left us a movie (had you rented it?) that you thought we would enjoy. I was a bit hesitant, not knowing the cinematic preferences of two older folks, but I recall a twinkle in Hanna’s eye as she left it with us, with her recommendation. So it happened that John and I thoroughly enjoyed Lethal Weapon - and I learned volumes about Hanna’s sense of humor!
God of all Goodness, we thank you for the life of our wife, mother, grandmother and friend Hanna, for her place in our lives, and for her unwavering commitment to goodness. She brought light and hope and love everywhere and always. She was indeed a builder of your Kingdom, and it was a joy and privilege and inspiration to be both witness to and recipient of her blessings. Her whole life was a blessing, and we closest to her are deeply grateful to have been in this blessed inner circle.
Faithful God, whose nature is to remember and act for our benefit, help us to be continually inspired and encouraged by Hanna’s life, remembering her dedication to what is good and true and just and compassionate and loving. Tragedy was a visitor in her life many times over, yet she remained faithful to these things. As we remember her, transform that memory into lives similarly committed to goodness, truth, justice, compassion and love.
Generous God, we thank you for one another and the richness and abundance of our near and extended family, and the circles of friends who love us through our loss. Thank you for the memories shared today and the opportunity to continue doing so.
God of all comfort, be with us now and for all our days. Help us to grieve well and make holy the void that her death has left in our lives. Transform loneliness to peace. Bring us together to comfort one another. Suffer with us just as you rejoice with us, and let us know we are not alone. We know you have welcomed her home to the source of love and light. Surely it can be said of her “well done, good and faithful servant.” Help us to experience peace as we know she is at peace, resting from all her labors.
Amen
#26RE: hannakiepclements —
Margaret White2020-06-27 15:43
It is easy for me to reminisce about the summers in Michigan and time with our family friends, the Clements. They had a cottage below ours on Lake Michigan bluff which made it convenient to visit them. In my memory, I see the Clements’ cottage with its busy kitchen having the blue dining room table with many dinners, desserts or jam-making ingredients ready to go; books and family photographs on shelves and a corner chair in which I often found a friendly face. It was a safe place to stay awhile. Bruce had his familiar “hello” and Hanna was always in the middle of something. The kids, Mark, Ruth, Martha and Hanna Rachel, most close to my age, were usually on their way to some activity. The family brought their “real” life from the east and it was Hanna who shared her family history and stories of her work with her local government position or her volunteer work. I knew then she was a giver.
Currently, at my house, on my couch, lies a homemade crocheted blanket. It has many panels of intricate designs, a different one for each panel. Hanna Clements made it for my husband Pierce and me a few years ago and if you know me you would know I use it everyday. She was someone who gave her time and her heart for others.
#25Memory from Susie Baity —
Hanna R Clements Hart2020-06-19 03:34
When I think of your mom I think of being in your cottage as a child and how calm she always seemed to be -- I was very interested in that and recall studying how she did a thing, then moved onto the next thing -- it seemed like magic. But my most distinct memory of your mom is a time maybe 15 years ago. We were at Crystal Beach and I was making yet another attempt at knitting and became flustered because I knew I had made a mistake but didn't have the knowledge or skill to find the mistake so I could fix it. She ever so calmly and without commentary looked at my work, ripped it out to the mistake and got me back to where I was in what seemed to me to be moments. And in my memory she did this while barely looking at the work. She didn't tsk tsk me or make me feel stupid. She just quickly helped me to get back on track.. And that is how I think of your mom.
I always think of Hanna on Good Friday when we read St. John's Passion. Here is my memory:
It was on Good Friday, 1981, only a few months after Mark's death. We had of course read St. John's Passion during the Good Friday liturgy. After the service, Hanna came up to me and said that earlier in her life she was never much drawn to Mary. But now, she was connected to the sorrowful mother, standing at the foot of the cross with her son, and she found comfort in that companionship.
I never read or hear those few poignant verses in the gospel about the mother of Jesus present with the beloved disciple without thinking of Hanna.
I do have happy memories, too: Her thoughtfulness and artistry in creating a batik of the Visitation, based on the printed invitation to my ordination to the priesthood. It has always hung in some prominent place in our home these 39 years; it now hangs in our living room in Sewanee. And then, a little later, she presented me with a stunning ceramic Eucharist set: chalice, paten, and two cruets. They are on display in my seminary office. So through her art, I think of Hanna every day.
And among the memories, there is a sweet one of the two of you, one time when we were visiting you for dinner at your home on Fernwood Drive. We were in the living room, I think after a meal. You [Bruce] picked up a photograph of Hanna as a young woman (perhaps before you married? or were newly married?), and brought it over to us. "Isn't she beautiful?" you said. I reflected at the time on how much you were in love with her.
