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In memory of those who have Crossed the Bar
KOEHLER, Eve Eckert - Passed away April 28, 2023, two weeks after her 100th birthday. Preceded in death by her husband John Koehler, Jr., her daughter Susan Eve Steiner, her parents Adam and Susannah (Hemerle) Eckert, her brother Adam Eckert. Survived by her son John Adam Koehler, her granddaughter Anna Marie Steiner who is mother of great grandsons Brody and Alex; grandsons Paul and John Steiner. Further survived by her beloved nieces Barbara Eckert Kunze, Susan Eckert, and Sandra Koehler, cousins Maryann Manherz and Betty Jane Bordian. Eve is also survived by many other cousins, cherished neighbors, friends and colleagues.
Eve was born April 15, 1923 in Pari, Tolna County, Hungary, one of hundreds such German ethnic towns and villages, remnants of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War One. In 1927 she emigrated with her family to Windsor, Ontario. After high school she studied business at community college where she won the silver cup O.R. Bensette Trophy for Stenographic Proficiency, an achievement that would soon play a major role in her young life. Eve initially worked as a copywriter for The Windsor Daily Star and CKLW Radio. In 1942 she and her brother enlisted in the Canadian Navy. She was posted to the new RCN naval training base HMCS Cornwallis in Nova Scotia. After a year there she was seconded to the Mission of the British Admiralty in Washington D.C. due to her stenographic skills (typing 95 words per minute, shorthand 120 wpm). At the Mission she typed out her shorthand transcripts recorded at top secret conferences concerning "Operation Overlord," which became D-Day. She happened to meet and shake the hand of President Roosevelt driving by in his open car. Sadly, 18 months later, she attended his funeral in 1945.
In 1947 she met and married her husband, John. Later, with a son and daughter in school, she was active in PTA and scouting. A folk music enthusiast, she also taught folk and flamenco guitar. Eve rejoined the workforce as school secretary at Atwater Elementary in Shorewood, also editing and printing out on mimeograph the monthly parent/teacher magazine Atwater Bulletin. A few years later she was employed as administrative assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Schools of Anthropology and Social Welfare. In 1976 she published the historical novel Seven Susannahs: Daughters of the Danube relating the at times tragic story of her ethnic heritage, the German "Danube Swabians" of southeastern Europe. The book is now in its third edition, revised and enlarged, available exclusively at Amazon.com.
Eve was a founding member of German Fest, and a devoted chronicler of the many Danube Swabian societies locally and throughout the US and Canada. In lieu of flowers she asked that donations be made to the United Donauschwaben of Milwaukee, or that everyone enjoy an echt Wiener Schnitzel or fish fry at the Schwabenhof on Silver Spring Dr. in Menomonee Falls.
Eve's
family expresses its heartfelt thanks to the staff at The Lutheran Home in
Wauwatosa.
Eve's brother, Adam Koehler, served in the RCNVR during the Second World War
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