Teresa Heinz Kerry Biography

Teresa Heinz Kerry	Teresa Thierstein Simões-Ferreira Born: 1938-10-05 Birthplace: Lourenço Marques, Mozambique Race: White Religion: Roman Catholic Political Party: Democratic Field: Relative Famous for: John Kerry's rich wife
Field: Relative

Maria Teresa Thierstein Simões-Ferreira Heinz Kerry (born October 5, 1938), is a philanthropist and the wife of U.S. Senator John Kerry.

Heinz Kerry was born to Portuguese parents in Mozambique, which was a colony of Portugal at the time. Her father was Dr. José Simões-Ferreira, and her mother was Irene Thierstein.

Heinz Kerry grew up in Mozambique's capital, Lourenço Marques (now called Maputo). Her father was a medical doctor, and "Teresinha" (the diminutive of Teresa in Portuguese) led a relatively privileged life. Her father would, however, often bring her along on his calls into the African bush, where she witnessed how those of lesser means lived.

Heinz Kerry earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Romance Languages and literature from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She graduated from the Interpreters School of the University of Geneva (Switzerland) before moving to the United States to work at the United Nations as a translator. She is fluent in five languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, and her native Portuguese.

Heinz Kerry married future Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Henry John Heinz III of the Heinz family famous for their food products on February 5, 1966 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A few years after the marriage, in 1971, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States. The couple had three sons: H. John Heinz IV (born 1967), Andre Heinz (born 1970) and Christopher Drake Heinz (born 1973).

Heinz Kerry met John F. Kerry in 1990 at an Earth Day rally, after being introduced by Senator Heinz. This was the only known time that she and John Kerry met before the death of Senator Heinz. After Senator Heinz died in an airplane crash on April 4, 1991 in Pennsylvania, Heinz Kerry inherited his vast fortune. She and John Kerry ran into each other again at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 at the Earth Summit, which Ms. Heinz attended as a member of a State Department delegation by appointment by President George H. W. Bush. Their courtship began in 1993, and they were married on May 26, 1995 on Nantucket, Massachusetts. This was also the second marriage for Senator Kerry.

Heinz Kerry is the chair of The Howard Heinz Endowment and the Heinz Family Philanthropies (collectively, the Heinz Foundations), disbursing money to various social and environmental causes. She assists the community of Pittsburgh, where the Heinz family has had so many financial and family connections.

Heinz Kerry is the life estate beneficiary or outright beneficiary of her husband's trusts, making her either extremely wealthy in her own name, or powerful as a trustee of Heinz family wealth. Sen. Kerry is wealthy in his own right, though not to the same degree, since he became a trust fund beneficiary of his mother's and Forbes family trusts. Sen. Kerry and Heinz Kerry signed a prenuptial agreement and have kept their premarital assets separate.

To date, Heinz Kerry has declined to disclose her personal tax returns, citing family trusts and privacy. She is estimated to be worth between $750 million and $1 billion. According to her most recently released income tax of 2003, the Kerrys paid an effective federal income tax rate of 12%. Most of her income was derived from tax free municipal bonds, which explains the low rate.

Heinz Kerry was a registered Republican for most of her voting career, and her first husband, Senator Heinz, ran as a Republican. However, the Heinzes' Republicanism was not that typically associated with the modern Republican Party. Senator Heinz was well known as a champion of seniors and labor unions who often found himself at odds with big business, despite his family's immense wealth. On the issue of abortion, the Heinzes are both pro-choice. In January of 2003, she changed her registration to the Democratic Party. Heinz Kerry has stated that she switched party affiliations to protest the campaign tactics Republican Saxby Chambliss used against Democrat Max Cleland in the 2002 Georgia senatorial election. Many, including Heinz Kerry, felt that advertisements by the Chambliss campaign questioned (by innuendo) the patriotism of Cleland, a triple-amputee Vietnam veteran. When interviewed about the registration change, she remarked: "Let me just say having been married to a Republican, wonderful man, who was the old kind of Republican that we used to have once upon a time, the Republicanism of this administration is neither Republican nor conservative. There are good people in both parties. These people are not Republicans."

She is said to have been encouraged to run for her husband's vacant Senate seat after his death. She declined; she also refused to endorse Republican Rick Santorum's bid for the seat, publically denouncing him as the "antithesis" of her late husband.

Two of her sons are believed to be Democrats. Christopher and André Heinz both spoke at the Democratic National Convention in July of 2004. Christopher is believed to be considering running for the House or the Senate from the state of Pennsylvania. John Heinz IV keeps a lower profile, and his political leanings are unclear.

Had Senator Kerry been elected President, Heinz Kerry would have been only the second foreign-born First Lady of the United States, after the British-born Louisa Adams, wife of President John Quincy Adams in the 1820s.

Heinz Kerry has a reputation in the media as a very direct personality, unwilling to spin her comments for public consumption. This perception has led to a good deal of attention being paid to Heinz Kerry; she has drawn opposition from those who disagree with her comments, while others applaud her willingness to display her own opinion (in contrast with the usual politician's wife, who is expected to master "The Adoring Gaze").

A crew of Newsweek magazine reporters -- who were given exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the Kerry campaign -- portrayed her as "sullen" and a "distraction," a woman with "sometimes erratic behavior" that led to her not being allowed to travel and speak without chaperones, a policy the reporters called "Managing Teresa"