Rita la Fontaine de Clercq Zubli
Rita la Fontaine de Clercq Zubli, 82, of Nashua, NH, peacefully passed away at the Community Hospice House in Merrimack, Wednesday morning, November 21, 2012.
She was born December 1929 in Subang, Indonesia, and grew up there, until her family moved to the island of Sumatra, where her father became the local postmaster.
At that same time, World War II broke out and the island was quickly overrun by Japanese troupes sending most of the inhabitants to internment camps. To protect their daughter from becoming a “comfort woman” for the Japanese troops their parents decided to disguise her as a boy and as so endured three and a half years as a boy named Rick.
After the War she graduated from high school and became a ground stewardess for the local BPM oil company, arranging flights and transportation for their employees.
Her next employer was the Consul of the Netherlands in Palembang, who hired her for an administrate function, which she held for several years. It is there where she met her future husband, a Dutch rubber planter, who she married in 1953.
Political unrest however forced them and their first child, to return to the Netherlands, from where they immigrated to the United States, where soon after, she started a specialized typing service, mainly for Harvard and MIT students.
It was here that she finally found time to write her memoir about the war experience like no other, a remarkable story of integrity and honor.
Her book titled “DISGUISED,” a wartime memoir, was well received, and a translated version in Indonesia became an instant best seller.
She leaves behind her husband of 59 years, Dan, three sons, Richard and his wife Monique and granddaughter Nareise of Jaffry, NH, Peter and his wife Bettie Jo, and two granddaughters, Melissa and her husband Darin, Laura and grandson Craig, of Gotha, FL, and Daniel J. and his partner Greg Schroeder of Nashville, TN. Also her best friend and daughter Birgit Rigg and fiancée Randy Gomes of Hudson, NH.
The Cremation Society of New Hampshire is in charge of final arrangements; service will be private.