CANTON, ILL. - For Elfriede Anton, 98, life was to be survived and enjoyed. The Austrian-born mother of three, grandmother of 10 and great-grandmother to 11, survived on epic levels. She barely escaped her homeland in the 1930s, forced out by the Nazis, who also claimed her only brother’s life, and spent the World War II years raising a family under attack in England by those same German forces. She eventually came to the United States to work as a nurse, got three college degrees in her late 50s and became a trusted member of her church, the Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Austintown. That full life came to an end for the longtime Mahoning Valley resident at 8:05 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 4, at the Graham Hospital in Canton, after suffering a broken arm and ensuing complications. She had been living in Canton, Ill., at the Courtyard Estates assisted living center since 2013. A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m., Feb. 14, at the Grace Lutheran, 162 S. Raccoon Road. Elfriede was preceded in death by her first husband, Otto Josef Braun, and then later by John Ralph Anton, her second husband. Also preceding her in death are her brother, Kurt Steinberg, and her stepdaughter, Silvia Anton. Elfriede was born on Feb. 12, 1916, in Vienna, Austria, to Adolf and Charlotte (Jellinek) Steinberg. Her parents provided an idyllic and comfortable early life for Elfriede. The Steinberg’s had a home in the city and a garden in the country, where Elfriede acquired her father’s “green thumb” and developed a love for gardening, planting everything from flowers to fruit trees and watching them grow. She fell in love with Otto Joseph Braun, a young Catholic, in Vienna. Otto, a handyman in his spare time, would make sure there was always something to be repaired around the Steinberg home so he could return to visit Elfriede. The two had to continue their relationship in secret when Nazis targeted those Gentiles consorting with Jews. The lovers often met at night, in an area where they could hide their rendezvous if others came around. The situation became so fraught with danger that Otto had to quit his factory job and head to Yugoslavia and eventually then to England. When she was barely out of her teens, she had to rescue her father after he spent months in the Dachau concentration camp. She bartered for her father’s life, going alone to the local Nazi headquarters to ransom him from their control. She was not as lucky with her only and younger brother, Kurt. Not wishing to leave, Kurt was being hidden by friends but was turned in by a Nazi sympathizer in Vienna and was captured. He was sent to a concentration camp and executed for being Jewish. As Nazi power increased, Elfriede had to flee to England to avoid being sent to a concentration camp. In fact, she managed to catch the last train on which Jews could travel freely out of the Nazi-controlled country. While Elfriede made her way to England, where she reunited with Otto, her parents managed to make it to the United States, where they prepared the way for their daughter to eventually join them. She and Otto were married in 1939, and soon started a family. Their two daughters, Shirley and Eileen, were born in England. Otto joined the war effort with the British Army and Elfriede also contributed while raising a family in a war zone. Shortly after one of the girls was born, a German warplane was shot down and crashed behind their home. After the war, the family came to the United States, landing eventually in Peoria, Ill. A son, Michael, was born there in 1954. During her time in Peoria, Elfriede worked as a nurse in the newborn nursery department at St. Francis Hospital. A competent artist, she would decorate the windows of the hospital’s nursery each Christmas, hand-painting life-sized scenes of the nativity. After Otto died in 1960, she married John R. Anton in 1966, in Peoria, and moved with him and son Michael and stepdaughter Silvia Anton to Akron and then to the Youngstown area in 1969. She would spend the next 40 plus years in the Mahoning Valley. During that time, Elfriede was a member of the Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Canfield and then the Grace Lutheran in Austintown, where she was a popular member of many committees, clubs and activities of the church. She was also a frequent visitor to friends and former church members at Shepherd of the Valley nursing home facilities in Mahoning and Trumbull counties. She would also go back to school, to Youngstown State University, where her husband was a professor of geography and her son was a student, and from where she received three degrees in the 1970s. Her children will remember her as an accomplished cook, always having a full meal prepared for them and always gracing them with her prized Sacher torte on their birthdays. In addition to the church and school activities, Elfriede was a dedicated gardener. She would scatter-plant flower bulbs by the hundreds at her Austintown home delighting in the surprise popping up of tulips, daffodils, iris’ and other blooms during the warmer months. She also had an affinity for roses and fruit trees, scolding the squirrels and chipmunks when they would steal her favorite apricots and plums. She was a member of the Red Hat Society in Austintown, the Trinity Lutheran Church in Canton, and enjoyed stamp collecting, gardening, traveling and painting. For many years, she collected salt and pepper shakers from all over. Surviving are her children, Shirley (Bob Anderson) Ernst of Willington, Conn., Eileen (Alan) Weiss of Canton, Michael (Lori) Braun of Fort Myers, Fla.; 10 grandchildren; 11 great-grandchildren; two stepgrandchildren and two stepgreat-grandchildren. Her three children held a small family and friends memorial service for her in Canton the day after she passed because they would not be able to get to Ohio and also felt her Canton friends would appreciate attending that service. Cremation rites have been accorded. Entombment of the ashes will take place at the Green Haven Memorial Gardens in Ohio. - See more at:
www.vindy.com/news/t ributes/2015/feb/10/ elfriede-steinberg-b raun-anto/#stha 4951