Remembering her mother Rosel Schlachter, Ellen Schlachter Knell says, “I might have been the only teen who did not have problems with her mother. She was so giving.”
Rosel Schlachter died in Pasadena on Aug. 11 after a long illness. She was 93.
For years, Schlachter and her late husband, Max, made their home in Oakland. They raised two kids, belonged to East Bay synagogues and lived the good life. But their story began years earlier in Germany, when the two young Jews fled the coming Holocaust in 1937, making their way to America.
The couple separated for a time. She lived in New York and he moved to St. Louis where he earned his medical residency. Eventually, Max Schlachter found work as a doctor in rural Utah.
In 1946, the family moved to Oakland. There, he launched his medical practice, with Rosel serving as his office nurse. The family belonged to Oakland’s Temple Israel and later Congregation Beth Jacob, of which Max served as president for a term. A library at Temple Israel was later named in honor of Max Schlachter.
“She was an incredible mom, an incredible grandma and an incredible great-grandma,” says Knell of Pasadena. “One time I had a horrendous flu. I called Mom and she was on a plane so fast. She took care of us. My husband spoke at the funeral and he said he doesn’t know where all those mother-in-law stories come from.”
After her husband of more than 50 years died in 1995, Schlachter went into a slow decline. She moved to Southern California to be closer to her daughter.
Her last years were difficult, especially after losing her husband. Remembers Knell, “One day she said to me, ‘Do you think God forgot me?’ But even at the end when her mind wasn’t as good, she was always wonderful.”
Rosel Schlachter is survived by her children Ellen Schlachter Knell and Fred Schlachter of Berkeley; sister Hedy Goddard; seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.