Maria Swartzel (Nee Greschner)

Maria Swartzel (née Greschner) was born to eternal life on Monday, September 24, 2018, at the Harrison Home in Cedarburg, Wisconsin at the age of 85. Visitation will be held at the Mueller Funeral Home in Cedarburg on Thursday, September 27 from 4:30 to 5:30 P.M. A Christian service celebrating Maria’s birth to eternal life will begin at 5:30 P.M. Burial will take place Tuesday, October 9, 2018, at 10:00 A.M at the Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Burial procession will begin at the R. L. Leintz Funeral Home at 9:30 and proceed onto the Fort Leavenworth base. In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorials to First Immanuel Ministries Bold Enough Campaign or to the Dementia Program at the Aging and Disabilities Resource Center (ADRC) of Ozaukee County in Port Washington, Wisconsin. Maria was born on February 8, 1933 in Schmiedshau, Czechoslovakia (now Tužina, Slovakia). Schmiedshau, a 500+ year old town, was part of a German speaking enclave in Czechoslovakia. Maria experienced World War II first hand as a child. The German speaking enclave was called upon to serve Germany, confronted by partisans and ultimately occupied by Russians. She was separated from her parents and younger siblings as the German authorities tried to protect German speaking school children from the war front. When those attempts failed, she and her siblings were retrieved by her parents. The family tried to flee west but in the chaos of refugees, retreating armies, pursuing armies, and aerial bombardment they perceived it to be safer to go back home. This led to two stints in Russian concentration camps and subsequent escapes. Once outside of the camps, life continued in fear of hunger and Russians and partisans. It was brightened by those who acted boldly in kindness; the forester providing work and the aunt from Hungary showing up with food the day that the cupboards went bare. Then came the day when they were directed to the train station, loaded on trains and sent west to Böblingen, West Germany. A new chapter began as a refugee in a destroyed country. Growing into adulthood, she worked as a nanny, a seamstress, then a clerk in the canteen on the U.S. Army base in Stuttgart. Eventually, meeting her partner in dance and lifetime happiness, George Erle Swartzel. She and George were married. She and their family followed him throughout a new land and back to an old one whenever they could. In the process she learned English extemporaneously and obtained her GED. Maria shepherded their family with the assistance of George’s family in Kansas during his two tours in Vietnam. Army life took them many places between Hawaii and Germany and eventually to retirement in the Ozarks. There they enjoyed fishing, camping, polkas, travelling, and visiting their daughter and her family from New England to Scotland and finally, Wisconsin. Maria is survived by her loving daughter Heidi and her husband John, three beloved grandchildren Elizabeth (Bryan) Gramenz, Johann (fiancée Megan Pick) Hinck, and Katarina Hinck, one sister Anna Becker, one sister-in-law Karen (Steve) Swartzel, and many nieces, nephews, grand nieces and grand nephews. She was preceded in death by her husband George, son Wilhelm (Billy), daughter Michaela, parents Paul and Hermine (née Filkorn) Greschner, brothers Hans, Otto (Bärbel), and Josef Greschner, sisters-in-law Bärbel (Otto) Greschner, Geneva (Jim) Swartzel, and Angelika (Steve) Swartzel, brothers-in-law, Jim and Steve Swartzel and Uni Becker, nephew Uwe Greschner, and niece Sabina Becker.