The eldest child of Prof. and Mrs. Johannes (Lore) Goike, Elisabeth was born Sept. 08, l926 in Breslau, Germany and died May 20, 2019 in Portland, Oregon. Near the end of WWII her family fled from the advancing Russian army and settled in Bavaria, West Germany. Elisabeth stayed behind and worked as a nurse in an operating room of the German Armed Forces. She escaped the Russians in the fall of 1945 and through a miracle was reunited with her family in Augsburg. She graduated from the “Englisches Institut” of Augsburg and taught school before immigrating to the U.S. in pursuit of a lifelong ambition: that of entering the field of Medicine.
Prior to enrolling at New York University to study for a degree in X-ray technique and radiology, she worked as a ground hostess with Scandinavian Airlines at Idlewild (now Kennedy) airport in N.Y. and later moved into a position in sales with Swissair in Rockefeller Center. It was in N.Y.C. that she met and married her devoted and loving husband, Bayard D. MacMichael. The ceremony took place in the Roman Catholic church of St. Vincent Ferrer on Sept. 24, l953 and they celebrated their 57th Wedding anniversary before he died on February 10th, 2011.
She was the adoring and dearly beloved mother of their 3 daughters, Marina MacMichael (Thos. Fitzpatrick), Monica MacMichael and Vanessa Renwick. She was the loving grandmother (Omi) of six precious grandchildren: Ryan and Amy Fitzpatrick, Bonnie and Travis Brown, and Damek and Montana Maurice. She is survived by her dear sisters Erika Morgan of Vancouver, WA and Margarete Goike of Wiesbaden, Germany.
Elisabeth was a devotee of the visual arts as well as classical music in the symphonic and operatic form. She was an active member of the Chicago Art Institute for many decades as well as the Guild of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Upon retiring to the Seattle area in l989 she continued these interests by being an active and contributing member of both the Seattle Art Museum as well as the Seattle Opera Co. She served many years as a member of the board of the St. Vincent de Paul Society at the local chapter of her Parish, the St. Madeleine Sophie Church of Bellevue, WA. One of her passions was foreign travel and she held the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest close to her heart because it reminded her in many ways of the beloved land of her birth, Germany. Annual pilgrimages were made to that country as well as other parts of the world regularly in the company of her husband and their three daughters. She moved to Portland, Ore. after the death of her husband to be closer to her family.
Ruhe in frieden! R.I.P., dear Elisabeth!
COMPARTA UN OBITUARIO
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