A Celebration of Elisabeth’s life will be held at Habing Funeral Home in Gilroy, CA on Saturday, July 18th, 2015, at 1:00 P.M. Internment of Elisabeth’s Ashes will be conducted at a later date, in Rochester, MN, at Calvary Cemetery. Elisabeth will be laid to rest with her mother, Vicktoria Koukal.
Elisabeth Crews, 74, of Gilroy, CA, passed away unexpectedly at her home, on June 24, 2015.
She was born in Vienna, Austria to Karl and Viktoria (Kopacek) Koukal.
She graduated from Canoga Park High School in 1958 and returned to Vienna where she graduated from the Bundes-Realgymnasium fur Madchen und Frauenoberschule, Wien, IV in 1959. She received her Bachelor of Science (1962), Master of Science (1966) and Doctor of Philosophy (1977) degrees all from the University of Minnesota.
Elisabeth married Stuart Thompson in 1960 and their son, Eric was born in 1962. She was divorced in 1970 and married her husband, Charles Crews, on July 26, 1976, in Decorah, IA.
Elisabeth had two very successful careers. Her first career was as a high school, junior college and university instructor from 1962 thru 1979 in Minnesota at Robbinsdale High School, Rochester Community College and St. Olaf University respectively. Her second career was as a Firmware Engineer at IBM Corporation from 1983 thru 2006, where she was a very successful tester and firmware developer for IBM disk drives produced between 1983 thru 2006.
Many memories of Elisabeth will live on with Charles, her husband of 39 years, her son, Eric Thibodeaux-Thompson from Springfield, IL, her sons, Wayne Crews, and Charles (Chet) Crews, Jr. from Cary, NC, and Craig Crews from Clovis, CA. She will also be sorely missed by her five grand children – Julia, Caroline, Anna and Andrew Crews and Emma Thibodeaux-Thompson, as well as her two closest friends and house mates Linda Reyes and William Cummings.
