Billie Kalbacher of Springs, who with her husband started the Kalbacher’s Auto and Marine service shop in Springs, and who was a founding member and longtime secretary of St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Amagansett, died on Feb. 14 at San Simeon on the Sound in Greenport. She was 95 and had had Alzheimer’s disease for 14 years.
Frances E. Kalbacher was born in the Bronx on June 1, 1927. Her parents died when she was very young, and she and her brother were brought up by their grandmother.
Her family said she graduated from high school at the age of 16 and went on to secretarial school. She excelled there, becoming so skilled she could type 120 words per minute on a manual typewriter. She was employed as an executive secretary at the historic Biltmore Hotel in New York City and later did secretarial work for several automotive dealerships in the greater New York area.
She was introduced by Henry and Grace Sierp to Robert Kalbacher, a recently discharged Air Force officer. The couple married in 1957. They moved full time to East Hampton in 1963 and had two sons.
Mr. Kalbacher traveled extensively throughout the country working for British Leyland Motors and Volvo, leaving Mrs. Kalbacher to raise their two sons mostly by herself. When he was at home with the family on weekends, there would be boating and fishing trips and barbecues, and a weekly Saturday-night ritual of poker games with friends and relatives. Mr. Kalbacher died in 2014.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mrs. Kalbacher worked as an assistant to Enez Whipple, then the executive director of Guild Hall. She volunteered on the East Hampton Narcotics Guidance Council and was a founding member of the East Hampton Power Squadron, for which she served as a vice commodore and secretary. She was religious about attending her Wednesday night bowling league and was usually a high-hook with a fishing rod, her family said.
The auto repair shop that the Kalbachers started in 1978 continues to serve the community under the ownership of one of their sons, Robert Kalbacher of East Hampton. Mrs. Kalbacher leaves another son, Richard Kalbacher, also of East Hampton, and four grandchildren, Dakota Kalbacher of Southampton, Jade Kalbacher of Miami, and Matthew Kalbacher and Christopher Kalbacher of East Hampton. A brother, George, died before her.
Mrs. Kalbacher was cremated; her family plans to scatter her ashes in Gardiner’s Bay. Her family will receive visitors tomorrow from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. The family has suggested memorial donations to St. Michael’s Lutheran Church, online at hamptonslutheran.org, or to the Peconic Bay Power Squadron, pbps.us.
