12/02/2025
Edith Ludovici Christian, who lived a long and storied life, passed away on November 20, 2025 at the age of 94. She met a lot of people, learned a lot, taught others a lot, and adapted to enormous changes. She was smart, beautiful and talented. Her life might be viewed in chapters:
Europe and the War: Edith was born Edith Maria Cecelia Krammer in Vienna, Austria in 1931. As a child, she noticed strangers coming into the house regularly for short stays and then leaving again, and she recounted the times she had to hide in the coal cellar. She noticed that many of her peers in school suddenly disappeared, and she was teased by her teacher for wearing her hair the wrong way. Edith's favorite relative was her 66-year-old grandmother Maria. One day, Maria went to the hospital for cataract surgery and was instead euthanized by the N***s.
Edith was an excellent pianist at the Vienna Konservatorium. During the war, she was sent out of the country to Czechoslovakia along with other talented students and valuable instruments. After the war, at the age of 14, she made her way back to Vienna traveling with a woman, who had been her teacher, and two other students. People were friendly and let them sleep in their yards. At one point, a Russian officer advised them to avoid Russian soldiers leaving Austria. Despite an initial double language barrier, he was able to convey his warning when he and Edith's teacher realized that they both spoke French. Back at the Konservatorium, Edith met Bruno Ludovici; they were married in 1951. Bruno had heard that skilled technical people were at risk of being kidnapped into Russia, so Edith sold her piano and bought passage for the two of them to Canada.
Canada: Edith and Bruno were befriended by a customs agent who arranged their passage to the small village of Penny in the Canadian Rockies. There Bruno found work counting lumber board feet at a mill. Though the work was freezing, they were fortunate as others did not have work. While Edith was always trying to improve her English, she once purchased oil for baking at the local grocery only to discover after the fact that she had used cod liver oil! Back then she would often ask friends and neighbors if she still spoke with an accent, the accent she carried into her last days.
Bruno had a longtime friend, Hans, who was working on a Navy contract in Florida. Hans needed to return to Europe and recommended that Bruno take over the contract work. Soon, Edith found herself pregnant, alone and working as a domestic in Vancouver. A good Catholic, Edith regularly walked across town to the cathedral where they sat her down in front of the piano. Her playing coincided with a special event and was very well received. The bishop was so pleased, that the church paid for her maternity expenses.
Raising Children: Bruno was so successful in Florida that he impressed people, who knew influential people, who pulled strings at the state department, and in 1954, Edith came into the United States. She and Bruno lived in Stanford student housing where he was enrolled. They proudly became US citizens. Edith had five more children, in rapid succession. Bruno was busy with his career, and Edith did everything she could to raise a family with very little income. Edith sewed their clothes or obtained them through the campus trading post. The family had powdered milk in 50 lbs. bags and drank from empty lemonade cans. With Bruno's doctorate degree in electrical engineering in hand, things gradually improved financially. However, his advancing career meant several moves for the family, from Stanford Village to Santa Barbara to Goleta, CA and then to Raleigh, NC. In Raleigh, Edith volunteered to teach gym classes at Our Lady of Lourdes parochial school. Their next move was to Owego, NY. There she volunteered to teach Sunday school classes at St. Patrick's Church. She had her five sons become altar boys. She held a certificate in the Doctrine and Methods of Teaching Religion from the diocese of Rochester.
Prior to Owego, Edith rented a grand piano. In Owego she decided to buy one. She went to the piano store where they showed her their best pianos which Edith quickly rejected. She asked if that was all they had. No, they had an old beat-up piano in the back. Edith knew this piano had good bones. She bought it and sent it to Ithaca college to be rebuilt. Sixty years later it is still in Nicole's living room after traveling through life with Edith. Edith started teaching piano and soon had many students from all sides of the town. Edith was always in charge of the house and the yard in addition to all the other stuff you would expect. She was regularly planting fruit and flowering trees and bushes. She was quick to make sure paint got touched up, curtains and pictures well hung. She knew the ins-and-outs of the goings on in the neighborhood. Then in 1969 Bruno died.
Alone with Children: Edith earned her GED, a BA and then an MA in German Literature with an emphasis on Library Science from SUNY Binghamton. In the meantime, she was focused on providing for her children. She taught many more piano lessons- her recital in 1976 listed 33 students. She gave her own recitals at museums in Owego and Binghamton. Here is a link to a recital she performed at the Roberson museum in Binghamton, NY in 1971: Edith Recital She started work at IBM. These were difficult years for Edith, but she kept at it. The family stayed in the house in Owego, had food on the table and kept up with their individual pursuits.
