Helga Klion

January 29, 1931 – July 2, 2026

Helga Eichenwald Klion passed away peacefully in the early morning of July 2nd at the age of 95, surrounded in her final days by her four children: Pamela (née Pasake), Roger, Douglas, and Andrea (née Leehan).

Helga lived a long and remarkable life shaped by both hardship and grace. Born on January 29, 1931, in Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, she and her immediate family escaped Nazi Germany for England in 1939, later making their way to Yonkers, New York. Helga matriculated through the Yonkers school system, graduating from Yonkers High School in 1949 and Berkeley Secretarial School in 1950. She landed her first job at the Pharmacopoeia in Manhattan after graduation.

At 20, she met Daniel Klion on a blind date. The two reconnected a couple of years later and married in 1954, beginning a marriage that lasted until his passing in 1989. Helga and Daniel raised their family in West Nyack, NY. After her youngest child entered grammar school, Helga returned to the workforce, serving in the HR departments of Lawler, Matusky & Skelly Engineers and Lederle Laboratories.

In 1984, Helga and Daniel moved to South Korea, where they lived for five years before returning home to the United States. Tragically, upon their return to the states, Helga lost Daniel to a heart attack. Through her resilience, Helga re-established a life that allowed her to maintain her financial and residential independence for the rest of her days. In 2008, she returned to Germany to visit her hometown, where she honored her family’s memory through the laying of Stolpersteine.

Helga was fiercely independent, direct, proud, emotionally strong, determined, and loving, with a great sense of humor. She was a steady, comforting presence to everyone who knew her, as well as a wonderful friend and a woman of quiet strength and sharp intelligence. Throughout her life, she delighted in playing Mah Jongg, Canasta, Bridge, and Rummikub with friends—a love of play and companionship she passed down to her grandchildren. She also enjoyed investing and closely followed the stock market.

Helga was preceded in death by her sister, Edith; her mother, Grete Herz; her father, Ernst Eichenwald; and her beloved husband, Daniel Earl Klion.

She is survived by her children, Pamela (Michael), Roger (Ellen), Douglas (Robin), and Andrea; her grandchildren, Zachary (Julie), Danielle, Kim (Ben), Bryan, Josie, Alex (Kim), Elisa, Zoe, and Emily; and her great-grandchildren, Sage, Cole, Sloane, Eli, Jacob, and Oliver.

She was deeply loved, and she remains deeply missed.