Ludwig ('Lou') Wolf died on October 18, 2008 after a long battle with cancer.  Lou came to Sioux Falls in 1973, with his wife, Hilde, to work for Meilman Food Industries.  After Meilman closed, he obtained his real estate license and worked with Hilde at Home Town Realty before they retired in 1997. He was an active member and leader of Mt. Zion Synagogue in Sioux Falls and the Sioux Falls Jewish Welfare Fund.

Lou was born on October 12, 1919 in Bickenbach, Germany.  He came to the United States to escape the Nazis in 1938 and went to Chicago where he worked in various jobs to try to raise the money needed to get his family out of Germany.  He was able to get enough money for his brother, Ernst, who now lives in Melbourne, Australia.  However, his parents and sister died in the concentration camps.

In 1940, Lou was inducted into the United States Army where he served in the First Cavalry Division and then as an officer in the Amphibian Engineers, stationed in the Pacific during World War II.  During the war, he met Hilde who had also come to Chicago with her family to escape the Nazis. They were married on December 22, 1946.

After a few years in the Pacific Northwest, they came back to Chicago where Wolf worked in the meat business and started their family.  In 1963, they moved to New Jersey where Lou accepted a job in a slaughterhouse that closed in 1973, when he left for Sioux Falls.

He loved his family and friends, and was a dedicated, knowledgeable and observant Jew.  He also loved opera (especially Italian), baseball (especially the Chicago White Sox), humor (especially puns), trivia (especially naming presidents and capitals), and fine cigars and scotch (in his younger days).

He is survived by his wife of 61 years, Hilde; by their son, Chuck, a senior partner at the Chicago law firm of Vedder Price, PC; by their daughter, Susan, the Edna J. Koury Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; and by four grandchildren, Walter Ludwig Wolf, Peter Barton Wolf, Katherine Grace MacLean and Elizabeth Wolf MacLean.

Memorials in his memory to the Sioux Falls Jewish Welfare Fund  510 S. First Ave, Sioux Falls, SD 57104 or to Mt. Zion Congregation, PO Box 756, Sioux Falls, SD 57101, would be appreciated.