Gone, never forgotten

Elisabeth (Gottschalk) Hanlin

ELISABETH GOTTSCHALK HANLIN

Memorial courtesy Shelby Berger Jakoby 

In 2002, Elisabeth’s obituary in the Washington Post said that she was warm, gregarious [and] compassionate; in 1958, the graduates of our class at Tottenville High School voted her the friendliest girl.  In the intervening years, Elisabeth gathered, attracted, acquired (and probably fended off) an enormous number of friends and acquaintances each of whom was the beneficiary of her voluminous correspondence.  For those lucky enough to fit into Lis’s bulging address book, postcards rained down from the many places she visited across the US and around the world.  People liked being with Elisabeth, and she surrounded herself with them in her home and at work.  In her post-retirement job as a librarian at the School for Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, she delivered journals and books, together with homemade oatmeal cookies for faculty, students and staff.  By her own admission, she was an excellent listener.

In 1962, Elisabeth graduated from Syracuse University with a BA in International Relations.  Much later, in 1971, she also earned a Master of Library Science.  During the undergraduate years, she was President of her sorority, Phi Mu, and active in student government.  Shortly after graduation, she married Thomas G. Hanlin and gave birth to two sons, Tom III and Jonathan. Tom’s career in the US Air Force took the family to Germany in 1970 where Lis improved her German, connected with relatives, worked in libraries and schools, and traveled throughout Europe using suburban Frankfort as home base.  After the boys were adults, Lis, Tom, and Louie, their aging black Labrador retriever, toured the US in an RV.  Truly, she bought the RV for the dog!

Beneath a surface of conviviality, Lis possessed a cutting edge intellect that she was able to utilize without overtly competing with those around her.  She was dedicated, passionate about her work, and fiendishly efficient, always with the wind at her back and energy to burn.  Among other positions, she served as Public Affairs manager for the Johns Manville Corporation, and director of State and Federal Government Affairs, first for the Sperry Corporation and, after the merger with Burroughs, Unisys.  With her professional and social skills precisely honed, Lis went big time; as President of Women in Government Relations (Washington, DC) she was invited to the White House and seated at the head table with President Reagan.  According to Tom, she shared not a whit of his politics but found him charming, nevertheless. There’s a photograph to commemorate the event.

After retirement from government affairs, she devoted herself to family, friends, libraries, and community service until the slow-growing cancer, which she probably had had for decades, surfaced.  She died after an illness of a year.  The crowds who attended her funeral service all regarded themselves as Lis’s closest friends.