Lydia Königer

It was a shock yesterday to find pinned on the noticeboard in our building's lobby the announcement that Frau Königer, my landlandy and the spokesperson for the owners of the flats, had died. Apparently she had been battling for a long time a debilitating illness of which I was quite unaware... she always enquired after my health!

Lydia Königer will be missed. She was fierce in her fight with the city authorities when parking on both sides of our narrow street prevented the sanitation trucks from passing and garbage amassed uncollected. 

She and one of our neighbours (the man on the right) successfully brought about a reconfiguration of the parking slots on Ansbacherstrasse. Frau Königer also penned from time to time notes in elegant handwriting reminding tenants and owners alike of their responsibilites as civilized residents. If their tone was sometimes that of an epistolatory 'erhobene Zeigefinger' (the wagging of an admonishing finger), in person she was always friendly and I cannot imagine the building without her benign presence.