[Leica] My mother is gone...

[jmaddox01 at suddenlink.net (Jack Maddox)]

Peter Klein wrote:
> LUGgers:  My mother, Emilie Klein, is gone.  She passed away at dawn 
> on Thursday morning.  Her younger sister and I were with her 
> throughout the final night.
>
> Emilie's years (1921-2009) spanned the Jazz Age, the Great Depression, 
> WWII, the 50s, the Age of Aquarius, the Space Age and the digital 
> revolution.  She was a courageous woman whose mobility was impaired by 
> polio when she was just a year old.  Through most of her life, she 
> could walk, but one leg was shorter than the other and she wore lifts 
> on one shoe.  The last couple of years, she was mostly in a motorized 
> wheelchair.
>
> Though she never got a college degree, she took courses at the New 
> School in New York, was an avid reader, and became a self-taught 
> librarian. She created the library at Temple Isaiah in Lexington, 
> Mass. and ran it for about 30 years.  She was a "people person" who 
> became friend, confidant and surrogate mother to many.
>
> My mother's influence formed the humanities half of my makeup, as my 
> father's formed the scientific/technical.  It was her example that 
> sparked my interest in photography.  On all our trips and family 
> outings, she would carry her Bolsey B2 rangefinder and Gossen Pilot 
> light meter.  She shot only Kodachrome. I have a heritage of hundreds 
> of slides, dating from about 1950. And she was a Leica user--after I 
> got my M2 about 1970, she bought a IIIf and brightline viewfinder, 
> which she used until she couldn't see well enough to focus.  She 
> didn't know much about photographic technique, but she did fine.
>
> Here are the three pictures that will stand with her memorial candle 
> at our house this week:
>
> From 1951-52, with my Dad (Kodachrome, slightly overexposed):
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/family/Misc1950s/19EmMilt52.jpg.html
>  
>
>
> October 2007, my favorite recent picture of her (B&W, of course):
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/family/SuzyOct07/L1002138EmBW-w.jpg.html
>  
>
>
> May 2008, at the Tulip Festival near Mt. Vernon, WA:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/pklein/family/tulips08/L1003317-prf.jpg.html
>  
>
>
> --Peter
>
>
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>
Peter,
 I am saddened to hear of your mothers passing. Her warm personality 
always came through in your pictures of her. She will be missed even to 
those of us who only knew her from your photos.
Jack