Teresa Heinz

Businesswoman

Birthday October 5, 1938

Birth Sign Libra

Birthplace Lourenço Marques, Portuguese East Africa (today Maputo, Mozambique)

Age 85 years old

Nationality Mozambique

#19020 Most Popular

1938

Teresa Heinz (born Maria Teresa Thierstein Simões-Ferreira; October 5, 1938), also known as Teresa Heinz Kerry, is an American businesswoman and philanthropist.

1960

In 1960, Simões-Ferreira earned a Bachelor of Arts in Romance Languages and Literature from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

1963

In 1963, she graduated from the School of Translation and Interpretation at the University of Geneva and moved to the United States to be an interpreter at the United Nations.

1966

On February 5, 1966, at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's gothic Heinz Chapel on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh, Simões-Ferreira married future U.S. Senator John Heinz, an heir to the H. J. Heinz Company.

1971

In 1971, Teresa Heinz became a naturalized United States citizen.

The couple had three sons:

1990

In 1990, Teresa Heinz met Senator Kerry at an Earth Day rally.

1991

This was the only reported time the two met before Senator Heinz died in a plane crash on April 4, 1991.

1992

In 1992, Teresa Heinz met Kerry again, this time at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Heinz was a member of a State Department delegation appointed by then-President George H. W. Bush.

1995

The two began courting in 1993 and were married May 26, 1995, in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

2003

In 2003, Heinz was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Gold Medal for Humanitarianism.

She has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

She has been a Trustee of the St. Paul's School (Concord, New Hampshire), which Kerry attended.

2004

Heinz is the widow of former U.S. Senator John Heinz and the current wife of United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, longtime U.S. Senator, and 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

Heinz is Chair of the Heinz Endowments and the Heinz Family Philanthropies.

Maria Teresa Thierstein Simões-Ferreira was born in the city of Lourenço Marques (later renamed Maputo) in the east African colony of Portuguese Mozambique, which later became the nation of Mozambique.

Her parents were José Simões-Ferreira Jr., a Portuguese-born oncologist and tropical disease specialist, and Irene Thierstein, a Portuguese and British national.

Irene Thierstein's father was the scion of a Swiss-German family living in Malta, and her mother was the half-French, half-Italian daughter of an Alexandrian shipowner who traded with Russia during the Crimean War; both emigrated to Portuguese East Africa.

Choosing to remain registered as a Republican until John Kerry's presidential bid in 2004, Heinz retained the name Teresa Heinz.

In May 2004, she said:

My legal name is still Teresa Heinz.

Teresa Heinz Kerry is my name... for politics.

Just so people don't ask me questions about so and so is so and so's wife or this and that.

Teresa Heinz is what I've been all my growing-up life, adult life, more than any other name.

And it's the name of my boys, you know ?... So, that's my legal name and that's my office name, my Pittsburgh name.

In addition to Portuguese (her native language), Heinz speaks English, Spanish, French, and Italian.

She is Roman Catholic.

2009

In December 2009, Heinz revealed that she was being treated for breast cancer.

Heinz indicated that she had undergone several lumpectomies and would be following up with a targeted type of radiation therapy treatment called accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI).

2013

On July 7, 2013, Heinz was taken by ambulance to Nantucket Cottage Hospital after showing symptoms consistent with a seizure.

She was described as being in "critical but stable" condition.

Heinz was then flown to Massachusetts General Hospital for further medical treatment and tests.

Her condition was upgraded to fair the next day, and doctors were able to rule out a heart attack, brain tumor, stroke, and other triggers.

On July 11, she was transferred to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital to continue her recovery.

Heinz was released on July 17, 2013, from Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston.

She recovered at home after some limited out-patient treatment.

Teresa Heinz is the chair of the Heinz Endowments and the Heinz Family Philanthropies, disbursing money to various social and environmental causes.

She assists the City of Pittsburgh, where the Heinz family has many financial and family connections.

In recognition of her philanthropy and activism, Heinz has received honorary doctoral degrees from the following institutions: