Helga Epley

Helga Louise Epley (nee Rothemel) was born in the German village of Rimpar, a small suburb close to the major city of Wurzburg, in the Franconian region of Bavaria on 9 October 1948 to Herman and Wilhelmina Rothemel. She was the youngest of 3 children with an older sister and brother, both now deceased.

Helga was a precocious child with a quick wit and a very high energy level, but she also learned from her mother typical Teutonic traits such as cleanliness, thrift, and good German cooking. By the time she was a teenager, she had developed into an a tall, slender, and athletic young woman with a vivacious personality and a can-do attitude.

Helga entered the workforce in the city of Wurzburg as a young teenager and quickly found work as an apprentice in several different professions while also attending night school. It was during this period that she found she had an ear for languages, and thus picked up a lot of English, a little Dutch, and some Hungarian. The English language came easy for her in part because of the high concentration of US Army soldiers in the Wurzburg area, which provided her a lot of practice.

The 1970s was a busy decade for Helga. Her natural poise, posture, and beauty led to several years of work as a runway model, showing expensive dresses, furs, and jewelry. She earned a very good salary, and travelled throughout Germany with her modelling agency, although it led to extended absences from home. Her personal life during that decade was challenging after experiencing a short-lived marriage, and the birth of a daughter, Tanja Sonja. Helga took parenthood seriously and loved her daughter dearly but had to juggle being single mother while supporting her small family. Helga’s father passed away in 1977, so her mother pitched in to assist her, primarily with childcare for Tanja. Helga never forgot the help her mother provided during those years and remained devoted to her mom for the rest of her life.

In the 1980s, with her modelling career over but her language skills intact, Helga found work with the US Army at Leighton Barracks in Wurzburg, the major American headquarters in the area. Her job as a transportation counselor required her to figure out the shipping requirements for individual US Army soldiers. This meant she had to do one-on-one interviews, in English, with American soldiers. The office was hectic at times and she was always busy. Helga also was required to read English and follow the sometimes arcane, always complicated, US Army and Department of Defense transportation regulations. Like any good German, she strictly followed and enforced these regulations, sometimes to the chagrin of the few American soldiers who wanted to bend the rules. This also placed a premium on Helga’s use and knowledge of English, and her English improved dramatically.

For Helga, her job was not always “all work and no play.” In a chance encounter in 1985, seemly ordained by providence, Helga met an American officer with whom she would marry and spend the rest of her natural life with. The officer’s name was William (Bill) Epley and they married a mere 4 months after they met. Both were 36 years old.

After the couple married and moved in together with Helga’s daughter, Tanja, they lived 3 more years in Germany. In 1987, Helga gave birth to their son Bryan in Wurzburg. William also had a son, Bill, and daughter, Melissa, from his former marriage although these children lived with their mother. Helga accepted, embraced, and genuinely loved Bill’s children, Melissa and Bill, as if they were her own children. And William adopted under German law, Tanja, as his own child. Their blended family sometimes presented challenges for both Bill and Helga, but it was Helga’s charm, positive personality, boundless energy, and above all, her infinite love, which made it work.

The Army ordered Bill back to the US to the Washington, DC area in 1988 and of course Helga and her family moved with him. The move was not easy for Helga, but she threw all her energy into it, determined to make a real home for their new life in America. They bought a new house in Germantown, MD, and lived there for the next 27 years, until both Bill and Helga retired.

Never one to sit idle, Helga quickly secured a new job as a dental office manager in Bethesda MD. She was a natural as an office manager, especially with her background in accounting and in juggling appointments and work schedules. But what she really loved was the people part of the job. It allowed her to meet and interact with so many different people, particularly from the foreign embassies in the DC area. Helga’s smile and outgoing nature benefitted the dental office by winning and keeping new customers. As a result, she was offered jobs in several larger dental offices but turned them all down. It was while she was working in Bethesda, in 1997, that Helga became an American citizen, giving up her German passport and fully embracing her new country.

With all their children out of the house and into new careers of their own, Helga decided to retire at age 60 and Bill retired 5 years later at 65. Together, they built a new home in Gettysburg, PA, and lived 10 care-free retirement years. Both Helga and Bill loved to travel and so they went on numerous cruises, bought an RV to explore all the 50 states, and always tried at least once a year to fly to Germany to visit her relatives.

Helga remained relatively healthy until doctors noted changes in her blood around 2012. Further testing revealed that her immune system was slowly attacking her own liver,

causing scaring. Helga’s autoimmune liver cirrhosis reached critical levels by 2022. Walter Reed Military Medical Center doctors urged her to enter a liver transplant program or enter hospice. Given her age, Helga chose the latter and entered hospice for six months. Remarkably, by late 2022, her condition stabilized and she even seemed to improve.

Granted a reprieve, Helga and Bill moved to Florida in 2024 to be nearer daughter Melissa and her family as well as the nicer weather. But Helga knew the score and she had made peace with her fate. In home hospice since early January 2026, she finally succumbed on May 5th.

“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so…

… One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.”

John Donne

Please visit https://give.mayoclinic.org/give/733902/#!/donation/checkout and complete the online form. Under “Designate my gift to...”, please select “Other” and manually enter “Mayo Clinic for Mayo Clinic Jacksonville Liver Transplant Program.” Under “Tribute Information” please indicate the gift is in memory of Helga Epley.

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