As the doctor delivered Gene Tweraser via C-section, she thrust her tiny fist out first and cut it on his scalpel. She had big plans for life, and she couldn’t wait to get started. “I’ve kept that kind of enthusiasm all my life. I was anxious for life!”
Gene grew up in a rural western Washington, D.C., neighborhood near the Potomac River, on a dead-end street near a forest. Though her parents, Felix and Lucy Cohen, were socialists who didn’t believe in owning property, her dad wanted a home so he could have a garden. The builder didn’t want to sell to this Jewish family, so a female lawyer friend bought the home and then sold it to the Cohens.
It was during World War II, and air raid sirens atop the neighboring school often sounded in the middle of the night. The German air raid warden always checked on the Cohen family to ensure blackout curtains were drawn and that they were safe. “I thought, ‘Only in America could that happen,’” Gene said.
The neighborhood children played in the street until dark, and teenage girls across the street taught Gene to read at age 3. In kindergarten, she was shy but smart, so halfway through the year, she was moved up to first grade and had to make friends all over again. The next year, she advanced to second grade.
Her mom worked, so she hired Ruth Morris to take care of Gene and her younger sister, Karen. Ruth became a second mother to the girls, and when she had her own daughter, they called each other sister.
COMING OF AGE
In junior high and high school, Gene was a high-achieving student. “I hated being smart,” Gene recalls. “I wanted to be pretty and popular.” After school, Ruth sat her down with hot tea, milk and sugar on cold afternoons to comfort her and reassure her that things would get better.
When her good friends were invited into a high school sorority without her, she became editor of the school newspaper. Her senior year, she was invited to join another sorority, which led to a year of dating and dances. Still, she was voted “most intellectual” in her class.
For college, she applied to Cornell University and the University of Rochester. She was accepted at Cornell, but it was too big for her, and she was then admitted to Rochester. She majored in education and enjoyed foundational courses such as geology and psychology.
She knew no one at the university, so she ran for social chairman to meet people. After her winning campaign, she learned to play bridge, bummed cigarettes and spun records for a local radio station show.
Her sophomore year, she saw an ad in the campus newspaper for an overseas program at the Institute for European Studies in Vienna, Austria. Just 18 at the time, she knew she wouldn’t have this opportunity once she dove into her teaching courses. She and her mother talked to her history professor who’d written a book on Austria, and he vouched for the program.
LIFE-CHANGING ADVENTURES
The group of 75 students set out from New York in February 1958 on a ship to England. A bus met them, along with an art historian and a history teacher from the institute, and they traveled through Europe for several weeks, visiting sites in London, art galleries and NATO headquarters.
Gene and three other young women shared an apartment in Vienna. She arranged for them to take skiing lessons, and the German-speaking instructor did his best to communicate using gestures. On a slope, when Gene intentionally fell to avoid colliding with her friend, she broke her ankle. After wearing a full-leg cast and then half-leg cast, her cast came off in May.
She and her friends had become regulars at the café below their apartment, and they’d made many Austrian friends, several of them male. “I remember it was a beautiful, warm spring day in May. The lilacs were in bloom, and I was just ready to fall in love.”
A friend’s friend, Kurt Tweraser, came over to ask her out. They spent much of the next six weeks together, visiting churches to hear music, seeing art-filled museums, talking over wine in the evenings and taking long walks. She even skipped a trip to Greece, got a refund and bought a separate ticket home in July so she could spend more time with Kurt. They both enjoyed history, politics and music. After just six weeks, he proposed marriage.
Gene returned to the United States and changed her major to history, while Kurt finished what was equivalent to a business degree in Vienna. After two years spent writing letters to each other, he came to America for vetting by her family and friends. Her family was suspicious at first, as Kurt had been forcibly enlisted in the Hitler Youth. Eventually, though, Kurt and her mother became good friends.
Gene picked out her own wedding dress and prepared the invitations to the reception. After Kurt and Gene married in September 1960 in a judge’s chambers, Gene’s childhood caretaker, Ruth, and her husband, Charlie, came to the luncheon hosted by her uncle at the Cosmos Club. The couple were Black, and they integrated the venue before it allowed its first Black member.
