Elfriede Stegemann

Elfriede “Evie” Helga Pinapfel Stegemann of Delmar, NY, died Sunday night, December 20, 2009, at 11:23 pm with her son and with her friend Ellen Myers at her side in the home she made with her son Norbert since September 28, 2006.
Born in Vienna, Austria, on September 22, 1922, she was the third daughter of the late Hauptmann Johann and Helene Stoll-Horak (Seltenhammer) Pinapfel. She was the devoted wife of the late Sgt. First Class Joseph John Stegemann, whom she married in Vienna on October 4, 1947. They met in the Staatsoper, Vienna, where Joe was the NCO in charge of the coal yards in the American sector in Vienna after WW II. He told Evie on their first date that he was going to marry her. They came to the United States in 1949 on an American military frigate with their two year old son and pregnant with another child. Evie became a U.S. Citizen at an immigration ceremony at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, NY, on November 11, 1954.
Her first home in the U.S. was in Floral Park, NY. She raised her five sons there until December of 1960 when she and Joe moved the family to their second home in East Northport, NY. In 1974 she and Joe moved to Port St. Lucie, FL, where Joe died at home in 1984. Evie kept their home until the fall of 2002 when she moved to Delray Beach, FL. In her retirement she continued with her gardens and her oil painting, which she had learned with Joe. She also sang in the Sweet Adeline’s International and was a lifetime member of the Disabled American Veterans Auxiliary and the International Hummel Club. Her love of animals led her to become involved in the rescue of retired greyhound racers in South Florida. She adopted two greyhounds, Cedar and G.G., that she loved and cared for until their deaths in 2001.
Evie was the cherished friend of Frau Elfriede Bartels of Schwerin, Germany, a city that was behind the Iron Curtain from 1945 until 1989. They met in Rostock, Germany, in 1938 after Evie was sent to work in that city after Hitler’s Army marched into Austria on March 12, 1938. They remained friends throughout their lives.
Evie is the mother of Ralph Ernest and his wife Barbara (Majuk) of Plano, TX, Norbert Lee of Delmar, Peter Francis and his wife Elizabeth Anne (Casey) of Huntington, L.I., Keith Lorenz and his wife Lorraine (Ploska) of Blue Point, L.I., and the late Dennis James Stegemann, who died Sept. 8, 1956, at age 2 yrs. 5 mos. in a drowning accident during a family picnic in Westchester County. She is the sister of Gertrude and husband Peter Willenberg, Voorhees, NJ, Johanna and husband Walter Nance of Berlin, NJ, the late Grete and husband Franz Mayerhofer, Dr. Ludwig Seltenhammer, Kathe Seltenhammer and Hella Glasner. She is the grandmother of Danielle Inman, Nicole Wansley, Erik Joseph and Alexander Keith Stegemann, Danielle Millington and Joanna Telshow and great-grandmother of Brett Inman, Jr., Alexander Millington and Ryan and Devin Telshow and aunt to many nieces and nephews here and in Austria.
“A truly amazing journey of a wife, mother, sister, friend and neighbor and woman that was not perfect, far from it, as she liked to be ‘the boss’ and sometimes, like all of us, said things she didn’t think through before she said them,” said her son Norbert.
The Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated at the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle in Delmar on Monday, December 28, with the Rev. David V. Berberian, Pastor, the Rev. John F. Tallman, Chaplain at St. Peter’s Hospital and of the Albany Fire Dept., the Rev. Trygve C. Tomlinson, pastor, West Stephentown Baptist Church, and the Rev. Susan H. Schultz, Pastor of the Stephentown Federated Church, officiating.
Calling hours were at her home at 92 Devon Road, Delmar on Saturday and Sunday, December 26 and 27. A Mass was also held at St. Anthony of Padua Church, East Northport, NY, the church that the children grew up in, on Wednesday, December 30, with the Rev. Lee Smith of Old Chatham, NY, officiating.
Calling was at the A. L. Jacobsen Funeral Home, Inc., 1380 New York Avenue, Huntington Station, NY, on Tuesday, December 29. Burial was with her husband and beside her son Dennis in the Long Island National Cemetery, Pinelawn, NY, on Wednesday, December 30.
In lieu of flowers, donations would be appreciated to the organization Elfriede worked so hard for during the last 15 years of her life, rescuing Greyhounds through Greyhounds As Companions, Inc., c/o Mrs. Patricia Colitsas, 1770 Delaware Tpk., Delmar, NY, 12054-5209, or the Greyhound Pets of America – Florida/SE Chapter, 7047 Belvedere Road, West Palm Beach, FL, 33411-3303.