Ursula Elfriede Connors

Ursula “Ulli” Heinrich Connors, long time resident of Tucker, Georgia, died in her home on August 20, 2021, just a few weeks shy of her 102nd birthday. She is survived by her sons Dennis Connors (Priscilla) of Montclair, New Jersey, and Greg Connors (Debbie) of Lilburn, Georgia. She is also survived by grandchildren Matthew, Andrew, Annie, and Lisa Townsend (Andrew); great-grandchildren Judah and Elijah; nieces Alicia Sanguinetti and Helen Pedrelli; and nephew Ricardo Sanguinetti. She was predeceased by her husband John Connors in 2015 and by her sister Annemarie Heinrich in 2005.

Ulli was born to Ernestine Weber and Walter Heinrich, the youngest of two daughters, on September 12, 1919, in Berlin, Germany. Her family emigrated to Argentina in 1926. She relished in telling the story of her parents traveling by boat with their worldly possessions, including a grand piano, to a rural dirt floor dwelling in the province of Entre Rios.

Deeply connected and devoted to her older sister, the photographer Annemarie Heinrich, she took part in the family photography business in Buenos Aires and was a frequent model for ads and lighting tests at her sister’s studio. In her 20’s she was also an accomplished equestrian and budding sculptor, and often reminisced about her fun-loving social life in the 1940s. “We knew how to have fun”, she would often say, “not like today”.

She met her future husband John Connors in Buenos Aires in the early 1950s. While in “B.A.” they married, and then emigrated in 1955 to the United States, living briefly in New Jersey before settling in Massachusetts. She volunteered in the local library and community center, was a member of the garden club, and made new life-long friends. She became a U.S. citizen in 1967.

She was a devoted mother. She taught her sons how to cook, iron clothes, sew on buttons, paint bedrooms, and apply wallpaper, among other life skills. She introduced them to the world through stamp collecting and inspired in them a passion for gardening. She made sure her sons were exposed to arts and crafts, fine arts, and music. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts was a favorite destination. When the Moscow Circus came to town, she bought tickets. And during the British invasion of new music flooding the airwaves, she made sure Louis Armstrong, Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli were part of the repertoire.

To get away from the winters in the northeast, Ulli & John retired to Tucker, Georgia in 1983. While enjoying life as a grandparent, Ulli continued her passion for gardening and love of animals, and made new friends once again. Through all the years, her constant companions were her cats; a love of animals was always a part of her life, and she happily donated to many animal causes. She will be missed.