funereal detour

Out of the blue, Dorcas' sister, Rachel Yoder, died suddenly, on Ascension Day. Rachel and Monroe lived in New York. On their way to Grantsville, Maryland, she took sick and died in a Harrisburg hospital.

On Wednesday the funeral was held at the Maple Glen Mennonite Church, Grantsville, and the burial was in this cemetery beside the church.

For over forty years their church was Seventh Avenue Mennonite Church. A good two dozen members and friends of that neighborhood and church and others from the Bronx attended.

sister-in-law dies

My sister-in-law, Rachel, Dorcas's next oldest sister, passed away last evening at 9:25 p.m. in the Harrisburg (Pa.) Hospital, as Monroe her husband (in photo) and Dorcas and I and the hospital chaplain attended around the bed.

There was not a clearly defined moment of the final heartbeat, but Nurse Craig quietly informed Monroe as life signs exited the stage one by one. Dorcas put her hand on her forehead as life was slipping away and prayed one of the psalms.

The chaplain offered that we hold hands circling the bed as she (the African-American chaplain in jeans) prayed.

At Monterey we all loved her and called her Aunt Rachel as the children grew up. A vibrant, faithful, creative center of energy, even as her physical limitations increased, here she is at Joel's wedding reception last November. Photo by Lois Maust.

God rest her.

Last uncle dies

My Aunt Jane called today and told me Uncle Irvin died shortly before 10 p.m. last evening, apparently in his sleep, between routine nurse checks. He was born in 1915 and was 92 yrs old. George, his son, who lives in Harrisonburg, Va., wants to wait until son Peter gets back from a truck run in Wisconsin to make final plans. As soon as I find out when the funeral is, I’ll look at my schedule to see if I can fit it in.

My uncle was known as G. Irvin. The G was George, the name of his father, my grandfather. There were eight sons in that family. My father, Lester, was the next to oldest. Irvin was the last of the boys living, the fourth youngest. Of the family of twelve children, only two remain—Aunt Jane and Aunt Gladys, the next to youngest and third to youngest.

I always liked Uncle Irvin and when I was twelve or so, stayed at his house the first time I (with parents) visited Milton at EMU. I was proud to have an uncle with a Ph.D. and a professor position at EMU. His first wife, Edith (Eddie), died about 1970, and that loss was catastrophic for their four children. The oldest, George, graduated from EMHS that year. I was proud to have an aunt who could play the piano pretty well, and I remember her banging out “Ben Hur’s Chariot Race March” one time in the early 1960s when they had a meal with my folks at Monterey. I promised myself I’d learn that awesome piece sometime, and I did a few years later.

She was a nurse by profession, and I visited her at work the last time I figured I’d see her, when Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community was not much more than one brick building, the last one on the left as you leave campus on Virginia Ave. I think it is, the street than runs next to MapleWood.

In the hayday of my growing up, I had seven uncles on the Groff side (five by marriage) and ten on the Lehman side (four by marriage) for a total of seventeen uncles. Uncle Irvin is the last family uncle. I have one uncle by marriage on the Groff side, Earl, who was a classmate of Uncle Irvin's at Manheim township high school.