Philanthropist was an ‘irreverent’ force
“Il faut tout essayer pour ne pas mourir
idiot,” was an oft-repeated phrase in Claire Weiner’s household.
“Well, you have to try everything not to die an idiot.”
Weiner picked up the saying from a waiter at a restaurant in France years ago, but she made it something of a mantra, said Weiner’s son-in-law, Drake Bennett. “She had a way of picking up tidbits of life wisdom and quoting them back to you years later,” Bennett said.
Weiner, born in Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project and later a well-known presence in Santa Fe, died Dec. 18 after suffering a heart attack. She was 76.
Born Claire Ulam in 1944 to parents Stanislaw Ulam and Francoise Aron, Weiner was among the first generation of kids born on the Hill.
Her mother’s upbringing, daughter Rebecca Weiner said, was shaped both by the “eccentricity and brilliance” of Los Alamos’ scientific community and Aron’s refined French background. The mix helped create a unique and unaffected woman.
“She used to trade the poached artichoke her mom put in her school lunch for bologna sandwiches,” Rebecca Weiner said.
Claire Weiner got her undergraduate degree at the University of Colorado and also obtained a graduate degree in social work from the University of Denver. There, she met Steve Weiner, who would become her husband of nearly 50 years. In 1978, the family returned to Santa Fe, where Steve set up an orthopedic surgery practice.
“We came back [to Santa Fe] because Claire really wanted to be here,” Steve said.
Once back home, Claire became ever-present in the community — a “social connector,” Rebecca said. “She was such a big force in so many people’s’ lives, especially in Santa Fe.”
Barbara Richardson, the state’s former first lady, said she met Weiner when Bill Richardson was campaigning for the U.S. House four decades ago and recalled good times when the two traveled to Iowa on a campaign trip years later.
“We were staying in a Best Western or something, and two days after we arrived, she introduced me to everyone on the staff,” Barbara Richardson said. “She was a very outgoing, generous person who gave a lot of herself to other people.”
Early in the coronavirus pandemic, Weiner took up a collection of funds to give to employees at her neighborhood market.
“She’d never let you get away with anything,” Richardson said of Weiner’s penchant for philanthropy. “If you couldn’t accompany her to a fundraiser, she would come pick up a check.”
“She was completely involved,” agreed Steve Weiner, who remembers coming home to a conversation about what each had learned that day. Much of their learning was done together.
“They were inseparable,” Rebecca said of her parents. “Their relationship is such a key part of her story.”
At Christmas, her family missed Claire’s traditional French chocolate tru±es made from a recipe she wrote with her mother.
“It’s probably the only recipe she never tinkered with,” Rebecca said.
“She left at the top of her game,” said Rebecca, who added she hopes to pass on to her kids the investment that Claire made in other people. “I want them to have her priorities, her curiosity, her real interest in other people, her ability to listen, ability to think and act for themselves. I want them to have so much of her.”
Not long before she died, Claire’s phone conversation with her daughter was about the newest great pan she had bought and an article she found about COVID-19’s effects on intelligence analysis. “That was her,” Rebecca said. “Incisive and irreverent, practical and empathetic.”
Weiner is survived by her husband, daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons, Xavier and Damian. A memorial service will be announced at a later date.