The Last of Our Heydeckers

RICHARD CREAGH HEYDECKER was born on June 30, 1933 in New York City. He was the son of the late Claire (Enright) and William Creagh Heydecker Jr., and the grandnephew of Richard Enright, police commissioner of New York City. Richard traveled to many countries during school leaves, including most of Europe, Mexico, and Cuba. After graduation from private school, he began studying at Columbia College where he also excelled on the varsity track team.

During the Korean War, he left Columbia to enter the army. He served two years in the Army Corps of Engineers. Upon his honorable discharge, he returned to Columbia and received his A.B. in 1957. He then received a bachelor of architecture at Cooper Union in 1965. He continued with post-graduate studies at Harvard Graduate School of Design and at Stanford University focusing on education facilities. Richard joined KLQ Architects in 1961, a firm specializing in the design of educational institutions, eventually buying the firm outright in 1990. Richard took pride in the fact that his firm had built more schools than any other firm in Massachusetts.

While continuing his work at KLQ, he was also an adjunct professor at Wentworth Institute, concentrating on “Office Practices” and “Building Materials”. Richard was very active in town politics, being voted in as a member of the school committee for over nine years. He was the chairman of the Permanent Building Committee for 12 years and continued to serve for years afterward. He was active on the Committee Against the Prison, as well as active in producing studies for the Foxboro State Hospital reuse. He was also active in supporting the Foxboro Senior Center.

Richard loved to travel in his later years with his wife Patricia Anne (Glynn) Heydecker to indigenous heritage sites around America, later taking a world tour in 2009 focusing on world heritage sites that lasted several months. Richard passed away from pneumonia on May 18, 2022.

PATRICIA ANN (GLYNN) HEYDECKER was born on December 8, 1939 in Albany, NY. She was the daughter of the late Clifford Hallet Glynn and Eunice (Blum). At the age of ten, she and her family moved to New York City. After graduation from Jamaica High School, she attended Cooper Union as an architectural student under their first degree program. In September of 1959, as she entered the sixth floor studio, she spotted Richard along with the older architecture students passing through the studio on the seventh floor walkway. She said to her fellow student, “see that guy up there with the goatee? I’m going to marry him.” She did, on November 28, 1959.

She was a resident of Foxborough since 1962. She was employed as a designer from 1970 in the equipment and furnishing business and later with her husband in the architectural field at KLQ Architects in Norwood until her retirement in 2008. She was active in the Town of Foxborough as an elected Planning Board member and on the Committee against the prison. She was also active in producing studies for the Hospital reuse, as well as the recent Senior Center study, in addition to assisting her husband as an architect. 

In the summer of 1966, Patricia began to work as the Gift Shop Bunny at the Playboy Club of Boston. In September, she was elected President of the Taylor School PTA. Principal Ahearn said, “We have more fathers attending these meetings than any other school in town.” During this time Patricia and her husband joined FSHLUAC (Foxboro State Hospital Land Use and Acquisition Committee) in order to study the feasibility of the options presented by the state for use of the closed facility. She was also elected to the Town Planning Board for two 3-year terms.

After she left Playboy, Patricia volunteered her time developing a young people’s acting troupe named Pleeza Plaudit Players. The group of over 75 young adults performed “The Red Shoes”, hailed as a tremendous success. Unfortunately, Paul Brown, the other adult coordinator, absconded with the proceeds, leaving Patricia and the troupe with the bills. In her indomitable spirit, and with the help of the teenagers, Patricia managed to produce two more plays, numerous bake sales and car washes to pay off the debts.

In 1971, Patricia had a serious car accident which kept her in the hospital for six weeks, and eight additional weeks in a body cast. When she came home, her hospital bed took up the entire living room. FISH (Foxborough Interdenominational Service Hospice) came into being at that time due to Pleeza Plaudit’s young members whose parents were active in local churches. The kids heard about Patricia’s accident and convinced their parents to develop a program to assist people in similar situations. The people involved came to the house, offering dinners, helping around the house and caring for the children. The program continues even today. She was fully recovered by late that summer.

Patricia was a member of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and a five-year Past-President. She traveled extensively each year promoting the activities of the Auxiliary. Because of her work for the town, she received a Certificate of Merit in 1973 from the Foxborough Board of Selectmen.

JEANNE-ELISE MARIE HEYDECKER was born at Beth Israel Hospital on September 8, 1960 in New York City. Jeanne-Elise grew up in Foxborough, MA attending public schools, spending many weekends in New York City with her grandfather, Clifford Hallett Glynn, an artist and sculptor. Summers involved horse camp or additional schooling: Bridgewater State College at age 13 (Project Contemporary Competitiveness Accelerated Studies Program), and Boston Architectural Center at age 14. At age 15, she joined the Rotary Exchange Program and attended Sir J. J. College of Architecture in Bombay, India. After extensive travel in Asia and Africa, she returned home overland from India to Amsterdam in 1977. She finished high school with her class and attended the High School Studies Program at Massachusetts Institute for Technology (M.I.T.) during that final year.

Upon graduation, she attended the Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, NM, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA, majoring in graphic design at both institutions. She then moved to Brighton and worked with multiply handicapped young adults for a number of years.

