By Marjorie Searl
Elisabeth (Lies) Teutsch Blum was born in Nuremberg on October 3, 1894. Like her father, she was trained as a lawyer, but never practiced after her marriage to Frederick [Fritz] Blum, preferring to remain at home to care for their four children. Their oldest daughter, Maria, died of leukemia in Germany.
After the devastation of Kristallnacht, when she successfully and courageously struggled to have her husband released from Nazi imprisonment, they and their two surviving daughters emigrated to Palestine in 1939, where their son Moshe had settled and was among the founders of Beit HaArava, a well-known kibbutz originally located at the Dead Sea, now Kibbutz Kabri, and then moved to the United States.
She would later spend half the year in Israel away from harsh Rochester winters. She died in Rochester on July 11, 1987. She was remembered for her musical abilities and interests, as well as her prolific knitting.
