Born on Dec. 16, 1943, she was the daughter of Guy Murchie and Barbara Cooney Porter.
Educated at Northfield School and Barnard College, Gretel became a world traveler at an early age. The stories of her overland trip in a used London taxi through Europe, the Middle East and Asia to India, where she began her young family, are recounted in an unpublished memoir, Cobra in the Kitchen. Following her return to the U.S., Gretel became a labor organizer in the steel mills of Gary, Ind., and later ran successful tours to the Far East.
Gretel had a big heart and was especially concerned about the sufferings of others, from the underpaid household workers in this country to the garment workers in the factories of Bangladesh. She was active in the movement for childcare and opposed child labor and human trafficking around the world. In 1995, she attended the World Conference on Women in Beijing.
Gretel was a founding member of the Frances Perkins Center and played an invaluable role in its formation. Gretel served as personal secretary to Susanna Perkins Coggeshall in the last years of Mrs. Coggeshall’s life and was thus in many ways a direct link to Frances Perkins.
Gretel was the daughter of the writer and philosopher Guy Murchie and the children’s author and illustrator Barbara Cooney, from whom she inherited her love of literature, great art, and the adventures of world travel. She was also the adopted daughter of Dr. Charles T. Porter, Barbara Cooney’s second husband of over fifty years. She leaves sons, Shetu Nandy and Sam Goldsmith; daughter-in-law Tinku Ray; and beloved granddaughters Soraya and Alana; as well as brother Barnaby Porter and sister Phoebe Porter.
Please join her friends and family for an afternoon to celebrate her life and honor her memory on Saturday, Sept. 24 at 2 p.m. in the Brick House Gardens of the Frances Perkins Homestead, 478 River Road, Newcastle.
Arrangements are under the direction and care of the Strong-Hancock Funeral Home, 612 Main Street, Damariscotta. Condolences, and messages for the family, may be expressed by visiting www.StrongHancock.com.
