Elaine Bloom Lehe, of Centereach, handy with tools and animals, dies at 88

Centereach’s Elaine Bloom Lehe spoke softly but carried a big stick — generally something in the way of a 2-by-4 as she helped renovate the family home, convert a garage to a horse stable or build bookcases and planter boxes.

Lehe (pronounced “Lee”), died April 23 of heart disease at St. Francis Hospital & Heart Center in Roslyn. She was 88.

She was a quiet woman, according to her family and friends, who got things done.

“My mom would bang nails, my mom would wallpaper, my mom was always the one that would be at somebody's house building bookshelves,” said David Bloom, of Islip, one of Lehe’s four children. “My mom built more bookshelves than Barnes & Noble had.”

Lehe even gained a nickname that reflected her approach to life, said her daughter, Laurie Bloom, of Brightwaters.

“I used to call her “The Terrier” because she would get an idea in her head about what had to be done and she wouldn't let it go,” Bloom said.

Gloria Rachunas, a longtime friend and neighbor of Lehe, said: “She had a sense of fascination about everything.”

“If you asked her a question,” Rachunas added, “she wouldn't answer it right away. She would break the question apart and try to decipher everything you were trying to ask.”

When they would watch the TV quiz show “Jeopardy!” together, Rachunas said, Lehe “would pause it and then lean back and break the question down into components.”

Elaine Louise O’Brien was born on Nov. 11, 1935, in the Bronx, the first of four children of lithographer and commercial artist Frank O’Brien and homemaker Sophie Anna Köeppel. In 1946, the family moved to Hollis, Queens, and relocated to Deer Park about 15 years later.

As a teenager, Lehe worked in a Chinese restaurant owned by family friends, and would ride her bike from Queens to exercise racehorses at Belmont Park., her family said. She convinced her father to buy her a horse if she could pay for its board. Lehe and a horse-riding friend found a woman who let the youths convert her garage into a stable.

After attending the now-defunct Andrew Jackson High School in Cambria Heights, Queens, Lehe briefly attended Queens College and in 1960 married Lawrence Bloom, who worked for RCA and later as a real estate broker.

The two shared a love of creatures great and small, and although Lehe would eventually sell her horse, she and Lawrence owned a series of purebred Irish Wolfhounds. With the four children in tow, they drove to dog shows where their canines would compete.

Lawrence Bloom died in 1981 at age 43. Lehe, at that time managing a greenhouse in East Northport, returned to school, earning a certification in interior plantscaping from Farmingdale State College.

She then found work at a thoroughbred-horse breeding farm in Jamesport, and in 1987 married widower Louis Lehe Jr., a retired Long Island Rail Road conductor. The couple moved to Centereach. Louis died in 2018.

Among her civic activities, she was a member of the women’s-auxiliary Doe Club of Elks Lodge no. 2138, formerly of Port Jefferson and, since 2014, located in Centereach. Lehe was also active at St. James Lutheran Church in St. James. 

In addition to son David and her daughter, Laurie, Lehe is survived by sons Thorin Scott, of Tombstone, Arizona, and Mark Bloom, of Deer Park, stepdaughter Linda Bealey, of Calverton; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A visitation at Fredrick J. Chapey & Sons Funeral Home in West Islip was held April 26. A funeral was held the next day at Ascension Lutheran Church in Deer Park with interment at Pinelawn Memorial Park.