Alphonse A Haettenschwiller

Born 7 October 1925 Englewood, New Jersey

Died 6 February 2025 Nashua, New Hampshire

Alphonse Haettenschwiller died peacefully on 6 February 2025 in his 100th year. He was born in 1925 in Englewood, New Jersey to a father who had emigrated from Switzerland in 1921 and a mother who had come to the US as a little girl from England. In 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, the family moved to Europe where he went to school in Switzerland, Austria and England. In 1943 he made several transatlantic crossings as an oiler on a convoy ship before joining the US Army as soon as he turned 18. Eighty years ago, in the early months of 1945, his unit fought its way across France and Germany. He was at the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in April 1945.

He remained in Germany until 1947 when he returned to the US to attend college in upstate New York. He graduated from Syracuse University with a BA. In 1953 he received a commission from the Reserve Officer Candidate School and he returned to Germany as an officer in the US Army Reserve. He married a German widow, Brigitte “Gigi” Hausmann, moved to Plattsburgh, New York. Their daughter, Inez Maria, was born in 1955 and they raised her with Gigi’s two sons, Jürgen “Jack” and Thomas Hausmann.

Alphonse made his career in public health, serving with the US Army in Germany, Texas, Maryland, and Okinawa. Soon after retiring from the US Army with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1973, he was appointed Director of the City of Nashua Public Health Department serving in that post until his second retirement in 1986. He continued to serve the public as a Representative in the New Hampshire State House from 1992 until 2000.

Nashua has been home for over 50 years - half a lifetime. Alphonse was one of the first residents to move into the The Huntington at Nashua which opened in November 2004. He is living proof that good friends and an active social life are good for longevity.

In addition to his life in public service, Alphonse was very much a family man. He raised his wife’s two sons and his daughter Inez Maria. When Gigi died and Alphonse became a widower in 1978 his mother moved from England to live with him in Nashua. He cared for her until she passed away in 1999. Alphonse was a beloved uncle to the Haettenschwiller siblings, and a father and grandfather figure to the Hausmann branch of the family, and to the family of his long-time companion, Nancy Sullivan, who passed away in 2019. In particular, Nancy’s daughter, Karen Sullivan, a Nashua resident, has been there to assist Alphonse as his eyesight, hearing and mobility declined in recent years. Between the Haettenschwiller, Hausmann and Sullivan families there are many around the US and in Europe whose lives were touched and enriched by Alphonse’s example.

SERVICES: A Mass of Christian Burial will be held on Saturday, April 26, 2025, 10:30am at Immaculate Conception Parish, 216 East Dunstable Road in Nashua. Interment prayers and burial will follow at St. Louis Cemetery, 752 W. Hollis Street in Nashua. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations in Alphonse's memory may be made to Harbor Homes, PBS/NPR, UNICEF or charity of choice.