Helga Speyer of New York City, a longtime resident of 160 East 84th Street apartment 8C, died on Monday, May 31, 2021, Memorial Day, at The Village on Kensington Place, Meriden, Connecticut. Her husband, Gunther Speyer, predeceased her in 2000.

Helga Lina Müller was born to Ernst Heinrich and Albertine Bertha Caroline (Lina) Müller
on May 10, 1937, in Bremen, Germany. A child during World War II, Helga withstood the frequent Allied bombings and perils of war.  Mrs. Speyer was educated in Bremen public schools. Upon finishing her Baccalaureate, she took a two-year work visa in New York City, where she learned English by typing the scripts of daytime soap operas. She later worked in the Empire State Building for a paper and aluminum import/export business.  After dating her boss, Gunther Speyer, she returned home to Germany only to be chased by Gunther, who proposed and then married Helga on January 12, 1962, at City Hall in Bremen.

Returning to New York, Helga and Gunther moved into a rent stabilized new apartment in 1962. After giving birth to her only child, Mrs. Speyer stayed at home for ten years to raise her son. The family’s time in New York was interrupted for eighteen months by a relocation to Frankfurt, Germany by Mr. Speyer’s company Lechner Medals of Greenwich, Connecticut, after which they returned to their apartment on 84th street.

In 1982, Mrs. Speyer returned to the work force as an administrative assistant, first for a lawyer and then a financial investment firm. She survived the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and shortly thereafter retired.

Helga was an avid hostess and cook. She enjoyed large dinner parties with friends and family and always insisted on cooking the meal from scratch. She believed in the bonds made over food and spirits. She was a hidden artist who drew various sketches and later loved to pencil in adult coloring books. She embroidered Christmas stockings for her grandchildren, enjoyed complex 1000-piece puzzles, and read the entire New York Times daily.

Mrs. Speyer loved to travel in Europe, enjoyed the beach in the Hamptons to the point she moved with her son to a rental in Sag Harbor from Memorial Day to Labor Day with her husband joining them on weekends, played tennis, and sat by the ocean. She was a true and trusted friend and kept up relationships, mostly over the telephone, with a wide range of family and friends. 

Mrs. Speyer is survived by her son and daughter-in-law, Andrew and Clare Speyer of Wallingford, Connecticut, as well as a step daughter Barbara Hochman of Jerusalem, Israel, and two grandchildren, Elizabeth and Edward Speyer, and two step-grandchildren, Michael and Benjamin Hochman. She was also very close to Gunther’s nephew and wife, Tom and Bettina Speyer, of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, and Barbara’s husband’s family. Helga survived two brothers, Rudy (died in Sevastopol, 1941) and Erich Müller (died 1989), of Bremen. Mrs. Speyer has been an active aunt to Erich’s children Jürgen, Peter (Pelle), and Niko Müller, all of whom reside in Germany.

Mrs. Speyer loved all that New York could offer from musicals to art showings to simply walking the sidewalks.  She enjoyed fine food and frequented lobster, Chinese, and French restaurants on the upper east side. She went to a German butcher in the same Yorkville neighborhood for 57 years until she moved to Connecticut to be closer to her son. She was the lynchpin in a complex family of mixed religions, backgrounds, and physical locations.

A private service will be held for Helga Speyer on June 20, 2021.