Sheffield – Jiří (George) Seidl passed away peacefully on Tuesday, April 26. Born in Soběšín, a village in the Czech Republic, on May 5, 1930, he was the son of Eduard and Anna Seidl who ran a hotel and restaurant in the hunting lodge of a nearby castle. Jiří went to Hotel School in Marienbad and later trained at the Grandhotel Pupp in Carlsbad, one of Europe’s most famous historic hotels.
As a young man, Jiří was involved in resistance work after the communist coup of February 1948. Forced to flee, he escaped across the border into West Germany where he became a member of the Civilian Guard at the US military base of Kaiserslautern. He told stories of shooting wild boar while standing guard through the night, protecting military installations. He later helped gather intelligence for a U.S. intelligence office in Munich, courageously traveling back and forth across the dangerous Czech border. That office later helped him emigrate to America.
In New York city, Jiří found employment as a plane mechanic with TWA where he met his future wife, Gillian. (She passed away in 2017.) She had recently emigrated from Scotland and was a flight attendant for the airline From the get-go, they shared a great zest for life and a taste for adventure. They married in 1961. Their home near the ocean on Long Island was always lively and productive, filled with animals, gardens, projects, and camping and fishing excursions with the three children. When they later moved to the Berkshires, Jiří kept his job as manager for the TWA dining unit, a round-the-clock operation that prepared inflight meals, and commuted, keeping his fishing pole in the car.
“Life is beautiful,” Jiří would often say, up until the very end.
A man of the earth, he gardened with deep intuition and love, growing every kind of vegetable, fruit trees, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, currants. He would can dozens of jars of peach preserves, applesauce, and jams, and freeze vegetables to last the winter. Passing motorists would stop and gape at his fields of flowers. Dahlias, lupine, peonies, tulips. Every living thing responded to Jiří’s touch — people, animals, plants. He was a nurturer; compassionate and generous. A phenomenal cook of European cuisine, he would serve six course Holiday meals to family, friends, and whoever stopped by who needed to be fed. His Christmas cookies were legendary.
He built whatever the family needed: a beautiful massive stone and wood barn, an addition to the house, chicken coops, goat pens, wood sheds, a horse stall, a puppet theatre. He salvaged and rebuilt seventy broken theatre seats bound for a bonfire for his wife’s theatre, Mixed Company. He put up the pine ceiling. For Jiří, if something needed doing, he did it. Fearlessly, confidently, and capably. Nothing deterred him.
In his final week, headed for his 92nd birthday with the attendant aches and pains of old age, he was baking bread every day, planting fruit trees, a “Seek No Further” apple tree, his favorite, splitting wood, driving a tractor up the dirt road to visit a neighbor, picking daffodils for a visitor, taking time every day, as he always did, to sit outside with his face to the sun and do nothing. He even did nothing with passion. Wearing aviator sunglasses, he recently sat reclined in his plastic Adirondack chair by his garden on a sunny windy day with a friend. “This is heavenly,” said the friend, also reclined and looking around. “Delphinium heaven,” Jiří replied, gesturing back to the flower bed behind them where dozens of delphinium bulbs lay buried in the rich composted soil. In his mind, they were already blooming. For Jiří Seidl, who loved his family, his dogs, his home, and every manifestation of nature, life truly was beautiful.
He is survived by son James and wife Merri, daughter Michelle and husband Charlie Derr, daughter Anna and husband Percy Hoffmann, and grandchildren Jessica, Travis, Bailey, Claire, Nate, and great grandchildren Caleb, Violet, Victoria and Bishop.
FUNERAL NOTICE – A private family gathering will be held in June. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Great Barrington Community Health Programs or to the Eleanor Sonsini Animal Shelter through Finnerty & Stevens Funeral Home, 426 Main Street, Great Barrington, MA, 01230. To send remembrances to the family go to www.finnertyandstevens.com
