Mrs. Albert Einstein, wife and cousin of the noted scientist, died here yesterday morning after a year’s illness of a heart ailment, it was disclosed today. She was about 60 years old.
Her death was kept secret until this afternoon when Dr. Abraham Flexner, director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, authorized the following announcement:
“After an illness lasting a year, Mrs. Albert Einstein died early Sunday morning. Mrs. Einstein was born at Ulm, Germany, and has been a devoted wife and mother since her marriage with Professor Einstein a quarter of a century ago. It is the wish of Professor Einstein and his family that their privacy in their grief may be respected by their friends.”
Mr. and Mrs. Einstein’s fathers were brothers and their mothers were sisters. Both had been married once before. Elsa Einstein was very close to her scientist husband, relieving him of many of the cares of prominence so that he might devote himself to his work.
“I am almost everything to my husband that it is possible to be,” she said in an interview several years ago.
She regarded as her chief duty the protection of her husband’s health and ministered to him with loving kindness.
“You can say,” she once was quoted, “that the only thing that Mrs. Einstein excels in is cooking and that if she did not know how to cook Professor Einstein would have divorced her a long time ago.”
On another occasion she said: “To be the wife of this man is very difficult. Your life doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the public. Every minute of my day belongs to my husband–and therefore to the public.”
It was reported that Mrs. Einstein’s body was cremated and that funeral services were held this afternoon in Ewing Cemetery, near here.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
