Alice von Hildebrand (1923-2022)

Alice von Hildebrand was undoubtedly overshadowed by her husband Dietrich (1889-1977), but she was an amazing woman in her own right.

From The European Conservative

By Joseph Seifert

Almost a century old, she still took a vivid interest in my philosophical works and in the events, joys, and sufferings of my life. During her last years, the closer she came to eternal life, the kinder and more patient she became, more filled with that deep charity of which her husband had written so insightfully.

Dr. Alice ‘Lily’ von Hildebrand, widow of the famous German philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977), and herself an extraordinary philosopher, teacher, author, speaker, and an enchanting personality, returned her soul to her Creator on January 14, 2022, two months shy of her 99th birthday. By describing her writings, insights, and actions, I hope to convey to the reader a glimpse of the mystery—the unique and irreplaceable person Lily was and continues to be.

A brief biographical note

Alice Marie Jourdain was born in Brussels, Belgium. Her native language was French. When the Nazis entered Belgium in 1940, Lily, aged 17, fled to Bordeaux with her parents, brother, and three sisters. She and her elder sister, Louloute, had received an invitation from their uncle and aunt to stay with them in New York. Lily and Louloute were able to board the last wartime passenger vessel to depart France, arriving in June 1940 at New York, where they were to live for the next six years.

Though she spent most of her life in the United States and felt grateful for her U.S. citizenship, Lily retained a great portion of her native Belgian culture until the end. She never wanted to return to live in Belgium; nonetheless, she remained more European than American in her manner of speaking and acting, and in her literary taste. In this she was like her husband, who always remained more German than American, despite the persecution he had suffered under Hitler and the horrors of the Nazi ideology, which, for his part, he never considered ‘typically German’ but rather high treason against the true genius of the German nation.

Lily had to return to Belgium after the war (in 1946). Determined to complete her studies in the United States, she persuaded her parents to let her go back to New York. This time, she lived in a modest apartment with her beloved sister Louloute and with Madeleine Froelicher (later Stebbins), who would be her closest friend for nearly eighty years.

Soon after beginning her graduate studies in philosophy with Dietrich von Hildebrand, whom she would go on to marry nearly two decades later, Lily began to assist him as his secretary. Over the coming decades, she typed many of his book manuscripts—which he always wrote by hand—and translated a number of his essays into English. Not only did she supply most of the footnotes for his books, but she also became a true philosophical collaborator, reading and discussing his English works in progress.

After completing her doctoral studies at Fordham University, Lily was looking for a teaching position when the chairman of the philosophy department at Hunter College in New York City offered her a short-term substitute position in 1947. A few weeks later she was offered an assistant professorship in a new Hunter College veterans’ program in the Bronx, a teaching engagement that lasted for almost four decades.

She frequently faced opposition from her own colleagues, in part out of envy (for she quickly became very well liked by her students) and in part because some of her colleagues were quite anti-Catholic and some of her students had converted to Catholicism. In her autobiography, she notes this opposition with some surprise because she never spoke of Catholicism in the classroom.

St. Edith Stein, a former atheist and brilliant student of Edmund Husserl, who perished in Auschwitz in August 1942, would say after her conversion to the Catholic faith:

Gott ist die Wahrheit. Und wer die Wahrheit sucht, der sucht Gott, ob es ihm klar ist oder nicht. (God is the Truth. And he who searches for truth searches for God, whether he understands this or not).

Similarly, Lily would say: “If someone finds the truth, he finds God, because God is the truth.”

Lily retired from Hunter College in 1984. She received the highest student evaluation in the college (from among 850 teachers) and the award for Excellence in Teaching at her retirement ceremony. However, she still remained active. In the years after her retirement from teaching, she lectured in 35 U.S. states, as well as Canada, Mexico, and several South American and European countries, and became well known while making over eighty television appearances on EWTN. These included conversations with Mother Angelica and two series with Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R.: “Suffering and What to Do with It” and “Man and Woman: A Divine Invention.”

Beginning with her first authored work, Introduction to a Philosophy of Religion (Chicago, 1970), her literary legacy includes essays on the nature of education, reverence, liturgy, marriage, and many other themes. She had a particular affinity for Plato, St. Augustine, Pascal, and Kierkegaard, returning to them for inspiration throughout her life. Her book, By Grief Refined (1994), was in part a response to the tremendous impact Dietrich’s death in 1977 had on her soul. The years after her retirement saw further developments in Lily’s philosophy of woman, love and marriage, and her understanding of femininity, as expressed principally in her books, The Privilege of Being a Woman (2002) and Man and Woman: A Divine Invention (2010). Though informed by her husband’s thought on love, these works are distinctly her own.

In addition to her many years at Hunter College, she taught at several other institutions, including the Catechetical Institute of St. Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie, New York; Franciscan University of Steubenville (where she served on the board of trustees for 13 years); the Thomas More Institute in Rome; Ave Maria College in Michigan; and the Notre Dame Institute in Arlington, Virginia. She served on the board of Veil of Innocence—an organization that helps parents protect their children from ideologically perverse programs in schools—and lent her support to innumerable Catholic apostolates and causes. Throughout her career, she received numerous awards and three honorary degrees. In 2013, she was invested as Dame Grand Cross of the Equestrian Order of St. Gregory for her dedicated witness and leadership within the Catholic Church.

She died peacefully at her home in New Rochelle, New York. She had lived there for well over half a century, first with her husband, and from 1977 on as his widow.