? by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Maria Kieffer of Norville Realty has never taken an aspirin in her life. She doesn’t eat meat, drinks 10 glasses of distilled water a day and drinks E3Live, a pure Blue-green algae to keep her healthy.
Call her a health nut if you wish. She doesn’t mind. She knows she is different and loves it.
“My diet is a little bit different and I guess my whole life is different,” Kieffer said with a laugh. “I don’t believe in medicine, I believe in the natural means like herbs. In Bolivia, where I grew up, medicine is not readily available [so we learned to live without].
“I haven’t ever had a headache. I follow a really good diet and drink a lot of water. Distilled water is the best water you could drink. I feel very energetic.”
She has been a Realtor for two months and has sold three homes already.
“I love it,” said Kieffer, who joined the real estate community after 12 years as a medical missionary with a church. “I love helping people. As a missionary I was always helping people, so I really enjoy that.”
Kieffer’s son was dying of asthma and she attended an event at the church.
“My son was dying of asthma at six months old, but I didn’t know it was asthma,” she said. “They told me he was allergic to dust. It wasn’t so. He was allergic to milk products and I didn’t know it. He was on his deathbed. I couldn’t put him down or he would die. That’s how bad it was.
“Once they took all the money I had — about $200,000 — they decided to let me know there was nothing they could do and that he could die at any time.”
She attended a meeting at the church and met a woman there who said her baby was allergic to milk products.
“That’s how I learned about health,” said Kieffer. “I was breastfeeding him, so I went off all milk products, meats and became a total vegetarian and very strict in my diet. He’s now 19 years old and he’s gorgeous.”
Because of her newfound interest in health, she attended the Weimar Institute of Health and Education in California to learn more.
She began giving self-help classes on health, cooking, stop-smoking clinics and alcohol rehabilitation clinics.
Prior to her joining the church, she became a missionary in Bolivia using her training from Weimar. She had moved there with her husband and children and ended up living there alone with her children.
“I was born in Bolivia and I went to work with the Indians,” said Kieffer. “I went where no white man dared to go. I didn’t have a cent to live on. I did good things for the people and they would give us food. They bartered with us. I didn’t have a home to live in and I slept on dirt floors.”
She then moved to Cuba and did mission work there on her own as well.
“I loved it, I would go back and do it again,” she said.
After her divorce, she decided to move back to the United States and become a medical missionary with the church.
Her route as a missionary was from Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami and Tampa and back.
“I would spend one week in each place giving Bible classes, health classes and smoking clinics,” she said.
She started several churches for the church while she was on her route and traveled to do lectures in Canada, California, Washington and much of the East coast of the United States from Maine to Washington D.C.
“I drove everywhere,” said Kieffer. “I would stay in people’s homes and hold the classes there or in churches or halls that were available.”
She eventually bought a motor home and traveled in it with her children who she home schooled. In addition to her classes, she also started a missionary school in Pennsylvania and California.
Kieffer had lived in Jacksonville when she was 14 and through her missionary work left for a few years, but finally moved back four years ago.
“I get very involved with people,” said Kieffer. “Many people are very sick with cancer or other illness and after you help them, they never stay on the diet or do what they are supposed to do and to me that is very frustrating. When you see a life that could be saved and you see them doing the same thing over and over again that caused the disease, that is too much for me to handle.”
Issues in the churches doctrine that Kieffer didn’t agree with prompted her to leave the church and she decided to go into real estate.
“I wanted to help people still, but I didn’t want to do it in the medical field because I get too involved,” she said. “A friend of mine, Stanton Hudmon, a commercial Realtor, told me I should go into real estate. He is the one who inspired me to do this.”
Kieffer has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and public relations from the University of Tampa. She also has her master’s degree in bilingual bicultural education from the Jacksonville University.
She speaks German, French, Spanish and a little Yugoslavian and Rumanian.
“It’s been wonderful, especially the Spanish because I sold a home to a couple who were Cubans and didn’t speak very much English,” said Kieffer. “I hope to help people who have these different needs that I can meet. When they are foreign, I’m able to relate more to them. I’ve traveled extensively since I was young. Since I was 13 years old, my family has been traveling to Europe. My family is from Austria, so we went there on vacation and they took me to Switzerland and Italy and all the wonderful places all around there.”
She has a website, www.mariakieffer.com, that she hopes will bring more international clients.
After college, she worked for the Arts Assembly and then as an import/export manager. She traveled all over selling heavy equipment and prefabricated homes.
When she is not working, she enjoys ballroom dancing and has met many customers through that activity. She also loves to singing and swimming.
Kieffer lives on the Westside with her children, Brian, 22 and Jason 19.