Hedi McKinley — Mental health notes from a centenarian

Hedi McKinley grew up in Vienna, Austria, the only child of poor storekeepers; they lived over their grocery store. Her father, who fought in World War I, had been taken prisoner by the Russians and spent four years in Siberia and then another two years walking home to Austria. When Hedi was 18, she and her parents were turned out of their home by Nazis on Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938. Yet Hedi survived and prospered and has spent decades working to make the world a better place. She went first to England and then came to New York City where she worked as a waitress and studied nights at Columbia University. She graduated magna cum laude and went on to get a master’s degree in social work. She taught for years at the University at Albany while also maintaining her own practice and publishing scholarly articles. She regularly wrote a mental-health column for The Enterprise and also became a radio personality, giving no-nonsense advice. She will turn 100 on April 15. In this week’s podcast she recalls how, when she was 8, she thought it was strange people would fight about praying to different gods. “I could not understand killing someone else who has a different belief,” she said. She would like to see the word rid of envy, saying, “The idea you have something I don’t … has brought about more death than anything else.”

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