I am sure you still are. Hanna was a woman of substance: thoughtful, probing, amazingly generous, courageous. She had such integrity and a passion for justice, born from her compassionate imagination for the hardships of others.
Thank you for letting us know of her death. We will pray for her and for you as you face this life without her. What a loss. It must seem bottomless.
#23Memories of Hanna - Laurie Gottlieb Spurr —
Laurie Spurr2020-06-16 15:20
Dear Bruce,
I think of you often. I was so glad to receive your request, and will try to share in this letter some details of my experience of Hanna.
There is the myth of Hanna and the real Hanna for me. The first time I was aware of my tie to her was one day at Crystal beach when I was still a child and she was pointed out to me as the person who had taught me to put my head under water during a swimming lesson. She was wearing a bathing cap with a strap and seemed particularly kind-hearted and competent.
In later years, whenever I saw Hanna she greeted me warmly, saying my name as if I were just the person she wanted to see. She had a distinctive, clear voice that sounded slightly refined. Her vowels, to my ear, listed a little toward southern England or northern Germany. She was also lovely to look at, with her gentle, pastel coloring and her beautifully intelligent face. Her look expressed a serious capacity for discernment – it was the way she lifted her brow, I think, when listening to someone speak.
Once, Hanna told me she had studied science (chemistry?) at university because as a native German-speaker she had lacked the confidence to major in a discipline like English. This surprised me, because Hanna always seemed to have the mot juste. But her comment provided a glimpse of Hanna as a real, three-dimensional young woman. Sometime I’d like to know more about Hanna at that age.
While I was in college in Massachusetts, Hanna once wrote to invite me to Windham for Thanksgiving at your “groaning board.” I had never heard anyone use this term in conversation, but for your house it was fitting. We young people had big appetites when we got together, and nobody ate with more gusto, I thought, than the kids in your family. And Hanna was a real cook. Last summer in Michigan I was paging through The Pilgrim Way cookbook from the 1970s and came across a few recipes she had contributed. Whereas a lot of other recipes in the book call for opening cans and bottles and mixes for hasty summer dinners, Hanna’s require real ingredients for the making of hardy classics – dishes like relouden and quiche Lorraine with a homemade crust. If you and I are in Michigan at the same time this summer, I’ll attempt one of these dishes. The book also has Hanna’s recipe for meatloaf, which I plan to use later this month when I take dinner to the homeless shelter here in Brunswick. Whenever I take food to the shelter I think of Hanna’s work in your local soup kitchen in Connecticut.
One time while I was visiting Willimantic Hanna showed me her potter’s workshop, where she had many handsome items in various stages of completion. She invited me to choose a mug to keep. She had beautiful ones in “Windham blue,” but I chose a fanciful brown one made into the shape of a face, the nose pressed out from one side, to take back to college. I think she got a kick out of this.
Hanna’s countenance often projected a serious thoughtfulness, but she had a strong streak of playfulness, too. She laughed in a soft soprano, like small bells, when amused. Once, at a beach picnic, we played a game in which we each described a person in the group in various ways without revealing the person’s name. When asked what her chosen person would be if he/she were a flavor, Hanna, who had been thinking of Liz, cracked up and said “garlic,” giving the mystery away.
One Christmas, when David was very little, you and Hanna had come in from Connecticut, and David and I joined you in Lombard. We had brought little David a stuffed animal from Switzerland which when wound up played a song in German. It was a traditional song Hanna knew from childhood. She sang the words and translated them for us. The song included a verse about gamboling about, which Hanna enacted from her chair at the dinner table, bouncing and waving her arms.
Do you remember the time in Michigan when you and Hanna went out to breakfast with my husband David and me on one of our first summers back from Switzerland? We wanted to talk to you about being required by some Europeans to answer for all of America’s ills. I do not remember Hanna’s words, but I have a distinct image in my mind of her listening quietly and intently. It was the thoughtful way she often listened to people.
My thoughts and prayers are with you, as are David’s. I feel blessed to have had Hanna in my life. And how very fortunate David and I are to have you in our lives. Please stay well. We would very much like, at some point, if you could come stay with us here in Maine. We could let you do your work when you wanted to, and have meals and go for walks under the pines or down the country road.
Since it is just a few days after Easter, I am reminded of the times at the Clements house where families were invited to decorate Easter eggs, participate in an Easter egg hunt and picnic in the back yard. This was an enjoyable and peaceful way to celebrate Easter and enjoy the spring season.
When I think of Hanna, the image of a telescoping window pane comes to mind. My mind's eye peers through the window into an earlier period in her life, when her family lived in Berlin. (Besides having spent cherished personal time in Berlin, one of my own grandsons is now studying in that great city.)
