1927 - 2018
On September 12, 2018 at 4:08pm, Regina passed away in the comfort of home and in the arms of her son. With her remarkable resilience and fierce spirit, she had spent the entire summer at a Thornton physical rehab facility (following a brief hospital stay in June) bravely attempting to regain her strength and mobility. She returned home on September 9 and left us three days later. She died from complications of her congestive heart condition that she had struggled with for several years.
Regina was born on October 6, 1927 in Augsburg, Germany, immigrated to the United States in 1957, and settled in the Northglenn/Thornton area in 1978 with her husband and two children (and four dogs) after the completion of her husband's career in the U.S. Army.
As a child and young adult in Germany, Regina endured significant hardship both before and after World War II. After immigrating to the United States in 1957 with her new American GI-husband, she lived in rural western New York State where her daughter Ingrid was born. She struggled to adapt to the ways of small-town America, but made the best of her new beginning. Her husband was often stationed overseas, and she worked very hard cleaning houses to make ends meet. Her son Michael was born in 1965 and Regina was determined to make a stable home for her children. With her hard-nosed German work ethic and genuine enthusiasm for life, she impressed Michael Saloh and Dick Voigt (whose home she cleaned) and they hired her to wait tables at Mike Saloh’s Supper Club, a well-known restaurant they owned outside of Niagara Falls where Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio once dined, and where Regina finally earned a decent living. She formed a lifelong bond with Mike and Dick and remained a dear friend to both of them.
In the early 1970’s, the Army sent Regina and her family to Fort Eustis, Virginia to live for a few years, and again, her husband was often overseas. Regina accumulated several more lifelong friendships there, no doubt aided by her delicious home-cooked German meals and holiday baking, two of her favorite activities. The Army then shipped Regina and her family to Fort Polk, Louisiana in 1974, where she and her husband established a home in nearby Leesville. During her four years in Leesville, and with her keen sense of canine injustice and unbending will, she almost single-handedly improved the living standards for all the town’s stray dogs (which were plentiful) by drawing public attention to the squalid conditions at the local dog pound and by essentially maintaining it herself for a while.
But after four years, she had had enough of the heat and humidity of the Deep South. Having been liberated from the whims of the U.S. Army dictating where she must live, in 1978 she and her recently retired husband exercised their newfound freedom and chose to live among the natural wonders of Colorado (where they both had once visited) at the time when Tom Jackson, Lyle Alzado and the original Orange Crush defense electrified the State. As many of you know, she spent the next 40 years in the Northglenn/Thornton area charming her friends and neighbors, building a beautiful home and garden, and of course, caring for as many needy animals as her time and space allowed.
Regina is survived by her son Michael Bauer, her daughter Ingrid Bauer, and her husband Charles Bauer (from whom she had been long separated, but with whom she had remained friends) of Niagara Falls, New York. In addition, she is survived by her beloved older brother Raimund Holzmann of Augsburg, Germany, and her niece Gerda Rock, also of Augsburg, Germany, to whom she had always remained close.
Her cremation occurred on September 21, and a memorial service will be held in the chapel of Olinger-Highland Mortuary in Thornton, Colorado on October 20 at 2:00pm.
Fond memories of Regina and expressions of sympathy for her family may be shared at the guest book below.
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