NEW YORK (AP) — Lilo Jedelhauser, a longtime Associated Press administrator whose behind-the-scenes work for years helped run one of the world’s largest news organizations, has died. She was 74.
Jedelhauser died at her Manhattan apartment last week, said a friend, Eva Tatarczyk.
“‘Ask Lilo’ became a mantra for generations of AP leaders, whether the question involved some minute detail of membership bonds or board elections or what time the night’s board dinner was scheduled for,” said Louis D. Boccardi, former CEO for the AP.
As the company’s director of corporate events, Jedelhauser was the unseen hand directing many key AP events. She organized meetings, managed the election of the board and kept track of corporate bonds.
A native of Immenstadt, Germany, she came to the United States as a young woman and landed a job at the news cooperative, working her way up from administrative assistant.
“The AP was her whole life,” said Tatarczyk, a former AP colleague. “She worked very long hours, and she was always very well organized, and generous.”
When Jedelhauser retired in 2005, after 35 years, she enjoyed learning about everything from astronomy and philosophy to poetry, and taking nature walks.
She relished independence, living alone in an Upper West Side apartment, but also spent time with friends, Tatarczyk said. “She was an extremely kind, gentle person,” she said.
But she was “no pale office flower,” Boccardi said. “She was lively, she enjoyed life and I’ve lost count of how many long bus rides were made to seem shorter by her fun-loving spirit.”
Jedelhauser suffered a heart attack last year and had kidney troubles more recently, Tatarczyk said.
Survivors include her brother, Franz Jedelhauser, and his wife, Ingrid, of Vancouver, British Columbia; a nephew; and two nieces. Funeral arrangements are private.
