Elizabeth Gardien Paul Kalmus, 98, died Monday, Aug. 9.

She was born in Birmingham, AL. She attended college in Minnesota during the Depression and returned home where she acted in local theater productions. She met her husband, Ivan Paul, a director, in 1936 at a casting call for Gone With the Wind. They married less than five months later and moved to New York City where they lived for several years. In 1941, they moved to Washington, D.C. where they resided until 1981.

During the 1950s, Mrs. Paul was a librarian at Brightwood Elementary in northwest D.C., a resident manager at Spring Lake Apartments in Bethesda, MD during the 1960s, and finally owned a store called Elizabeth’s Antiques in Montgomery Village Mall in Gaithersburg, MD during the 1970s.

They moved to Cape Coral, FL in 1981. After her husband passed, she moved to St. Petersburg, FL where she volunteered at Palms of Pasadena Hospital for 25 years and met her second husband, Jack Kalmus, whom she married in 1987. When Mr. Kalmus died in 2008, she moved to Kitty Hawk, NC at the age of 97 to be closer to family. She also lived with her daughter Pat in Oakdale in 2008.

She was loved by many and known for her beautiful smile, cheerful attitude, eye for interior design, and zest for life.

She is survived by her daughters, Pat Paul of Oakdale, Pamela Paul Price of Kitty Hawk, NC; two grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her husband of nearly 50 years, Ivan Paul; and also by her second husband of over 20 years, Jack Kalmus.