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Gerda Iven Balding Germany to USA

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Gerda Iven Balding Germany to USA

Posted: 15 Sep 2010 9:24AM GMT
Classification: Obituary
Gerda Iven Balding, 95, of Amherst, Massachussetts passed away Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2010 at the Center for Extended Care, Amherst, MA.

She was born on March 4, 1915, in Hamburg, Germany, a daughter of the late Paula (Troeglen) Iven and C. Max Iven of Hamburg, Germany.

Mrs. Balding was born into the worst economic and subsequent political times that country has ever seen. She was the youngest of three children, two sons and a daughter, born to a German military naval officer and his wife, formerly of Kiel, Germany.

She attended and graduated from the Elise-Averdieck Gymnasium (then Lyceum), which was an all-girls’ private school affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
She then spent a year in Birmingham, England, where she became fluent in the English language and maintained that bilingual fluency her entire life.

She was also an avid pianist, a talent she retained and used when she was a frequent accompanist for her Lutheran church. She was an accomplished seamstress and designed her own wedding dress when, in 1936, she married an American 18 years her senior, Curtis C. Balding, of Morgan County, Ohio, a chemical engineer who was employed abroad by the former Max B. Miller Company.

As a consequence of marrying a foreigner, she automatically lost her German citizenship under Hitler’s regime. The young couple resided in Leghorn, and Rome, Italy, until the hostilities of World War II began.

After Germany invaded Poland, it was obvious from her journals that she knew she was to be separated from her family by wartime. She accompanied her husband to New York on the last boat to leave Mediterranean waters after Italy declared war in 1940. She traveled as an alien on a special non-citizenship passport.

In the United States in 1941, she studied at Bliss Business College, Columbus, Ohio participated in the Bliss College Orchestra as a pianist, and was subsequently granted American citizenship in Zanesville, Ohio, near her husband’s native residence.

As an American wife, she spent the war years in San Francisco, CA, and the New York areas while her husband pursued engineering in the oil business.

Two children, a daughter and a son, were born to them. She was employed by the Evangelical Lutheran Church at the time she was widowed, age 53, and she continued to be active with the Lutheran church – first employed at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Rockville Centre, NY, where she raised her family, then later at the Augsburg-Fortress Church Store in Hicksville, Long Island, where she worked until age 70.

She enjoyed visiting Germany and her friends and relatives there on a regular basis well into her 70s.
A highlight was attending the Bayreuth Festival with her parents in the 1950s after Germany had recovered sufficiently from the war.

She is survived by her daughter and son-in-law, Gerda I. (Balding) and Joseph G. Kunkel, of Amherst, MA and Scarborough, ME; her son, Curtis Terrence Balding of the Gallipolis Developmental Center (for the disabled), Gallipolis, OHIO; and also by her two grandsons and their wives, Peter and Kim Kunkel of Scarborough, ME, and David and Donna Kunkel, of Ticonderoga, NY; as well as one great-grandchild, Yvonne Sophie Kunkel.

She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Curtis C. Balding; and her two brothers, Erwin C. Iven, Munich, Germany, and Karl Max Iven, (“Mumm”), who was killed in Norway during World War II.

She adored her brothers and her grandsons, and was very attached to her two nieces and nephew in Germany. She loved her daughter, loved and grieved her disabled son, and never recovered from the tragedy of his severe autism.

Calling hours are from 2-4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 12, 2010 at the Douglass Funeral Service, Amherst, MA. A Celebration of Life Memorial Service will be announced at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Music Fund of Immanuel Lutheran Church, 867 N. Pleasant St., Amherst, MA 01002.

Obituary and register at www.douglassfuneral.com.





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