By Setarreh Massihzadegan
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

Maisie Steckel knows what it’s like to be called crazy.

“Call me Maisie. Maisie rhymes with crazy,” Steckel says.

But she also knows what it’s like to sign a secret oath and receive a royal welcome.

Long before moving to Brooksby Village, Steckel was an agent of Special Operations Executive (SOE), a secret British organization that trained the resistance to be spies during World War II.

“We were looking through the window,” she says, remembering the plane ride from London to Denmark at the war’s end. “I still get teary when I think of this—there were two lines of agents and Danish people, many of whom we had freed, filling the airport. They were cheering.”

Round-the-clock work
Working with the Danish section of the SOE, Steckel trained agents who had fled their countries and were willing to be dropped by parachute into areas where they could spy for the Allies.

“This was a 24/7 job. You never knew when you’d have a chance to go or when you’d have a chance to sleep,” she says. “I remember the sirens. I can hear them today.”

Despite her demanding work schedule, Steckel’s family couldn’t know of her true job. They simply knew that she worked for the armed forces.

Welcomed by a nation
It all ended when Steckel received an urgent summons one night at 3:00 a.m.

 She and her crew flew to Denmark. They stepped off the plane to welcoming cheers from the Danish, whom they had aided. Steckel received a medal of appreciation from King Christian X and lunched at his palace.

But Steckel’s work wasn’t quite done. She stayed on for a fifth year with SOE to clear up any unfinished business, including locating missing agents.

A new home
After Steckel finished, she took a trip to New York that led her to her future husband and life there. But it wasn’t until her move to Brooksby more than two years ago that she found herself in Massachusetts, close to one of her three daughters.