In the 1940s, on opposite sides of the globe, two strangers took a stand for their beliefs and suffered vastly different consequences. Then they found each other and fell in love.
Twelve-year-old Lillian Gobitas refused to salute the American flag at her school in Minersville, Pa. On the other side of the Atlantic, Erwin Klose took a stance against the German state.
In result, Lillian was expelled from school. Klose was sent to a concentration camp.
Years later the two would meet in Germany as missionaries. A language barrier was not enough to keep them apart.
Klose took a course in English, and the couple married in 1954.
He always said he could still feel the electricity when they touched through their 43 years of marriage, said their daughter. Erwin Klose died in 1997.
Lillian Gobitas Klose died in her Fayetteville home Friday of cancer. She was 90. A memorial service will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Banquet Hall of Jonesboro, 990 Pointe South Parkway, Jonesboro. Overflow will be directed to the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 9901 Simpson Road, Jonesboro.
“She had a very positive way of looking at life,” said her daughter Judy Klose. “She was fearless.”
Her decision not to salute the flag came from her strong belief against pledging her life to a human government.
But it came just when the United States was about to enter World War II. With an interest in patriotic unity, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 against Jehovah’s Witnesses in Minersville School District v. Gobitis. The suit enraged the community.
“It was a very scary time,” Klose said, recalling stories her mother told her. Once, “they were all in the car and a mob came and tried to flip the car over.”
The oldest of six children, she knew the repercussions but she was “always courageous to speak,” said Klose of her mother.
She instilled that courage in her children and siblings. “She blazed the trail” said sister Grace Reinisch.
She took what she learned from the experience to educate others.
She pursued a life of religious service, studying foreign missionary service at the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead in New York state and graduating in February 1954.
“She was always forgiving and saw the best in people,” said nephew David Yubeta.
In addition to her daughter Klose is survived by sisters, Jeanne Fry of St. Petersburg, Fla. and Grace Reinisch of Hampton, Ga., and brother Paul Gobitas of St. Petersburg, Fla. Son Stephen P. Klose preceded his mother in death.
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