Elizabeth Louise Klein's Obituary
Elizabeth Louise Pfahning Klein died peacefully at the Palace Gardens in Homestead, FL. She was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1930 to Rose and Bernard Pfahning and older brother Jerome. The family moved to Waterloo, Iowa when Elizabeth was young. She received radiography training at the University of Iowa Hospital in Iowa City and became a certified X-ray technician in 1952. She had a brief and unsatisfactory marriage which was later annulled. While married, she moved with her husband to Jacksonville, FL. After separation she settled in Miami, FL where she worked as a radiographer in orthopedics and bought a lovely house on a canal which she decorated fashionably and cared for lovingly. The rest of the family eventually followed her to Florida. Her brother, Jerome, settled in Key West and her parents in Sebring.
Elizabeth earned an Associates of Arts Degree from Miami Dade Junior College, a Bachelor of Science in Health Science in 1975 and a Master of Science in Management in 1978 from Florida International University. She wrote and self published a book entitled: The Break-even Point: A Guide to the process of Management for the Medical Office which she sold in the US, Australia, Hawaii and used in her own consulting business.
She became an avid traveler and left behind a map on her wall criss crossed with markings of her many trips and a closet full of amazing photo albums. She described herself as a “travel addict” as this was one of her favorite things. If she was not on a trip she was at home planning the next one and gathering information for the one after that.
Among her other hobbies was her family genealogy which she researched diligently before the ease of today’s internet services. For many years she was a facilitator for the separated, divorced and widowed ministry at Saint Timothy’s Catholic Church in Miami.
Elizabeth was a collector of knowledge, a recorder of details and an archivist of her life and experiences that she lived on her own terms and preserved in meticulously tiny handwriting. A woman of intelligence, discipline, faith and sweet humor, Elizabeth outlived all of her immediate family, but will be remembered dearly by her niece, Robin Pfahning, and her family.
A mass in her honor will be held at St Timothy’s Catholic Church 5400 SW 102nd Avenue, Miami, FL on Sunday January 5th, 2020 at 7:00am.
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