Carla Gusovius Atkins, age 93, of Anna Maria, Florida, died peacefully in her sleep of natural causes on Wednesday, 3 February 2021, at her son's home in Arlington, Virginia.

Born on 21 April 1927 in Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany, to Dr. Paul Gusovius and Ella Schwarz Gusovius, Mrs. Atkins was an avid English student at the Königin Luise Schule in Königsberg and received her Abitur. She perfected her English by listening to the BBC and other English language broadcasts. Following the British bombing of Königsberg in 1944, she travelled with her family 750 miles to the safety of a new home in western Germany, where she eventually was employed as a translator and secretary by the US Army in Hessen, Germany, and as manager of an Amerika Haus library. She emigrated to Detroit in 1955 to take a job as a secretary for an import-export firm. In 1957 in Philadelphia she wed Neill Stewart Atkins, Jr., of Lillington, North Carolina, a career Army officer whom she had met in Germany. During their Army years, Col. and Mrs. Atkins lived in Lillington; El Paso, Texas; and Brooklyn, New York. They settled in Tampa, Florida, in 1964, where Col. Atkins was employed as a computer systems architect until his retirement. In 1976, they moved to the beach at Anna Maria. Mrs. Atkins loved her family, travelling domestically and overseas (she flew roundtrip supersonically on the Concorde in 1997), walking and swimming at the beach, collecting seashells, and feeding the ever-present blue herons, who never went hungry.

Mrs. Atkins is predeceased by her husband and by her elder brother, Harald Gusovius.

She is survived by her two sons, Paul Stewart Atkins and his wife, Sarah, of Arlington, Virginia, and Harold Turner Atkins and his wife, Tracey, of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania; five grandchildren, Stewart, Peter, Henry, Margaret, and Marshall; and her younger brother, Burkhard Gusovius, his wife, Ute, their son, Nico, and his wife, Ilse, all of Wiesmoor, Germany.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, March 13, 2021 at 11 am at Lillington Presbyterian Church with Rev. Barrett Payne presiding.  An interment will follow in the family plot at Summerville Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Lillington, North Carolina.