Heidi White

Amherst, MA - Heidi White, 92, former longtime resident of Amherst, MA passed away on October 29, 2023 at Brookhaven at Lexington life care community, where she lived for her last twenty years.

Born in 1930 in Cologne, Germany, Heidi was the daughter of Josef Hofmann and his wife Maria (Hesse). Her father was a prominent German Catholic journalist and politician influential in the founding of the German Christian Democratic Union party after World War II, and co-founder of the Aachener Zeitung daily newspaper. She was predeceased by her brothers Winfried, Bernhard, and Norbert, with whom she was very close.

Heidi studied French translation at Heidelberg University where she met and married Donald White of Norwich, CT in 1954, and thereafter emigrated to New Haven, CT, while he completed graduate studies at Yale University. After her husband took a position as professor of German at Amherst College in 1957, they moved to Amherst and raised their family of four children.

She worked in the Amherst College Frost Library, and after a divorce, moved to Belmont, MA, where she worked in cataloging at the Tufts University library until her retirement.

In retirement, she published a memoir, "At the Edge of the Storm: Memories of my German Childhood During World War II", which movingly documented her family's struggles during World War II and the immediate postwar era. She was also a gifted watercolorist and had a keen appreciation for nature.

She was especially devoted to her family. Survivors include her son, Thomas White, wife Janja, and granddaughters Alicia and Shannan of Neu-Anspach, Germany; a daughter, Ellen Kalt, husband Tom, and grandson Matthew of Shutesbury, MA and grandson Steven and wife, Emma Vaimberg of Philadelphia, PA; a son, Martin White, wife Christine Michael of Salem, NY, four great-grandchildren; a daughter, Anita Conte, husband Joseph Conte of Worcester MA, and their daughters Mia and Gabriella of Boston MA. Heidi is also survived by numerous nieces and nephews, as well as great-nieces and great-nephews, both in the U.S. and Germany.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated at the Newman Center chapel at UMass Amherst at noon on Saturday, November 18th, followed by a graveside interment ceremony at Wildwood Cemetery and family gathering afterwards.

Published by Daily Hampshire Gazette on Nov. 3, 2023.