Alice von Hildebrand, a retired philosopher professor and author of many books, died early on January 14 at the age of 98, after a brief illness.

Born in Belgium, she came to the US in 1940, where she studied at Fordham with the renowned philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand, an outspoken foe of Hitler who had barely escaped the Nazi regime. (Dietrich von Hildebrand was praised by Pope Pius XII as a “20th-century Doctor of the Church.) The two eventually married, and co-authored several books.

After her husband’s death in 1977, Alice von Hildebrand taught at Hunter College in New York. Upon retirement, she wrote a biography of her late husband, The Soul of a Lion, and followed with her own autobiography, Memoirs of a Happy Failure.