Juana (Nita) María Baumgartner

Juana (Nita) María Baumgartner, aged 92 years, of Roswell, Georgia, passed away peacefully May 30th, 2026. She was born August 14, 1933, in Montevideo, Uruguay and was the first daughter of the late Uruguayan justice and poet, Luis Miguel Baumgartner, and María Esther Lapitz Ihitz. Nita was preceded in death by her sister, Gloria Esther (Cocona), her first grandson, Julio César Cortina Azziz, and her nephew, Jose Luis Telleria (Tatán).

From an early age, Nita was fascinated with antiquity. One of Nita’s earliest memories was of a handkerchief with a tiny embroidery of Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus. Tutankhamun’s tomb had been discovered a decade before and the flickering matinee reels had captured her imagination. Nita’s parents valued Nita’s education and sent her to an all-girls Catholic school run by stern nuns. At school, Nita contracted tuberculosis and spent 1939 prostate in a convalescent hospital. It was the era prior to antibiotics. After discharge in December, Nita remembers watching the scuttling of the Graph Spee off the coast of Montevideo.

Although doctors feared Nita would never walk again, she recovered, gained strength, and played basketball at her lycée. Nita’s lycée classmates included rugby players later immortalized in the film Alive. In lycée, Nita caught the attention of the local beaux. On one occasion, a recent graduate of the local aviation school invited Nita on a biplane ride. The young daredevil tried to impress Nita with his aileron and barrel rolls. Upon landing, a dizzy Nita threw up on the tarmac. When parents found out about the acrobatics, airport authorities suspended the young man’s license.

As an adolescent, Nita briefly contemplated becoming a nun. In 1952, however, she enrolled at the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences and followed in her father’s footsteps. While in law school, Nita took drawing and painting night classes at the National School of Fine Arts. She also studied with a former ballerina from the Bolshoi and danced with the National Ballet. Near the end of law school, 24-year-old Nita married. In the 1957 wedding at her parents’ home, classmates formed a line of crossed protractors for the couple to walk under. In the coming decades, Nita bore four children, which she raised differently as she herself changed during a turbulent 1950-1970.

In September 1959, Nita moved from Uruguay to the United States where her husband attended graduate school. There, Nita taught French at L’Alliance Française while she awaited a return to Uruguay. The cold war was unfolding fast, however, and the couple opted not to return. Instead, Nita joined her husband as he moved from one contract to another in North, Central, and South America, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia.

Life as an expat was occasionally glamorous, sometimes dangerous, and frequently isolating. During her travels, Nita met interesting persons and befriended renown academicians, diplomats, and scientists who were working with the United States. Nita hosted and was hosted by the spouses of dignitaries and gained a new appreciation for diverse world views. Nita occasionally had hair raising adventures. One time, the engine of the British Vickers 769D she was travelling in caught fire over the Amazon. Another time, she narrowly escaped mauling by a Bengal tiger. More insidious and dangerous, however, was the chronic isolation. Nita endured much during 1950-1970.

Nita eventually settled in Puerto Rico and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. For two decades, she taught cultural and physical anthropology at the University of Puerto Rico. After her divorce and the successful launch of her children, Nita accomplished much. Despite being aged fifty, she enrolled at the University of Michigan and obtained a PhD in Cultural Anthropology. She specialized in ethnography and wrote three books about gender studies. No longer a homemaker, Nita had much to say. In 1994, Nita started writing a perspectives column for El Nuevo Día, one of Puerto Rico’s newspapers. There, she developed a fan base by publishing more than two hundred op-eds about diverse topics ranging from violence prevention to nuclear waste disposal. Nita’s career peaked in the late 1990s, when she was a constant presence in literati circles which included anthropologist, chemists, hoteliers, journalists, mathematicians, painters, physicists, pianists, poets, and writers.

After retirement, Nita moved from Puerto Rico to Alabama and dedicated her time to gardening, writing, and doting on grandchildren. In her seventies, she insidiously developed atrial fibrillation and manifested symptoms of her illness by having a parietal stroke. After a prolonged recovery with the help of her children and her daughters-in-law, Nita lived for another fifteen years. Despite profound hemiplegia, Nita still seemed fully her own, centered, and self-contained to the very end. Indeed, she still seemed to catch the attention of the local beaux, this time at the nursing home. As Nita often reminded her children, she regretted nothing.

Nita would often make lavish meals for her guests. One memorable gazpacho recipe included 2 cups of milk, 2 cubes of chicken bouillon, ½ an onion, 4 garlic cloves, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar, 1 cup of light cream or yogurt, 1 peeled tomato, 1 pepper, 1 boiled egg, etc. 

There was more to Nita than can be stated. Nita was a proficient illustrator, master gardener, voracious reader, traveler, polyglot, art lover, columnist, and doting mother and grandmother. Nita was also a beloved university professor, who frequently taught in standing room only classrooms, and a staunch environmentalist who organized students to beautify Puerto Rico. Nita frequently wrote about op-eds defending medically assisted suicide, a service ultimately unavailable to her.

Nita will be missed by her family and friends for her kindness, generosity, and gentle sense of humor. She is survived by two siblings (José Luis and Amelia), her children (Ricardo, Rudolf, Cecilia, and Eduardo), her daughters-in-law (Cindy, Diane, and Robin), thirteen nieces and nephews (Liliana, Jorge, Alfonso, Marina, Susana, Virginia, Sergio, Enrique, Gabriela, José Luis, Diego, Fabian, and Melissa), and nine grandchildren (Ashlee, Gustavo, Jonathon, Erin, Mallory, Téa, Emma, Cadyn, and Lucia), all whom benefitted from her loving attention. The date for a celebration of Nita’s life will be announced later.

In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to one of her favorite charities:

• American Red Cross
• Human Rights Watch
• Society for Science and the Public
• Habitat for Humanity International
• American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals