Jacques Duckert (1923-2008)

Jacques Duckert April 25, 1923 - April 13, 2008

During the farewell service in L'Auberson, Pastor Christophe Peter summed up Jacques' life as follows: Jacques Duckert had a nomadic side. He moved very often, sometimes in the same locality. But everywhere he knew how to create networks of friendship and he always maintained them by correspondence and visits.

He met his wife, Margrit, at the Emmaus Institute; they made their faith commitment to Moral Re-Armament/Initiative of Change concrete in Caux. They helped transform a hotel into a place to stay and hold conferences. Jacques is a cabinetmaker by training and has put his know-how at the service of his commitment. For health reasons, they had to move to Biel where he finally found the explanation for his attacks of pain...

The death of his wife in Biel was a hard blow, followed a few years later by the death of their son, Jean-Marc. After a period in Bussigny, he got closer to his daughter, Jenny-Anne, by moving to L'Auberson. A new network was created, in the parish, at the café contact. Everywhere he gave his friendship. I still remember his simultaneous translation of the service for asylum seekers in the region.

Jenny-Anne Maeder-Duckert's prayer which she read in the church of L'Auberson:

Lord, today I would like to say thank you! Thank you for dad and thank you for mom who left a long time ago. From the cradle they spoke to me about You, or rather, in their lives, You were so present that Your presence is obvious. I remember when we stopped to talk to you together or especially to listen to you. When the future and suffering were too frightening, we would get down on our knees, tell You everything and You would give us peace and directions for the next days or weeks. Thank you.

Dad was not perfect, he was sometimes scathing in his words, but he knew how to ask for forgiveness; he sought justice and he wanted to please You.

Thank you for Dad, who taught me how much You love people. How important they all are. When I had friends, he became their friend and I know that he still corresponded with one of my best classmates in elementary school. He reflected, Lord, your faithfulness in friendship. He visited them, wrote to them, even when no one answered him.

Thank you because he had learned from you what love is. I believe that he saw people a little with your eyes, beyond the reality of what our eyes see, beyond gender, race, social background, he saw what the person can become. Without judgment, in prayer and with his words, he encouraged us to be honest, true and to enter into our destiny. It was disturbing but challenging.

I could go on and on saying thank you, because over the years he has become a good grandfather who opens up to the world, takes the time to talk and learns to be quiet. Thank you, because even if he suffered from not being able to do anything, he always found comfort in You.

But you know all this because you have lived it together. So I would like to thank you, Lord, for taking him back to his home on a Sunday, as he asked. Thank you because it is you who give and it is you who take back.

And even if I had wanted to keep him a little longer, I know that it is good like this.

Werner Fankhauser, Schönbühl: Jacques Duckert was a man of many gifts. In the early days of Caux, he devoted a great deal of time and energy to making it a functional meeting place. The aim was to transform the former "Caux-Palace" into a place where a new Europe could be built, where people who were enemies could meet, be reconciled and start afresh.

One of his most important tasks was to build a commissary and a modern kitchen with the capacity to feed the tens of thousands of participants who came from all over the world. The biggest challenge was getting the food when rationing was still in effect in 1946. Suppliers in the area had to be found with hte large quantities of food needed to feed such a large number of people. 

For several decades, Jacques, together with his wife Margrit, has dedicated himself to this task, along with a whole brigade of men and women from all over the world. For many of us, it was a privilege to work alongside him.

Elsbeth Chappuis-Hitz (Bethli), Villars-Mendraz Jacques' faithful friendship with my husband, Jean, goes back to their military service! Afterwards, from 1947 to 1958, they both worked at the Caux bursar's office with Margrit Duckert, Werner Fankhauser and Walter Zentner. It was very important for us cooks to be able to count on the timely arrival of orders from the bursar's office, since we often had to prepare meals for more than 1000 people.

Jacques suffered from very painful migraines, but despite this he was always in a good mood and never lost his sense of humor. We also had good relations with the suppliers, and at the end of the conferences we shared unforgettable raclette dinners with the whole Pitteloud family (9 children!) accompanied by songs and friendly exchanges.

Jacques often came to visit Jean during the last years of his illness. My daughter Anne-Marie's three children enjoyed meeting him. Jacques took a great interest in them, and often phoned, so I enclose these few lines which were written spontaneously by Anne-Marie and her children:

"Jacques, you were a faithful and kind friend, but even if you had to leave us, you will always remain in our hearts and we are sure that you will be very well received by the Lord." Anne-Marie, Rebecca, Gabriel and Timothy.

Jacques talk about himself in his audio-biography "Wonderfully driven" that friends gave him for his 80th birthday Jacques Duckert gives his convictions. Here are a few lines of what he says in the introduction:

Hello, here I am in my pretty little home in L'Auberson sur Yverdon, facing the expanse of the Jura pastures, surrounded by fir forests. It is January 2002. The cows that animate the landscape from spring to autumn are missing. Birds fly in the sky, birds of prey soar; dogs, cats and foxes pass under my windows. Missing are the neighbors and friends who are still sleeping. I am an early riser. (...) I am surprised that Jenny-Anne, my daughter who lives with her husband and children at the other end of the village, has not yet asked me if I have plans to move. (...)

What I am going to try to tell you is not intended to tell the story of Jacques Duckert, interesting as that may be, but to share my conviction that God does, or wants to do, extraordinary things through ordinary people, sometimes without their knowledge.

He develops this theme by evoking his ancestors, his family, his marriage to Margrit, their work in Caux, their time in Bienne and his widowhood and he does not hesitate to talk about what was the most difficult: illness, suffering, death. Jacques ends his story with the following words: "An hour and a quarter to tell the story of 80 years of life, you must be kidding! But an hour and a quarter to say that faith in the God of Jesus Christ is as vital as the air we breathe (...). I hope that I have been able to tell it as I live it.