Jeanne married Steven Maurice Nunes in 1984 and produced no children. She later created a domestic partnership with Derek John Lang which produced a son, William Creagh Heydecker-Lang in 1993. She later severed the partnership in 1994. Derek was born on May 10, 1962 in Somerville, MA, and grew up in Burlington, MA. He was the son of Charles H. and Shirley M. (MacDonald) Lang. Derek was a graduate of Burlington High School. After a brief stint in the USMC, Derek returned home to concentrate in the warehousing field for the following eight years. He also worked for several years as a landscaper. His background is Scottish, and he is a member of the MacDonald Clan. He died at 53, after an extended battle with ALS. 

Jeanne worked in high tech marketing, specializing in startups and taking them to the next level. She was an entrepreneurial marketing and technology executive in leadership positions across sectors such as telecom, internet services, e-commerce, education, and recruiting, specializing in startups for fifteen years in the U.S. Jeanne moved with her son to India in 2007 and created a domestic partnership with Saw Yu Yu Din. In 2023, she married Yu Yu Din. She worked in various locations in India: Kolkata, Gurgaon, Delhi, and Pune over ten years, then helped bring mainstream telecom to Myanmar as the country transformed from a military dictatorship to a democracy. Moving there in 2017, she worked developing businesses, advising entrepreneurs on how to bring their companies to the world stage.

Jeanne-Elise has won a number of awards for her work. In 2018, she received the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award from Marquis Who’s Who Publications, Strathmore’s Who’s Who of Staffing/Recruiting Professionals of the Year in 2017 along with their Woman of Excellence. In 2006, Jeanne won an Official Honoree Webby Award for creating the first social network for a 38,000+ K-12 public school district, along with numerous other awards for the district.

She garnered additional awards even in her earlier work, including a charter entry in Marquis’ Who’s Who in Advertising, and a nomination for Young Direct Marketer of the Year in 1990 by the Direct Marketing International Council. In 1978, she received a Certificate of Merit for her youth ambassadorship to India from the Foxborough Board of Selectmen. In 1976, Jeanne-Elise was elected American Team Leader of the Darjeeling Multicultural Expedition by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. In 1975, at 14, she was awarded a letter of commendation from the Boston Architectural Center acknowledging her as the youngest student to complete the college-level Center Summer’s coursework.

Jeanne has completed two overland trips worthy of significance. “My first trip overland was from Mumbai in 1977 with Jamshed, a relative of the Shah of Iran, Ashok, a French-Mauritian, Mary, an American who insisted on carrying a sitar the entire way, and myself. With not much money and a lack of visas, the team managed to get all the way to Bulgaria due to Jamshed”s connection to the Shah. We used trains when possible, but also rented motorcycles, bicycles and walked (lots and lots of walking), hitching rides with whoever could understand us. Many of the drivers took us to their homes. We ate their food, enjoyed their children’s entertainment and slept wherever they could keep us.

We traveled through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. We were shown nothing but welcome and kindness from people who had even less than we had. They gave us gifts, which we always accepted graciously, then left a note to say we were unworthy of such a special gift and that being invited to spend such a special day/night with you was always going to be enough. They treated us like royalty, lots of photos with the village elders, the children… many had never never seen Americans before.

Bulgaria was tough. No access without visas. We didn’t have any paperwork to satisfy their application process. Mary and I turned to what white women do – we cried. And cried, and cried. We had no friends here. No allies who could help us. The American Embassy found a way to expedite our deportation from Bulgaria and that helped. Finally after six days of crying, they told us to get on this train and never come back. We were finally in Romania, then Hungary, Austria, and Germany mostly by train at that point. No one was giving rides to backpackers, then. Jamsed had left us back in Bulgaria due to his connection with the Shah.

We made it to our plane on time in Amsterdam, and we landed on time at Heathrow. Somehow, our connecting flight wasn’t until three days later. We were like down to our last ten dollars or so. But that’s when that miserable sitar provided us with the luck of 10,000 Hindu gods. At that time, many of the cleaners and maintenance folks were Indian transplants. Fortunately someone noticed us and asked about the sitar. Once we told our story, we were given food and blankets so we could sleep. They showed us a safer space to sleep in since we were going to be there for a few days.”

The second overland trip occurred when she received a letter from a Brazilian ex-boyfriend in 1986, inviting her to visit Sao Paulo and Rio de Janiero. “While hanging out in a bar in Rio, we met up with a few merchant marines Ricardo knew who had just returned from a trip to Antartica. I kept asking all these questions and Ricardo said, ‘why don’t you just go?’. Then new questions, like expenses, logistics, etc., came up. Ricardo pointed to a guy sitting at a table by himself reading a newspaper. Ricardo offered to introduce me. After an hour of discussion with the Captain (and several shots), it was decided. There was another supply ship leaving in a week or so (weather permitting) out of Tierra del Fuego/Ushuaia. He knew of a couple of truckers that were leaving Sao Paulo in a couple of days. I could hitch a ride with the truckers when they got to Rio. So for a week on some of the worst roads, tire blowouts, scary cops asking a lot about the chica blanca in the cab, drunk truck drivers driving up mountains in the dark and some very questionable food, I was safely delivered to my destination. The truck drivers were quite the gentlemen and took very good care of me. One of them drove me to the pier. I met up with the Captain there. He gave me the rules. ‘You have a cabin. Stay in the cabin during the day. I will have someone bring you food.’ I couldn’t take a shower (no facilities for women) and did my business in a bucket in my room which I emptied at night. It was beautiful and extremely cold. The waves were huge and I was seasick for most of the trip.