Irma Majer died on Saturday, February 23, 2002 in Ann Arbor, MI. Born Irma Linhartova on August 22, 1918 in Vienna, Austria, to Josef Linhart and Marie Linhartova, nee Reslova, she was the beloved wife of the late Vaclav Majer. She grew up in Sobeslav, in the new Czechoslovak Republic, where she planned to be a teacher. As a young woman in Prague during the Second World War, she was active in the resistance to the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. After the war, she became Executive Secretary to the Director of the Social Democratic Party. Forced to flee Czechoslovakia following the Communist coup in 1948, she immigrated to England. In London, she married the late Vaclav Majer, former Social Democratic Minister in the post-war Czechoslovak governments of Jan Masaryk and Eduard Benes. Formally stateless, in 1951 she and her husband found asylum in the United States. They were active in Czechoslovak exile organizations working to return Czechoslovakia to democratic government. Between 1958 and 1983 she was employed in Greenbelt, MD as a bookkeeper for Greenbelt Consumer Services and later Scan International, grocery and furniture cooperatives. In her retirement years she lived with her daughters, Jana in Scarborough ME and Ledyard, CT, and Irma S. in Ann Arbor, MI. Throughout her life, Irma was a loving daughter, sister, wife, mother, and grandmother. She met the great challenges of her life with courage, strength and wisdom. She devoted her life to her husband, children, and grandchildren, and to her many friends. She is very much loved by her son Vaclav Majer and grandson Jan Majer of Annapolis, MD; daughter, Irma S. Majer, son-in-law John Godfrey and grandchildren, Pavel and Johana Godfrey of Ann Arbor, MI; daughter, Jana Majer Newman, son-in-law George Newman and granddaughter Dana Newman of Wellington, FL; nephew Rudolf Linhart of Benesov u Prahy, Czech Republic; and grandniece Stana Kralova of Slany, Czech Republic. She will be inurned at the Masaryk Mausoleum of the Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago, IL. The family requests that memorials be sent to a charity of one’s choice.
