Eva Rigney's memory board

This page has been built for Eva's family and friends to connect online and share their personal memories and stories. Please create an account and sign the guestbook and/or share a fond memory. *** Eva Ursula Rigney of Peachtree City, Georgia, passed away quietly on November 4, 2019, surrounded by family, after a brief illness. Her 91 years began in Berlin, Germany, where she was born between two World Wars to her loving parents, Hermann and Helene Goerlitz. She was 11 years old when Germany invaded Poland and World War II ignited, and just 17 on VE Day 1945 near its end. She worked as a translator for the U.S. Army after the war in shattered Berlin, fell in love with and married an American soldier, and moved to California. That marriage brought her three children who survive her: Katherine Helene (Jeffrey) Haugen, Michelle Karin (Clifford) Craig and Patrick Heinrich (Erin) Rigney. She completed her education and became a paralegal, working at prestigious firms in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley. Although her first marriage dissolved after twenty years, she found the true love of her life in Robert Maurice Rigney, a lawyer in another firm in the building in which she worked. They joined families with his children, also surviving her: Michael John Rigney, Roberta Kay Rigney, and Jonathan Leaf (Tricia) Rigney. She and Bob lived and worked together in Berkeley until his passing in 2007. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Contra Costa County, eventually settling in the Rossmoor community, before finally moving to Georgia in 2018. Her experiences as a teenager during the war, the losses from air raids and direct confrontations with soldiers from both sides of the conflict, gave her an indomitable spirit, determination, and compassion. In 1991, the Oakland Hills Fire destroyed her home and took with it every family heirloom and momento from among the precious few that escaped the ravages of war over four decades earlier. Yet she stood tall and determined, rebuilt th