Who was Oppenheimer’s wife?
Katherine Oppenheimer was a German American biologist, botanist, and also the wife of American theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. Katherine Oppenheimer most referred to as Kitty was a member of the Communist Party of America. Kitty’s husband Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is often credited as the “father of the atomic bomb”. He played the most important role in the Manhattan Project—the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons.
Katherine Oppenheimer: Bio Summary
| Full Name | Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer |
| Birth Name | Katherine Vissering Puening |
| famous as | biologist, botanist, and wife J. Robert Oppenheimer |
| Age | 62 years old at the time of death |
| Date of Birth | August 8, 1910 |
| Place of Birth | Recklinghausen, Westphalia, Prussia, Germany |
| Date of death | October 27, 1972, Panama City, Panama |
| Zodiac sign | Leo |
| Nationality | German American |
| Ethnicity | Mixed |
| Children | Peter Oppenheimer, Katherine “Toni” Oppenheimer |
| Spouses | J. Robert Oppenheimer (m. 1940–1967), Richard Harrison (m. 1938–1940) |
Who was J. Robert Oppenheimer’s wife?
Katherine Oppenheimer was born on August 8, 1910, in Recklinghausen, Westphalia, Prussia, Germany. She is the daughter of Franz Puening and his wife Käthe Vissering- The only child of the couple. Kitty and her parents came to the United States of America in 1913 at the age when her father Franz Puening who was a metallurgical engineer gained employment with a steel company in Pittsburgh. They came aboard the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse and settled in the suburb of Aspinwall, Pennsylvania.
How did Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty meet?
Oppenheimer and his wife Katherine Oppenheimer meet at a garden party thrown by Lauritsen and his wife Sigrid in August 1939. Soon after the couple began an affair and were frequently seen about town in his Chrysler coupe. Oppenheimer, a physicist who taught at Caltech for part of each year is known to have dated several women since his relationship with his long-time girlfriend Jean Tatlock came to end, some of these women were married.
Kitty Oppenheimer was married to her husband, Richard Harrison when she meet the physicist. At the time, per Spartacus Educational, Robert himself was also in a relationship with a woman named Jean Tatlock- a psychologist and a known Communist party member. At Christmas that same year they meet, Katherine Oppenheimer went up to Berkeley without her husband, to spend time with his lover Oppenheimer.
Katherine Oppenheimer has been married 3 times before Oppenheimer
J. Robert Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty has been married a total of three times before she met Oppenheimer in 1939. Her first marriage was to Frank Ramseyer before a Justice of the Peace in Pittsburgh on 24 December 1932. Their marriage was nulled on 20 December 1933. She later told her friends that she had discovered evidence that her husband Ramseyer was a homosexual and a drug addict.
Katherine Oppenheimer’s second marriage was to a young Communist named Joe Dallet in 1934. The lovers moved to France, and Dallet joined the Communist forces fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Kitty’s husband was killed in combat in 1937, spurring Kitty to return to the United States and pursue a degree in botany at the University of Pennsylvania, which she completed with honors in 1939.
ALSO, READ; Peter Oppenheimer: Is J. Robert Oppenheimer’s son alive?
She met Oppenheimer a year after she got married to her third husband, a British doctor named Richard Harrison who she meet at the University of Pennsylvania. Kitty divorced her husband on November 1, 1940, and got married to Oppenheimer the next day. They got married in a civil ceremony in Virginia City, Nevada, with the court janitor and clerk as witnesses. The couple lived in Pasadena, California before moving to Los Alamos for the Manhattan Project.
J. Robert and Kitty Oppenheimer had two children: Peter and Toni Oppenheimer.
The couple had two children: Peter Oppenheimer and Toni Oppenheimer. Peter who is the eldest was born in May 1941 and Toni, the younger was born in Los Alamos. Toni was born in a seven-room hospital that had been dubbed “RFD,” for “rural free delivery” due to the high amount of births that occurred within the Project’s first few years.
ALSO, READ; Katherine “Toni” Oppenheimer Silber: Oppenheimer’s daughter committed Suicide
Katherine Oppenheimer’s own fiery personality was tested by raising her two children in the unique setting of Los Alamos before the family moved to Princeton, New Jersey following the war. She was also an important confidant for her physicist husband. The physicist trusted his wife completely and frequently sought her advice on a host of issues facing the Manhattan Project.
What happened to J. Robert Oppenheimer’s wife?
After the death of J. Robert Oppenheimer, his wife Kitty Oppenheimer decided to move in with long-time family friend Robert Serber, and the two planned a round-the-world sailing trip in 1972. However, shortly after embarking in October of that year, Kitty became seriously ill and passed away in Panama City, Panama due to a pulmonary embolism. Kitty Oppenheimer died on October 27, 1972, at the age of 62.
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