News

By Emily J. Minor

DELRAY BEACH — Lisl Bischof Ekvall, a native of Vienna, Austria, who fell in love with a U.S. Navy man after the war and moved to the states — died April 17 after a sudden hospitalization. She was 85.
Mrs. Ekvall married her husband, David Ekvall, in Delray Beach in 1959, and she had lived here since, raising the couple’s two sons, Erik and Christopher, in the area.
A widow since 1980, Mrs. Ekvall earned a doctorate degree in philosophy from the University of Vienna and after World War II worked as an interpreter for the American occupational forces. She often translated war documents and even served as the language liaison when the U.S. government had to hand over individuals to the Austrians, said her son, Erik.
Erik Ekvall said his parents met in Austria when the country was still divided into sectors and Austrians couldn’t move freely from one area to the next. His father, David, was in a restaurant when a young woman approached and asked if he would take a letter to her friend in another sector. Since American soldiers could travel freely, the young Navy man agreed.
The woman’s friend was his mother, said Erik Ekvall. The two fell in love, came to the states, lived briefly in David Ekvall’s native Illinois, and then moved to Florida. While in Illinois, Mrs. Ekvall studied as a Fulbright scholarship recipient.
Through the years, Mrs. Ekvall loved walking her beloved beach. She did this daily, he said. “Huge, long walks,” said her son.
“She was very comfortable in her own skin,” said Erik Ekvall, who said his mother never had an interested in remarrying. “She had a group of good friends. She went for her long walks.”
Mrs. Ekvall lived for many years in her in-laws’ family home on Andrews Avenue in Delray Beach. Her husband’s parents had bought in Delray Beach in the 1940s and after they died, the couple moved their young family to that home. She lived there, said her son, until she moved to Seagate Towers condominiums in 1984.
Besides her two sons, Mrs. Ekvall is survived by four grandchildren and a sister and nephew in Austria.