Ewald, Mary (Thediek) 1922-1997

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EWALD, Mary (Thediek) 1922-1997

PERSONAL:

Born 1922, in Richmond, VA; died February 8, 1997, in Greenwich, CT; married William Bragg Ewald, Jr.; children: William Bragg III, Charles, and Thomas Hart Benton. Education: Attended College of William and Mary; Harvard University, Ph.D., 1947.

CAREER:

Poet, teacher, translator, and opera librettist. Instructor at the University of Maryland, University of New Hampshire, and Wellesley College, MA.

MEMBER:

Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Poet of the Year, Hingham Poetry Society of Massachusetts, 1989.

WRITINGS:

Weapons against Chaos, Devin-Adair (Greenwich, VT), 1986.

The Birthday of the Infanta (opera libretto), premiered at Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC, 1993.

Translator of works in seventeen languages.

SIDELIGHTS:

One of the first women awarded a Radcliffe teaching fellowship, poet Mary Ewald first became involved in poetry at the behest of one of her sons who needed help on a school project. In 1987 Ewald published the collection of poetry Weapons against Chaos. Jeffrey Hart, a reviewer in the National Review, described Ewald as "a formidably intelligent and learned poet, adventurous in her themes, but the effect of her learning and reason is to startle us with the power of her emotion." In particular, Hart praised her poem "Enchantment" as "one of the great love poems of the twentieth century."

Perhaps the most significant of Ewald's writings was the 1990 letter to President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, requesting the release of her twenty-five-year-old son, Thomas, who had been captured after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait to be used as a human shield against potential allied air strikes. In her plea to President Hussein, relayed in a U.S. News & World Report, Ewald expressed compassion for the Arab cause, "hoping [Thomas] could help peace between our cultures." A few days after the receipt of Ewald's letter, Thomas was released.

In 1989 Ewald was named Poet of the Year by the Hingham Poetry Society of Massachusetts. Ewald's libretto for the opera The Birthday of the Infanta premiered at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., in 1993. She died four years later at the age of 75 at her home in Greenwich, CT.