Gene and Kurt used money received for wedding gifts to live in Vienna for about 18 months. After residing in a few spots, they settled into a small apartment over a butcher shop. The toilet was down the hall, and they showered at the public bathhouse, living on $100 a month. They also had their first son, Felix.
They moved back to the United States in 1962, so Kurt could pursue a doctorate in political science. Deep-seated anti-Semitism was also still very present in Vienna. “The more my German improved, the more I understood what people were saying,” Gene said.
FROM AUSTRIA TO ARKANSAS
After Kurt completed his Ph.D. at American University in Washington, D.C., a professor gave him a good recommendation for the University of Arkansas. When Kurt flew in to Drake Field for a job interview, the hills and rivers reminded him of home. They moved in 1966, soon bought a house, and were part of a population explosion at the U of A from WWII babies going to school. They also welcomed their second son, Ben.
At the U of A, Kurt wrote the dissertation he hadn’t finished. He researched the newly donated papers of J. William Fulbright and wrote about three people instrumental in shaping Fulbright’s foreign policy views. He also was a runner and would win the first Hogeye Marathon, held in 1977.
Because Gene wanted Kurt to have a group of friends like he’d had in Austria, she invited a bachelor friend to their house to watch “Masterpiece Theatre” on Wednesday nights. That gathering expanded to several other people, and they built their own community, with the weekly dinners continuing for 50 years.
Gene taught nursery school and then worked with Stop Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN), where she taught parenting skills to help break cycles of abuse. In the late 1970s, she decided to get a master’s degree in counseling, and then became an adoption specialist with the Department of Human Services.
Placing infants with families was common and often easier. A new law allowed foster parents to adopt children and receive an adoption subsidy to support their care. Gene had good instincts with placements and specifically worked to place older children, large sibling groups and youth with special needs into nurturing families.
Gene was responsible for a seven-county area, so she had to learn to drive, with lessons from her oldest son. In her 19 years with the agency, she helped place more than 400 children, created a newsletter for families, and established a support network where parents could learn from and lean on one another. She found the work meaningful and enjoyed “being able to make things better. There’s not much in life where you can see that you have made a difference, and that was a good feeling.”
Kurt took early retirement from teaching in 1992 and went on to have a second career, writing books on Austria and Austrian history, specifically the city of Linz. “He could write as a scholar, but also as somebody who had lived through it. So, he had a sort of unique perspective.” After Gene retired in 1999, she did some adoption consulting and did training for graduate school students through the local Area Health Education Center (AHEC).
SETTLING INTO A NEW HOME
The Twerasers discovered Butterfield Trail Village years ago, through a neighbor involved with the Presbyterian church that helped establish it. They attended the groundbreaking and planned to eventually move to the retirement community.
Around 2007, they sold their house on Highland Street and lived in a Village Home for two years before their cottage became available. They had it painted and had a corner bench made for the dining area and two built-in bookshelves made for the living room.
Kurt walked the trail, often daily, and Gene has participated in a variety of activities. Then Kurt got a terminal diagnosis for Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare and aggressive skin cancer. Gene spent her days with him while he was in the BTV Health Care Center for a year. He transitioned to Circle of Life Hospice and passed away in October 2023. Gene is grateful for their 63 years together.
Each morning, Gene makes pour-over coffee and reads the Bible, a practice she learned from her Baptist friends. After breakfast, she walks for an hour on the trail using her walker or goes swimming. She enjoys reading fiction and historical fiction; two favorite authors are Anne Tyler and Ann Patchett. Her favorite radio show is “If That Ain’t Country” hosted by Western Red, who’s Australian.
At 85, she struggles with her memory and has come to accept she can’t do everything she used to. “None of us can.” She’s working on an autobiography and enjoys the support and camaraderie of a writing group that meets twice monthly.
She admits she’s stubborn, and considers it a strength that formed early in life. “The women who I grew up with — my mother and Ruth, who took care of me — were very strong women, in a quiet way. Not in a domineering way, but in a very supportive way. They were my role models.”
Words by Michelle Parks | Photos by Stephen Ironside
