Gisela Neubauer

Gisela Erna Amalia Kuchlenz- Neubauer passed away March 22 in her San Bruno home of 60 years.

Born on the island of Helgoland in the North Sea of Germany July 8, 1931 she grew up with her parents Carl and Ella, sister Inga and two brothers, Erwin and Herwig in their family home.

While in bunkers during one of numerous air raids in 1944, the home was destroyed and the family became separated and was relocated to the mainland in and around Hamburg.

Barely a teenager, hungry, without a place to live and her family’s whereabouts unknown for quite some time, she took work as a maid in various households and regional farms.

She was thankfully reunited with her family in 1945 and continued doing maid type work.

Several years later on her own and sponsored by her uncle in California she made the decision to try America.

In the spring of 1951 at the age of 19 she arrived in San Francisco where she married her first husband Max Graf, had two sons, divorced and remarried her husband Eduard Neubauer. Then with their combined four sons, they settled down in San Bruno in 1963 and had their last two children.

Raising a family of five boys and one daughter Gisela was one of those amazing people who had many daily roles. Not only did she maintain the household, cooking and cleaning and raising the children single handed, she simultaneously worked in the family boiler business. As office manager she often brought her young children in with her and in later years even her grandchildren. She had worked as an art gallery sales person, bookkeeper and worked the counter at the local donut shop. Gisela made friends wherever she was.

She loved to read poetry and literature, murder mysteries and the Bible.

She spoke of an ambition to be a detective, a career she would have most certainly excelled at.

Gisela had six children; Bob Graf, Doug Graf (deceased), Ed Neubauer, Eric Neubauer, Erwin Neubauer, Linda Kurtz, fourteen grandchildren and eleven great grandchildren.

Gisela’s gift for story telling, and her detailed memory, sharing her experiences, particularly as a child growing up in WWll were told with such clarity and passion, they will forever be in our minds, hearts and will be shared with generations to come.

Gisela was a dutiful wife a devoted loving, giving mother, grandmother and great grandmother to the end of her days as well as a devout Jehovah’s Witness for the last fifty years of her life. She found meaning and comfort in her congregation while volunteering and serving tirelessly to members of her church and the community.

Her son Douglas precedes her in death; husband Eduard (divorced in 2008), older sister Inga, youngest brother Erwin, sister-in-law Viola and nephew Peter.

She is survived by her beloved brother Herwig Coolins, sister in law Dagmar, nephew and niece Ingo and Ingrid and nephew Rolf Kuchlenz.

Gisela’s life was one well lived. Her commitment, hard work, selfless love and joy for people and gratitude for the gifts this life offers, is a forever example to all she touched.

Her family, her friends, her faith brothers and sisters, we are all beneficiaries of the life she exemplified and stood for…

“Omi” is forever in our hearts.