We have read Bruce's biography of Otto Kiep, Hanna's father: From Ice Set Free (1972). Her father was a career diplomat, then Chief of the Reich Press Office during World War II. He became involved in the resistance group who tried and failed to assassinate Hitler in July, 1944. He was arrested, imprisoned, and executed that same year.
I envision the young Hanna with her mother and sister (her brother did not return from the war), living without the strength of their father, a man who "refused to tell lies when telling the truth was a crime." Perhaps during those six harrowing years, until Hanna emigrated to the United States for college, her resourcefulness, courage, quick thinking, and, above all, compassion for the homeless came to fruition.
#19Jane Moorhead - memory —
Hanna R Clements Hart2020-05-30 23:55
I remember many times with Hanna. The twinkle in her eyes and the constant curling up of the corners of her mouth into a sweet smile. It struck me how much she had lived through during her life. The way she would entertain our youth group with her baked goods out by the tennis court at your house in Windham, her services to the town of Willimantic. Her strength at times of devastating sorrow. I sat with her and Bruce at the soup kitchen for Thanksgiving dinner and remember how incredibly touching it was to hear her talk about how Mark had left a giant teddy bear for Hanna Rachel that day. I really admired her way of mothering. She was always comforting to those in need of comfort. I will miss her and remember her fondly.
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I recall sitting in your Windham living room, rapt, listening to Hanna explaining her story coming from Germany as WWII was looming, and her father’s efforts to change history. Despite telling of such an inspiring and sad series of events, she remained calm and stoic. Grace and honesty, perhaps a little pride in her father’s integrity, balanced an exciting and heartrending account. I understood in that evening the roots of Hanna’s honor and integrity, as well as her grace and commitment to others.
And not long after we first met you two, I remember that you left us a movie (had you rented it?) that you thought we would enjoy. I was a bit hesitant, not knowing the cinematic preferences of two older folks, but I recall a twinkle in Hanna’s eye as she left it with us, with her recommendation. So it happened that John and I thoroughly enjoyed Lethal Weapon - and I learned volumes about Hanna’s sense of humor!
Faithful God, whose nature is to remember and act for our benefit, help us to be continually inspired and encouraged by Hanna’s life, remembering her dedication to what is good and true and just and compassionate and loving. Tragedy was a visitor in her life many times over, yet she remained faithful to these things. As we remember her, transform that memory into lives similarly committed to goodness, truth, justice, compassion and love.
Generous God, we thank you for one another and the richness and abundance of our near and extended family, and the circles of friends who love us through our loss. Thank you for the memories shared today and the opportunity to continue doing so.
God of all comfort, be with us now and for all our days. Help us to grieve well and make holy the void that her death has left in our lives. Transform loneliness to peace. Bring us together to comfort one another. Suffer with us just as you rejoice with us, and let us know we are not alone. We know you have welcomed her home to the source of love and light. Surely it can be said of her “well done, good and faithful servant.” Help us to experience peace as we know she is at peace, resting from all her labors.
Amen
Currently, at my house, on my couch, lies a homemade crocheted blanket. It has many panels of intricate designs, a different one for each panel. Hanna Clements made it for my husband Pierce and me a few years ago and if you know me you would know I use it everyday. She was someone who gave her time and her heart for others.
It was on Good Friday, 1981, only a few months after Mark's death. We had of course read St. John's Passion during the Good Friday liturgy. After the service, Hanna came up to me and said that earlier in her life she was never much drawn to Mary. But now, she was connected to the sorrowful mother, standing at the foot of the cross with her son, and she found comfort in that companionship.
I never read or hear those few poignant verses in the gospel about the mother of Jesus present with the beloved disciple without thinking of Hanna.
I do have happy memories, too: Her thoughtfulness and artistry in creating a batik of the Visitation, based on the printed invitation to my ordination to the priesthood. It has always hung in some prominent place in our home these 39 years; it now hangs in our living room in Sewanee. And then, a little later, she presented me with a stunning ceramic Eucharist set: chalice, paten, and two cruets. They are on display in my seminary office. So through her art, I think of Hanna every day.
And among the memories, there is a sweet one of the two of you, one time when we were visiting you for dinner at your home on Fernwood Drive. We were in the living room, I think after a meal. You [Bruce] picked up a photograph of Hanna as a young woman (perhaps before you married? or were newly married?), and brought it over to us. "Isn't she beautiful?" you said. I reflected at the time on how much you were in love with her.
I am sure you still are. Hanna was a woman of substance: thoughtful, probing, amazingly generous, courageous. She had such integrity and a passion for justice, born from her compassionate imagination for the hardships of others.
Thank you for letting us know of her death. We will pray for her and for you as you face this life without her. What a loss. It must seem bottomless.
