Elaine Benz

Elaine Benz, Feb. 16, 1924 – Dec. 29, 2022

Elaine Benz, age 98, departed from this world and into the next December 29, 2022 at Layton Terrace Senior Community in Greenfield, Wisconsin, after a rich life filled with people who loved her. She outlived two husbands and many friends, but left bountiful warm memories of her beauty, kindness and gentle nature.

She was born Elaine M. Poggenburg to Walter and Theresa (Dobretzberger) Poggenburg, as an only child, and grew up in Milwaukee and Wauwatosa. She attended Saint Anne’s Grade School, where she met her future husband Lorenz Lueders and many lifelong friends, and South Division High School.

Elaine and “Lorry” were married on June 1, 1946, and had four children: Diane, Jim “Jimmy,” Richard “Rick”, and William “Bill.” They shared a duplex with her parents on North 53rd Street in Milwaukee for nearly twenty years before moving to a home on North 44th Street.

Before her marriage, Elaine worked at Purity, her father’s potato chip company. She and Lorry ran a franchise ice-cream shop for a year. Later, she worked as a clerk at a Milwaukee convenience store called Winkie’s and for more than twenty years at Woolworth’s at Capitol Court, where she would dress up as the Easter Bunny on Easter.

Elaine and Lorry’s life-long friends included Tony and Shirley Kartaly, Franny and Alberta Almekinder, Howie and Trudy Strupp, Dorothy and Bob Schiebenes, and Dolores and Al Kubiak. Elaine and some of these women belonged to a card club that met regularly for more than 70 years.

Elaine loved to dance and sing; she produced a packet titled “Sing Along with Elaine” for use at parties, of which there were many. She was a good cook and loved to entertain; family get-togethers were of great importance. She was famously well-organized, from the labeled shelves of soup cans in her basement to the hymns she picked out for her funeral, years in advance.

Elaine was preceded in death by her son Jim, who was killed at age 19 when a bus crossed an expressway median and crashed into his car; by her parents Walter and Theresa; and by her first husband, Lorry, who died of cancer in 1985 at age 62. Four years later she remarried, to Donald Benz, whose wife had also passed. The two, who had known each other since they were toddlers, were happily married for 25 years, until Don’s death in 2014.

She is survived by her three remaining children and Diane’s husband Mark, Rick’s wife Kathy, and Bill’s wife Linda Falkenstein; grandchildren Joe Roth and his wife Colleen Roth, Jill Baake and partner Tom Krueger, and Jesse Lueders and wife Lauren Morrison; great-grandchildren Caden Roth, Nathan Baake, Rylan Baake and Felix Morrison-Lueders; nephews Mark and Christopher “Kirby” Wackniak and nieces Lynn Ann Reesman and Nancy Riegler, and their families; and by Don’s brother, Jim, and his three sons, Jay, Jamie and Joel.

In October 2021, the Regency of New Berlin, a senior care facility where Elaine had lived for ten years, including several with Don, decided she had become too much work and evicted her, with no advance notice, one day to the next. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services investigated and determined that the Regency, owned by ProHealth Care, had violated state administrative code and imposed fines totaling $1,500. But when the Regency appealed, the state backed down and rescinded the fines. These events were detailed in a series of articles by Bill Lueders in The Progressive magazine and other national and Wisconsin publications, and in an investigative report by Bryan Polcyn of Fox6 in Milwaukee. Google “Elaine Benz eviction.”

Elaine’s family appreciates the good care and compassion provided by staff at Layton Terrace and at the Regency, before management kicked her out.

A visitation will be held at Krause Funeral Home, 12401 West National Avenue, New Berlin, Wisconsin at 3:00 PM on Friday, January 6, 2023 followed by a memorial service at 4:00 PM.