Elaine Kosseff (July 27, 1926 - February 12, 2024)
In the tender compassion of our God, Elaine Kosseff died peacefully in her home at Wartburg on Monday morning, February 12, 2024. She was 97.
Elaine was born in South Gate, California, to Lloyd and Magdalin Diestler on July 27, 1926. Her father died of a sudden heart attack when she was just 12 years-old. Elaine was an only child and outlived every extended family member: Elaine’s last cousin died a few years ago.
By the 1960s, she was working as an administrative assistant in the Los Angeles office of Price Waterhouse. She jumped on an opportunity to transfer to the New York office, fulfilling a long-held dream to live in New York City. This move led not only to the fulfillment of a dream but to what would become two enduring loves of her life: a fortuitous encounter with Jerome (Jerry) Kosseff and a walk down Lexington Avenue where she discovered Saint Peter’s Church. The Church came first.
Elaine joined Saint Peter’s in the 1960s and immediately became a part of this community’s rich artistic and literary life. During the COVID19 pandemic, Elaine was one of the first persons – in her mid-90s! – to set up a computer to ensure she could join the monthly book discussion group by zoom. (Zoom was an upgrade from a speaker phone.) Elaine was a deeply faithful and profoundly spiritual person. She was proud to be a part of a Lutheran community that didn’t see denominational identity as a defined limit, but as an invitation to embrace others. For her, this wideness was also personal.
On May 23, 1971 Jerry and Elaine were married by The Rev. Dr. Ralph E. Peterson in a service in the “old” Saint Peter’s. Jerry, Jewish by birth, was a decade older than Elaine and had been married. Elaine was fond of saying marriage to Jerry didn’t simply give her a husband, but an entire family. For someone whose birth family was so small, this larger family meant the world to her. Any and every conversation with Elaine turned to Peter (deceased) married to Pamela with grandchildren Alex and Lauren, and great-grandchildren Gus, Eli and Luke; Andrew married to Nancy with grandchildren Katherine, Anne, and great-grandchildren Miles and Ellen, and Jacob; and Chrisotpher, married to Betty with grandchild Jeffery and great-grandchild Julia.
Shortly after their marriage, Elaine left Price Waterhouse and supported Jerry, a noted psychoanalysis, in his private practice, which he maintained along with teaching as an adjunct professor at Columbia University, nearly to the day he died. It would be understandable if after a marriage of 43 years, a death of one’s spouse would lead to introversion or isolation. Not for Elaine. She was often with friends, regularly with family and every week (sometimes twice a week or more) at Saint Peter’s. A few years after her 90th birthday, Elaine took the decision to move to assisted living where she began what could be counted as a sixth chapter of life!
At 92, preparing to move for the first time since she was in her 40s, Elaine sorted through belongings acquired over more than half a century. She left her and Jerry’s long-time apartment building in Manhattan and became a resident of Meadowview at Wartburg in Mt. Vernon, NY. There, in a Lutheran setting, Elaine became friends with Lutherans, of course, but also a large number of Roman Catholic women religious who had moved to Wartburg as their communities took decisions to close their mother houses. These beloved Sisters attended to Elaine in the final week of her life.
After a series of recent hospitalizations and subsequent admission to rehabilitation programs, Elaine determined the downsides of ongoing medical intervention no longer balanced the increasing number of physical ailments. She arranged with her family to return to her Meadowview apartment from Wartburg rehabilitation and enter hospice care. I spent Sunday afternoon with Elaine, her daughter-in-law, Pam, and her granddaughter, Lauren. After a sharing the Eucharist, anointing with oil, laying on of hands and prayer, we concluded:
Faithful God, give comfort and strength to Elaine as she follows Christ in the path that is now set before her. Give wisdom and faithfulness to all of us who are companions along this way, that we may journey beside her, watch and wait with her, and with your help, bear witness by our presence and prayer to your love.
Then, this great doxological praise of God:
Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine; glory to God from generation to generation among God’s people forever and ever. Amen.
If Elaine had any hesitation in dying, it was because she knew the sorrow it would bring, particularly to her family. After nearly a century of life, she was a matriarch at least twice over. Several visits from family, friends and members of Saint Peter’s these last several months and especially the last few weeks, helped Elaine to trust that while we would all mourn her death, we would also and very readily celebrate her long, rich and faithful life stretching from generation to generation, and beyond.
Elaine will be buried next to Jerry in Cold Spring, New York—not too far from Carmel, where she and Jerry once retreated to a small lake-side home—at a private family service. On Sunday, April 28, at the 10:30 a.m. Mass, we will remember her, celebrate her life and commend her to God’s tender care.
