Hertha Kilgus

KILGUS Hertha Hertha Kilgus, 87, of Toledo, Ohio, passed away Wednesday, December 12, 2007, at Kingston Residence and Care Center in Sylvania, where she had lived for three years. Hertha was born in Gottsche, Austria on February 29, 1920, to Pauline Hutter and Joseph Bachmayer. She emigrated from Vienna to the United States in 1939, and worked as a seamstress at the famous Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York City. She was proud to have sewn the wedding gown for Eleanor Roosevelt. While visiting relatives in Toledo, she met William Kilgus at a German Schwaben picnic. They were married December 2, 1944, and she became the co-manager of Kilgus Meat Market that he had opened on Lagrange Street in 1943. They were a great team, with Hertha in charge of produce and imports. Thanks to her, they carried the finest chocolates and imported teas, which people would line up to purchase. They moved the store to Laskey Road in the late 1960s. Hertha had a creative sense that she exhibited in painting porcelain, stitching needlepoint, cooking and gardening. Friends said she could put a stick in the ground and it would grow. She loved to travel, and returned to visit her hometown in Austria. She was a member of St. James Lutheran Church, the German Retiree Society at Oak Shade Grove and an honorary member of Schw