Elisabeth Maria Napier

Elisabeth was born April 25th, 1929 in Pruem, a little town in the Eifel region of Germany close to the Luxembourg border. Her parents were Theodor Buechel and Maria Margareta Buechel (Ehlen). She was their only child.

She told me she had a doll named Eulalia, and that she used to ice skate down a steep hill called the Calvarianberg in her hometown when she was little. Having been there, I wouldn’t try it! From the ages of 9 until 15 she lived through World War 2, first the constant bombing raids and by late 1944 and early ‘45, the rapid approach of British and American troops. She told me how she and her mom would spend days at a time in bunkers with bombs falling all around, and when it was quiet they would venture out to try to find food. In 1945 soldiers came and put everyone from Pruem on a train and moved them inland. During the days they would sit in dark railway tunnels, only moving at night. They were put up with a Quaker family on the east side of the Rhine, and stayed there until US soldiers captured their town. Her father had in 1944 been pressed into the Luftwaffe and had been captured in France by the Americans fairly quickly, riding out the war in a POW camp. Somehow, in 1946, after release from the POW camp and after walking home from southern Germany, he was able to find them at a cousin’s house in Rommersheim where they were staying; one night there was a knock on the door and there was her Papa. Of course most of that really wasn’t a “childhood”. And lack of food in those years meant that she was short! Being short was the root of her “nickname” Elschen (Little Elisabeth).

She graduated from the Catholic HS in Pruem, at the top of her class in 1949, and then went on to study at the University of Social Work and Theology in Freiburg (im Breisgau), where she earned a degree in Social Work. Many years later she earned her MA in counseling (the first in the family to do so) and was subsequently certified in NH as a guidance counselor, but that’s jumping ahead!

She was a youth social worker for the Diocese of Trier for her first career. With her longtime friend Hannelore Simeon, she worked from 1954 to 1962 For Catholic Charities, sometimes riding her Vespa scooter (hard to picture that!) to make her rounds. She was involved in cultural exchange programs and that was how she met her future husband, a young Airman in the USAF named Lindsey Napier. It was love at first sight she told me, but it took two years of asking before her parents consented to allow their daughter to marry (mostly because that she would move away). Finally, in 1962, on April 28th, she married my father, and soon after moved to the US, where she quickly received her American citizenship. They were happily married for 40 years, and had two children, Trever Martin, born 4/21/64 and S. Michael, born 11/4/66. For 12 years following the birth of Trever, she didn’t work so she could actively and properly raise her children.

She was very involved with the Catholic Church her whole life, and was very involved with the church communities wherever she lived. My father and mother were elected to the Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem, which they were both very proud of. Once my dad had retired from the Air Force and her boys were “old enough”, she went back to work as the Director of Religious Education for St. Joseph Parish in Dover, where she served for 17 years. By the end she was also serving as the DRE for St. Mary and St. Charles parishes in Dover. Since moving to Plano in 2005, she was very active with the Prince of Peace Catholic community, as a member of the Prime Timers, Bible Study, and with the Welcoming Committee, until her health started to fail her the last two years. Her faith and her friends at Prince of Peace kept her going until the end.

She never really had any hobbies, as she always seemed to be working, be it her job, around the house, or some type of volunteer work. She loved the Alps, particularly Berchtesgaden and Salzburg, and I was able to take 3 trips over there with her, in 2006, 2009, and the last time in 2014. She’d also made a couple of trips back home with my dad, and one sad, stressful trip along to bury her mom in January 1980. She was very interested in politics, and consistently voted in every election up until the last year or so.

She was very prim and proper, never smoke or drank, lived by the Golden Rule, and insisted that my brother and I act with manners and kindness; she highly valued education and was proud that all four of us earned college degrees. And, as mentioned, her strong faith carried her forward through deteriorating health.

She was preceded in death by her husband Lindsey, on July 26, 2002. She’s survived by her sons Trever, 55, of Plano and Michael, 53, of Ocala FL, and a cousin, Marlies Conrad, 90, in Germany.

She truly was a force for good, and will be missed by everyone she touched during the course of her long and eventful life!