Elizabeth "Chica" Rodgers (Evans) Arndt died peacefully with her two children by her side on February 14, 2025 after a short illness.  She is preceded in death by her husband, Carl Homer Arndt, her parents, Elizabeth Rodgers (Craig) Evans and Charles Dailey Evans Jr. her sister, Carolina Yancey Evans. She is survived by her son, Charles McNeill Elmer (Julie) and daughter, Eva Dunreith (Elmer) Joseph (Karl), her sister, Nancy Dailey Evans, grandchildren, Catherine Grace (Elmer) Wolin (Ian), Charles Dailey Elmer, Stephen McNeill Coleman, niece, Yancey Rojas (Jay), nephews, Erik Jackson and, Ralph Tovar (Jesse), cousins, Andrew R. Black (Margaret), Catherine "Kiki" Black, Leslie Moss (David), Judith Sutton and Ann Sutton (Marty). Chica was born December 22, 1941, just a few weeks after the US entered World War II, in the Panama Canal Zone, Panama. Chica spent her early years in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, living with her grandmother, Elizabeth "Ging" Rodgers Craig, and playing with her best childhood friend and cousin, "Robbie." Her father, a Naval Intelligence Officer, served in the European and Latin American theaters in World War II and completed his service as a naval attache to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela.  In 1944, her family settled in Caracas, Venezuela, where her father, a lawyer, soon joined the law firm of Travieso Evans Arria & Rengel.  Her parents would live in Caracas for more than 40 years. Other family members later settled there, and it became a family seat for many years. Chica's bilingual and bi-cultural upbringing informed the rest of her life.  Early on, her father nicknamed her "Chica," and the name stuck. At 14, she was sent to the U.S. to attend Abbot Academy, (now Andover Academy) and later earned a B.A. Cum Laude (1963) in English from Bryn Mawr College. Her mother was an award-winning, highly accomplished sculptress, and Chica was steeped in a world of artists, musicians, intellectuals and writers of the post-War expatriate and refugee community in Venezuela. One of her fondest childhood memories was helping her mother sand down the seams on the plaster ash trays that had a figure of a cow in the middle that she had made for Henri Charrière's fashionable Caracas nightclub "Mi Vaca y Yo." Messr. Charrière, aka "Papillon," had become famous for his daring escape from the Devil's Island penal colony in French Guiana, which became the subject of a best-selling book and a movie. In the 1950s, her parents purchased a circa 1810 house in South Harwich, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The house, called "Skinequit," became the stateside family seat and the gathering place for her entire family during summer vacations.  In 1963, Chica married Robert Edward Elmer and had two children in 1964 and 1967. With small children, she tried to complete her master's degree in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania, but family circumstances thwarted her efforts. Divorced in 1972, she lived in Mountain Lakes, NJ with her children, and as a divorcee in the 1970s worked in an electronics factory assembling security cameras to support her family until she remarried in 1976.  Her second husband, John Gregory, moved the family to Savannah, GA in 1977, and Chica began to make a life for herself in her adopted community for the next 48 years.  She worked as a housewife and supported her husband's design and general contracting business on The Landings, Skidaway Island. Divorcing and again on her own in 1986, she met her third husband, Carl Arndt, and they married in 1991. Carl was a gregarious, charismatic former Army Green Beret, Korean and Vietnam War veteran, adventurer and self-described, "Tough Old Bird." He equaled her in energy, curiosity, love of history and community.  They met at the Coastal Archaeological Society and were active members until the club disbanded in the 2000s. Chica would become President for several years and recently donated photo albums documenting the many digs the volunteer group participated in to the Georgia Historical Society (GHS). A few months after attending her youngest child's college graduation ceremony in May 1989, she was enrolled in graduate school at Armstrong State University in History with a focus on historic preservation – finally fulfilling her life-long dream.  After earning a Masters Degree, she worked as the Interpretive Ranger at Wormsloe State Historic Site, creating programs and hosting thousands of school children, learning to fire a musket and running the bookshop and museum. In 1994, Carl and she were looking for a piece of land in the country to build a house. Her realtor, as a second thought, showed them a 19-acre property with an existing old farmhouse off Little Neck Rd. As soon as Chica saw the house, it immediately reminded her of "Skinequit," and she knew it was something special.  They bought it, built a new wing and unwittingly became the next generation of caretakers of "The Farm", the 1830s Gould family homestead and heart of the Bethel Community. Carl and Chica quickly became a pillar of their new community, becoming good friends with their neighbors, members of the Bethel Cemetery Association and Bethel-Burton Supper Club. Chica started working as an Assistant Manager for the Savannah-Ogeechee Canal (SOC) while Carl volunteered and later served as Canal Master. At SOC, Chica put together educational programs for school-aged children and reenactments of Canal history, planted butterfly gardens (She was a Master Gardener), and managed the museum. For 30 years, Chica worked to document the history of her farmhouse and Bethel settlement. She recorded oral histories of the "old timers" researched and worked with local historic preservationists and architectural historians trying to document what history she could before Savannah's westward development would change West Chatham County forever. In 2024, the Chatham County Board of Commissioners gave her beloved farmhouse, the Jacob Fox Gould House, a local historic designation.  Chica loved her family and friends. In her last years, she volunteered at the Bloomingdale History Museum and was an active member of the Bloomingdale Garden Club, offering her farm for their annual "Easter Egg Hunt." She considered herself the "biggest fan" of her son-in-law, Karl's acoustic trio, Armadillo Bluff, hanging out at their rehearsals, sipping wine and taking copious notes. Throughout her life, Chica always felt as though she was an expatriate living in the States and was a bit shy and introverted.  She is remembered by those who knew her for her beautiful soul, fine mind, encyclopedic memory, passion for "getting the history right," sense of fun and love of good conversation.

There will be a graveside service and burial at Bethel Cemetery on Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 12:30PM. The cemetery is located across the street from the Bethel Baptist Church at 1301 Little Neck Road.  There will be a reception at the Jacob Fox Gould House directly after the service located at 1253 Little Neck Road, Savannah, GA 31419. The family asks those who wish to pay their respects to bring or mail a written memory of Chica to add to the guest book. The family also requests bringing a flower or greenery from your garden to lay on her casket.

Chica benefited greatly in her research from regular people who left their written memories, letters, maps and family documents/records to the GHS.  In her memory, we encourage you to donate copies or original material to the GHS for future generations to read and learn from.

The graveside funeral and burial to honor Elizabeth's life will be on Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 12:30 p.m. at Bethel Cemetery on Little Neck Road.

Thomas C. Strickland & Sons Funeral Homes – WEST CHATHAM CHAPEL (912) 748-2444