Gertrude Marie Bidwell Leuchs, 97, a longtime resident of Monterey, died in League City, Texas on January 16, 2024.
Marie was born July 6, 1926, in Hartford, Conn., to Charles Alanson Bidwell and Gertrude Catherine (Hamilton) Bidwell. She grew up in Great Barrington, where her father was manager and vice president of Southern Berkshire Power and Electric Company, later Massachusetts Electric Company. Marie had all her Catholic sacraments at St. Peter’s Church in Great Barrington.
She graduated from the Bryant School and Barrington School for Girls. At age 17, she joined the accelerated five-year Word War II wartime program with the Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing and Hood College. This was followed by postgraduate work at the Johns Hopkins University.
Marie was employed as a head nurse and assistant nursing arts instructor at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, later an evening supervisor of nursing at the surgical and obstetrical units of NYC Department of Hospitals/Bellevue, and lastly at Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge.
Marie briefly met the noted stained glass artist and craftsman Frederick L. Leuchs as a teenager on Lake Garfield in Monterey. They were reintroduced when they were 26, and after a brief courtship, they married in 1953 at St. Peter’s Church and had five daughters. They lived in New York City for 13 years while summering in Monterey. In 1966, they moved full time to the Berkshires. The Monterey house that Fred had built before their marriage became their year-round home. The Stockbridge studio of Marie’s late uncle, sculptor Augustus Lukeman, became Fred’s studio. Marie and Fred retired to St. Petersburg, Fla. in 1994, returning to Monterey for summers. Fred predeceased her in 1999 and is buried in the Bidwell Family Lot in Stockbridge Cemetery.
Marie’s avocation was as a genealogist like her mother. She loved exploring the choices, struggles, and ambitions of her ancestors, and where those took them. She researched and collected ancestral documents and heirlooms throughout New England and England. Her Bidwell genealogy has been traced back to 1044, when her ancestor served under William the Conqueror. She was a descendant of King Edward I, II, and III and King Henry I, II, and III of England. Her ancestor, Susanna White later Winslow, who was a passenger on the Mayflower, gave birth to the first Mayflower child born in America. She is a direct descendant of John Bidwell (her sixth-great-grandfather), a founder of Hartford, Conn., and the Rev. Adonijah Bidwell, Tyringham/Monterey’s first minister and namesake of the Bidwell House Museum. She was the last local descendant born with the Bidwell surname. She and her mother bequeathed ancestral archival documents, as well as oral histories, to Yale University, the Berkshire Athenaeum, and the Bidwell House Museum, among others.
In Marie’s later years, with the help of her daughters, she donated Fred’s stained glass papers and studio contents to the Corning Museum of Glass Rakow Research Library. She also donated Augustus Lukeman’s portfolios and papers to the Smithsonian Archives and several of his maquettes to noted institutions including the New York Historical Society.
Marie was a member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution of Massachusetts and New York, and the New York State Daughters of the Colonial Wars. She was a member of the First Resistance Chapter, NSDAR (formerly the Ausatonoug Chapter NSDAR in the Berkshires), and the New Netherlands Chapter NSDAR in New York. She served as Senior Society President of the Light Horse Harry Lee Society NSCAR of New York City, and the Sarah Deming Society NSCAR in the Berkshires, her daughters’ Children of the American Revolution Societies, for many terms. She was active with the Bidwell Family Association, attending many reunions. She was a member of the Bidwell House Museum and its Garden Angels.
After retirement Marie was a member of the Snell Shores Circle of St. Petersburg (Florida), the Snell Isle Garden Club, and the Snell Isle Property Owners Association, and she was also a parishioner of St. Raphael Catholic Church on Snell Isle.
While she appreciated her years of professional service, Marie was above all dedicated to her family. She was deeply proud of her five daughters: Paula Moats McNay (Joseph) of Chestnut Hill, Mass.; Catherine Bohrman of Palo Alto, Calif.; Adele Odegaard (Trond) of New Smyrna Beach, Fla.; Mary Anne Leuchs-de la Rosa (Tomás) of Baytown, Texas; and Ellen Leuchs (Diane Curtis) of Sunderland, Mass. She truly adored her 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. She also leaves her devoted godson and nephew, Mark Makuc, and her goddaughter and niece, Ann Tucker Kousch.
In addition to her husband, Marie was predeceased by her granddaughter, Christiane Marie Leuchs de la Rosa, and her son-in-law of 47 years, David Bohrman.
The family wishes to thank Dr. Nehme Alkarra and Bijo George, NP, for their care and compassion. Additionally, special thanks and deep appreciation go to Heidi Clark, executive director of The Cottages at Clear Lake, and all of Marie’s staff and caretakers, including Robert Babeah, Carol Burns, Jaden Chaney, Brittany Johnson, and Annamarie Shine. Their dedication and personal devotion to Marie’s wellbeing during her journey has been immeasurable.
Liturgy of Christian Burial will be held on Friday, January 26, 2024, at 10 a.m., at St. Peter’s Church, Main Street, Great Barrington, MA, conducted by Rev. Gerald F. Finnegan, S.J. and Rev. William P. Murphy. The family will receive friends on Friday, January 26, from 4 to 6 p.m., and again on Saturday, January 27, from 10 to 11 a.m., at Finnerty & Stevens Funeral Home, 426 Main St., Great Barrington, MA 01230. Burial will follow immediately at Stockbridge Cemetery in Stockbridge.
In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation in Marie’s memory to Bidwell House Museum (Monterey), Stockbridge Library Museum (Stockbridge), Monterey Library (Monterey), Monterey Fire Department (Monterey), or Shrine of Divine Mercy (Stockbridge). To send remembrances to her family, please visit the funereal home’s website.
