Elke M. Gebhard
1920 – 2010

AUBURN — Elke Gebhard, 89, of Hartford, died on Friday, Feb. 12, in Auburn.

She was born Elke Maria Wilhelma Gertrud Benedicta Anna Mewes on May 11, 1920, in Hamburg, Germany, the daughter of Friedrich Wilhelm Mewes and Ilse Zacharias Mewes. She was the stepdaughter of Elisabeth (Moa) Mewes and the sister of Claus Mewes, deceased. Her father was an aide-de-camp to Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last emperor of Germany and Elke’s godfather. She maintained a close relationship with the Kaiser’s family until his death.

She and her husband, Karl left Germany in 1958 to emigrate to the United States, where they raised five children in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maine. She used her training at medical school in Germany in her work as a research librarian in New Jersey for the former pharmaceutical company, Warner Lambert, a job she said was her favorite. She also worked at a halfway house for young women who struggled with drug abuse.

In Maine, she and Karl ran a successful tax service for local clients and their family. She also was a skilled and dedicated antiques collector and stock market investor. Her less lucrative, but equally satisfying hobbies included gardening and bird watching and she never let a day pass without immersing herself in novels both erudite and popular, as well as heavy doses of business and political news in magazines, newspapers and on television.

She became a part-time resident for many years of Pico, one of the Azores Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, part of Portugal. In addition to her native German and the English she learned, she also became a speaker of enough Portuguese to make sure that she always got a good deal.

She is survived by her beloved husband, Karl and their daughter, Bettina; two sons-in-law, Stephen Perry and Rusty Gaynor (Kathryn); her grandchildren who miss her, Marc and Kim Zalaman, Robert and Drew MacMillan, Lindsay MacMillan (Sam), Gregory Federman, Stephanie Skibsted (Rob), Jack Mosley (Jen), Adrienne Abbott (Sean), Devon Perry (Jen) and Macklin Gaynor; and her great-grandchildren, Anika, Lucien and Oliver Skibsted and Will Abbott.

She was predeceased by two daughters, Ilse and Annette, from her prior marriage to Helmut Malchin.