Erich: In the early sixties while living in Raleigh, Edith and Bruno had a visit from Erich Christian who had been told by a Real Estate agent that he had just met another family who "talked like him." It turned out that Erich had known Bruno during a school lab class in Austria. They renewed their friendship. After both Bruno and Erich's wife had passed Erich was able to find Edith. They married in 1980, and Edith returned to Raleigh. They had 24 good years before Erich passed in 2004. They shared a love and talent for playing the piano and would play classical duets on two grand pianos in a living room especially reinforced for the pianos. Edith and Erich traveled a lot particularly to Europe and Austria. They organized family vacations in which children and grandchildren of both families often met. By the time she was in Raleigh again she was a bit of a garden expert. She had roses everywhere and, in the spring, so much was flowering that it was always memorable. Edith became adept at finding diplomatic, and appreciated, ways of assisting Erich's children when they encountered differing views from their father. As in most families, Edith's children took her cooking for granted. Not so with her step family. Edith was a wonderful Austrian cook and her step family greatly appreciated the wide variety of Austrian dishes she made. Goulash requires equal parts of onion and meat. Erich and Edith knew and understood each other well; they had a good relationship.
After Erich's passing Edith lived alone until her son Thomas moved in. Thomas and Edith were able to work together to keep the both of them going until Thomas' passing. A couple of years later Edith moved in with her granddaughter Nicole, in Jamesville, NY where she was able to continue playing her piano, sometimes getting to play piano duets, again with two grand pianos and her granddaughter Nicole. She missed her house in Raleigh, but she always appreciated the trees, wildlife, fresh air and visits by children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Edith was once described in a medical report as "non-confrontational". Apparently, this was unusual for a person in Edith's condition. She was always pleasant in her final years. She enjoyed her room and the outdoors. Edith appreciated and enjoyed the life she had and the life she was still living. As many things leave you, some things last longer than others. In recent years we were able to bring Edith to her piano. She would always look through her old music and finally settle on Mozart's Sonata XII, play it for 20 minutes, then start looking through her music again and repeat the same, unaware that she had just finished playing it. This was after many years of not playing. You can hear it here.
Edith was preceded in death by her parents, Georg and Maria Krammer (Szabo), her first husband Dr. Bruno Ludovici, her second husband Dr. Erich Christian, her son, Abraham Ludovici, her son, Thomas Ludovici, daughter in law, Dr. Kim Ludovici (Haley), son in law David Lawrence Wood.
Edith is survived by her sister, Ruth Schettek, of Vienna, Austria; her brother, Gottfried Krammer (Melada), of Znojmo, Czech Republic; her five children; Michael Ludovici (Dawn), of Lyons Falls, NY, George Ludovici (Dr. Carol Kinney), of Bronx, NY, Enid Ludovici Wood (partner Peter Effertz), of Bellingham, WA, David Ludovici (partner Mary Karpel), of Owego, NY, Stacy Stento Ludovici of Southborough, MA. her 13 grandchildren, Elizabeth Ludovici Emblidge (Kevin Emblidge), Eric Ludovici, Nicole Ludovici (Joe Cooper), Lyndsey Ludovici McKinstry (Matt McKinstry), Kelly Ludovici Brennan (Sean Brennan), Benjamin Ludovici (Elizabeth Hayes), Amy Ludovici, Mary Ludovici, Dr. Katharine Ludovici Pollard (Ethan Pollard), Dr. Julie Ludovici Ward (Chris Ward), Brian Ludovici, Jenna Ludovici Ward (Patrick Ward), Emily Ludovici Morgan (Zack Morgan); fourteen great grandchildren, who all know her as "Oma.".
Through 24 years of marriage to Erich, Edith bonded with and is survived by a stepfamily including children: Dr. Wolfgang (Barbara) Christian of Charlotte, NC, Patricia (Phil) Cooke of The Villages, FL, Elisabeth (Albe LaFave) Christian of Charlottesville, VA; eight grandchildren; nine great-grandchildren, to whom she was also their "Oma."
The family will receive friends, Monday, November 24, 2025 from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. at the Estey, Munroe & Fahey Funeral Home, 15 Park Street, Owego, New York. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated, Monday at 1:30 p.m. at St. Patrick's Church, 300 Main Street, Owego, New York. Burial will follow in the Parish Cemetery, located at 3881 Waverly Road, Owego, NY.
