Erika Maria Theresia Helene Jardetzky
May 16, 1929-March 10, 2008
Stanford, California

Erika Jardetzky, 78, an expert guide to European art and architecture and wife of Stanford Professor Emeritus Oleg Jardetzky, died peacefully at home March 10, 2008, after a long illness. She had been a Stanford resident for 33 years.

She was born Erika Maria Theresia Helene Albensberg on May 16, 1929, in Vienna, Austria, as the daughter of the government chemist and well-known amateur painter Karl Albensberg and Helene nee Pfeiffer. She grew up in Graz, Austria, where she graduated from high school and received her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Graz in 1958.

Her thesis on medieval stained-glass windows of churches in Styria became part of a standard reference work on this subject.

She spent two years in Rome as a postdoctoral fellow of the Austrian Academy studying early Christian paintings in the catacombs.

For several years she lived in Hamburg, Germany, as a culture correspondent for Die Welt, writing under the pseudonym Ben, and as an editor for the journal Konstanze. In 1964 she was briefly married to the Swedish anthropologist Dr. Albert Esker?d, director of the ethnological museum in Stockholm. Following their separation she returned to Austria, continuing as a freelance journalist, writer and school teacher. During vacations she also worked as a tour guide and lecturer for art-study tours in Italy and Greece, organized by the Studiosus agency in Munich.

In 1975 she married Oleg Jardetzky, with whom she had maintained a friendship since they first met as students on a skiing trip in the Austrian Alps in 1948, and they moved to California.

She helped raise Jardetzky's three sons by a previous marriage and continued writing. She conducted tours of noteworthy sites for participants of scientific meetings organized or attended by her husband and his colleagues in Italy, Greece and Southern France.

She enjoyed entertaining at home. Many visiting scientists, coworkers and students recall her excellent cooking.

In 1995 she was decorated with the gold honor insignia by the governor of Styria for her contributions to cultural life. She is remembered by many who have listened to her explanations of works of art and ancient architecture for her enthusiasm and sometimes biting wit.

Much of her life experience is recorded in her diaries, which for the period 1975-2001 number 37 volumes.

In the late 1990s she became forgetful and began losing command of the five languages (German, English, French, Italian and Swedish) in which she had been fluent, although she still spoke Italian with Pope John Paul II at a private audience in 1999.

By 2002 she became completely disoriented and since 2004 had not been able to recognize anyone.

But her husband recalls that her warmth and gentleness remained, and the two last phrases she retained in her "gentle dementia" were, "Thank you very much," and, "This is very good."

Tags: arts/media