Hildegard Eralie

Hildegard Wiltraud Lampoltshammer Eralie was born May 5th,1946 in Postmünster, Bavaria, Germany. She passed away at home in Orem, Utah, on March 29th, 2026 with her husband John at her side—fulfilling his promise to keep her at home, under his care.

Born to a single mother during a time of hardship in post-war Germany, Hildegard was raised primarily by her Grandmother and later a family friend who worked as a teacher and promised to provide Hildegard with an education. Despite what can only be described as a difficult and often lonely upbringing, Hildegard maintained great capacity for love and joy, which she found through books, art, and animals. In her lifetime, she kept many animals as pets, of whom she wrote “all our little spirits were so adored, so very hard to let go! I still shed tears for each of them.” It would be easy to give credit to the loneliness of her childhood for creating such a deep, and unwavering capacity for love within Hildegard, yet it is clear that Hildegard chose, from that young age, to not let her circumstances harden her. She proved resilient, courageous, and headstrong.

On November 20th, 1967 Hildegard married her childhood sweetheart in what she describes to be an “unceremonious” visit to the registrar’s office in Idar-Oberstein, Germany. They had a church wedding five days later, and their life together began. John, eventually a Command Sergeant Major in the US military, took his family across the world as he moved from post to post. During his deployments, Hildegard had sole responsibility of raising her children. On one early deployment, her infant son suffered a serious illness doctors were certain he wouldn’t survive. At the same time, there was news of an attack where John was deployed. In her darkest moments, where she feared her family was lost, she turned to faith—the course she always sought to follow. Her son recovered, and her husband was found safe, but this event triggered a multi-year religious search.

In 1977, at their new duty station in Germany, a neighbor introduced them to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Very quickly Hildegard knew this was the religion she had been looking for and she and John were baptized. Hildegard served in every calling there was from Primary Teacher to Stake and Ward Relief Society President among many others. She truly loved all those she served and was tireless in doing all she could. Nowhere was this more manifest than in her zeal for Family History and Temple work, which has connected us to hundreds of our ancestors.

Memories were among her most valuable possessions, along with photographs. In her final years, she committed to recording a complete accounting of her family history, which became a 300-page archive gifted to each of her descendants. This is a project that mattered deeply to her—one she was most proud of. We are grateful to have such detailed records of those who came before us, and to have her memories preserved so well.

Hildegard loved to travel. She often told stories from her travels as a young woman, of packing a suitcase full of canned goods and driving across Europe with girlfriends, and encouraged her family to do the same. “See everything,” she would say. In her lifetime, Hildegard traveled to countless countries and lived in dozens of cities across the US and Germany.

Hildegard was successful in building the kind of stability and connection for her husband and children that neither she nor John had growing up. She filled her homes with books, art, music, and laughter, which in turn led her children and grandchildren to do the same. As a mother, she made sure each of her four children felt precious while instilling high expectations for each of them. Her children learned to serve by watching her serve. Her children learned to persevere because she persevered.

As John’s 30-year military career came to an end, Hildegard convinced her mother to immigrate with the family to Utah, which she did, leaving behind their ancestral home in Reichersdorf, Germany. While she did not get to spend her early years under the same roof as her mother, Hildegard was grateful to spend the final years of her mother’s life with her, caring for her. When Oma came to Utah, the family home exchanged ownership and was later destroyed by a flood in 2016. This event, though tragic, encouraged Hildegard to pick up a paintbrush so that she could remember her childhood home as it was.

A gifted artist, Hildegard has blessed our homes with many paintings gifted to us over the years. Using her traditional Folk Art style, the subjects of her paintings were frequently her ancestral home in Bavaria and the surrounding area—the hills, the wildflowers—often combining reality with imagined lakes and wildlife that made the home seem even more fantastical and brought it back to life. As her health declined, this new passion for painting brought her joy and allowed her to express gratitude and love for the world around her and those she loved. Her final paintings were of this beloved home. Seeing the bright colors she loved to paint with is a permanent reminder of how she saw the world.

Her greatest wish is for her children, and grandchildren, to know God as she did. She knew she had a Father in Heaven who loved her and loved us. She knew personal revelation was available to us all and prayed we would all have the relationship with the Spirit that she did. We have no doubt she is welcomed with open arms into a great, big art studio in heaven, where, as she said in her final days, everything is “spill proof.”

Hildegard is survived by her beloved husband of 58 years and eternal companion, John Eralie, her four children, Michael, Anita, Angela, and Christina, their spouses Natalie, Kevin, Greg, and Ben, along with her ten grandchildren, Megan, Gabriel, John, Robert, Thu Hong, Carol, Chloe, Gretchen, Alice, and Joseph, their spouses Cass, Natalie, and Muzi, and great-grandson Liam. She is preceded in death by her mother, Hildegard Lampoltshammer and brother-in-law Jimmy Eralie.

Funeral services will be held at 11:00 a.m., Friday, April 3, 2026 at the Berg Orem Chapel, 500 North State Street, Orem, Utah. The family will receive friends from 10:15-10:45 a.m. prior to services. Interment will follow in the Orem City Cemetery. Condolences may be extended to the family online at www.bergmortuary.com.