RIDGEWOOD — Just days before what would have been her 82nd birthday, I prayed for my late grandmother’s soul at the Gottscheer Memorial Mass while reporting on the faith-filled traditions of our ancestors.
Lorraine Meditz (neé Kump) lost her battle to cancer on May 22, 2025. Every day, she emulated the Blessed Mother as the matriarch of her family. She was a woman of faith and a proud Gottscheer.
Although she was born in Ridgewood, Queens, her parents, Joseph and Mary Kump, immigrated from the Gottscheer towns of Reichenau and Schalkendorf, located in what is now Slovenia. They arrived in New York before World War II, hoping for stability their homeland couldn’t offer.
The young couple and their only daughter initially lived in an apartment on Onderdonk Avenue, directly above the original location of Morscher’s Pork Store — the Gottscheer-owned butcher shop had served the community for over 70 years before closing in 2024.
“Her life was very simple. They didn’t have much money,” her daughter and my aunt, Carol Meditz, recalled. “She was the daughter of immigrants, and so she kept those traditions going throughout her life.”
At home, they spoke Gottscheerish, making Lorraine one of the last surviving native speakers of the language.
The family regularly mailed care packages with food, clothing, and essentials back home in war-torn Gottschee.
“When they finally managed to leave Europe and arrived here by boat, they looked like skeletons — completely malnourished,” Carol said. “My grandmother said, ‘We sent you food and clothes, why are you wearing rags?’ and my uncle said, ‘This is all they gave us.’ One soldier even handed him a toothbrush and said, ‘This is all your family sent you.’ ”
Despite the hardships, the Kumps prioritized sending their daughter to Catholic schools.
Lorraine attended St. Aloysius School in the family’s home parish before they purchased their new home and became parishioners of St. Matthias Church. She continued her education at All Saints Catholic High School, where she acquired the secretarial skills that would shape her professional life.
In 1963, she married Josef Meditz, a Gottscheer immigrant who arrived in the U.S. as a displaced person after the war. They met on a bus headed to the annual Gottscheer Treffen in Cleveland, Ohio.
When Josef died of cancer, Lorraine was widowed at just 38 with her two children, Carol and Steven, my father.
“She said, ‘I have two children to support. I can’t fall apart,’ ” Carol recalled.
She returned to work, eventually becoming a respected executive secretary at Ridgewood Savings Bank toward the end of her career.
Lorraine struggled with faith after her husband’s death, but she eventually returned to the Church. In her final months, the Eucharist brought her peace.
And she lived to see something that made her especially proud — her granddaughter’s byline in the newspaper she anxiously awaited to read each week.
As her name was read aloud at the Gottscheer Memorial Mass, I remembered that I carry her with me in every story I write, proud to continue a legacy she helped shape.