I think of you often. I was so glad to receive your request, and will try to share in this letter some details of my experience of Hanna.
There is the myth of Hanna and the real Hanna for me. The first time I was aware of my tie to her was one day at Crystal beach when I was still a child and she was pointed out to me as the person who had taught me to put my head under water during a swimming lesson. She was wearing a bathing cap with a strap and seemed particularly kind-hearted and competent.
In later years, whenever I saw Hanna she greeted me warmly, saying my name as if I were just the person she wanted to see. She had a distinctive, clear voice that sounded slightly refined. Her vowels, to my ear, listed a little toward southern England or northern Germany. She was also lovely to look at, with her gentle, pastel coloring and her beautifully intelligent face. Her look expressed a serious capacity for discernment – it was the way she lifted her brow, I think, when listening to someone speak.
Once, Hanna told me she had studied science (chemistry?) at university because as a native German-speaker she had lacked the confidence to major in a discipline like English. This surprised me, because Hanna always seemed to have the mot juste. But her comment provided a glimpse of Hanna as a real, three-dimension al young woman. Sometime I’d like to know more about Hanna at that age.
While I was in college in Massachusetts, Hanna once wrote to invite me to Windham for Thanksgiving at your “groaning board.” I had never heard anyone use this term in conversation, but for your house it was fitting. We young people had big appetites when we got together, and nobody ate with more gusto, I thought, than the kids in your family. And Hanna was a real cook. Last summer in Michigan I was paging through The Pilgrim Way cookbook from the 1970s and came across a few recipes she had contributed. Whereas a lot of other recipes in the book call for opening cans and bottles and mixes for hasty summer dinners, Hanna’s require real ingredients for the making of hardy classics – dishes like relouden and quiche Lorraine with a homemade crust. If you and I are in Michigan at the same time this summer, I’ll attempt one of these dishes. The book also has Hanna’s recipe for meatloaf, which I plan to use later this month when I take dinner to the homeless shelter here in Brunswick. Whenever I take food to the shelter I think of Hanna’s work in your local soup kitchen in Connecticut.
One time while I was visiting Willimantic Hanna showed me her potter’s workshop, where she had many handsome items in various stages of completion. She invited me to choose a mug to keep. She had beautiful ones in “Windham blue,” but I chose a fanciful brown one made into the shape of a face, the nose pressed out from one side, to take back to college. I think she got a kick out of this.
Hanna’s countenance often projected a serious thoughtfulness, but she had a strong streak of playfulness, too. She laughed in a soft soprano, like small bells, when amused. Once, at a beach picnic, we played a game in which we each described a person in the group in various ways without revealing the person’s name. When asked what her chosen person would be if he/she were a flavor, Hanna, who had been thinking of Liz, cracked up and said “garlic,” giving the mystery away.
One Christmas, when David was very little, you and Hanna had come in from Connecticut, and David and I joined you in Lombard. We had brought little David a stuffed animal from Switzerland which when wound up played a song in German. It was a traditional song Hanna knew from childhood. She sang the words and translated them for us. The song included a verse about gamboling about, which Hanna enacted from her chair at the dinner table, bouncing and waving her arms.
Do you remember the time in Michigan when you and Hanna went out to breakfast with my husband David and me on one of our first summers back from Switzerland? We wanted to talk to you about being required by some Europeans to answer for all of America’s ills. I do not remember Hanna’s words, but I have a distinct image in my mind of her listening quietly and intently. It was the thoughtful way she often listened to people.
My thoughts and prayers are with you, as are David’s. I feel blessed to have had Hanna in my life. And how very fortunate David and I are to have you in our lives. Please stay well. We would very much like, at some point, if you could come stay with us here in Maine. We could let you do your work when you wanted to, and have meals and go for walks under the pines or down the country road.
Love,
-- maybe about her pride in Mark when he stood up to his somewhat imperious grandmother
-- perhaps about mating her long-haired female dachshund with our short-haired black and tan (5? puppies)
-- possibly about (can you imagine this?) politics
We did not DO much together, but we did TALK. I am so glad Hanna was part of my life.
We have read Bruce's biography of Otto Kiep, Hanna's father: From Ice Set Free (1972). Her father was a career diplomat, then Chief of the Reich Press Office during World War II. He became involved in the resistance group who tried and failed to assassinate Hitler in July, 1944. He was arrested, imprisoned, and executed that same year.
I envision the young Hanna with her mother and sister (her brother did not return from the war), living without the strength of their father, a man who "refused to tell lies when telling the truth was a crime." Perhaps during those six harrowing years, until Hanna emigrated to the United States for college, her resourcefulness , courage, quick thinking, and, above all, compassion for the homeless came to fruition.