Honored Thursday by State Rep. Gordon Denlinger are six centenarians. They are: Front row, from left, Esther Eleanor Rhoades Kurtz, Miriam Zwalley Kachel, Margaret Elizabeth Hartman and Sara Mae Fasnacht. Back row, from left, Helen Audrey Mitchell and Alice Emma Smith Fowler.
Six Ephrata Manor centenarians were honored Thursday afternoon for their "wisdom and experience."
State Rep. Gordon Denlinger presented each of the women with a certificate from the state House of Representatives.
The certificates paid tribute to the six women who "have contributed to the enrichment and betterment of succeeding generations and have demonstrated the highest ideals of citizenship throughout the years."
Those honored were Sara Mae Fasnacht, Margaret Elizabeth Hartman, Esther Eleanor Rhoades Kurtz, Helen Audrey Mitchell, Alice Emma Smith Fowler and Miriam Zwalley Kachel.
Fasnacht was born in Terre Hill on July 17, 1906. Never married, she was a first-grade teacher at Bowmansville, Rothsville and Terre Hill schools. She taught for 42 years. "I always liked school," Fasnacht said. And she wanted to teach first grade to get children started on the road to reading and learning to like school, too, she said.
Hartman was born in Lancaster on July 26, 1905. As a teenager, she was a Victory Girl, earning money to give to soldiers during World War I. She attended Sacred Heart Academy in Lancaster and Marywood University in Scranton. She was married to Hugh Hartman, whom she met on a blind date at Franklin & Marshall College. They had four children, 13 grandchildren and 26 great-grandchildren.
Kurtz was born in Lancaster on Dec. 22, 1908. She married Harry Kurtz. They had one son, three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. After raising her son, Kurtz worked at Moore's Chick Hatchery Farm and then at Indian River Chick Hatchery. She also had a business on the side, whipping up pies, cakes and cookies for her husband's business associates and friends. During World War II, she was a volunteer spotter for the Ground Observer Corps Aircraft Warning Service.
Mitchell was born in Girardville on Aug. 17, 1908. She was married twice, to Dr. Harold Mengle and to Joe Mitchell. She had two children, four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Mitchell earned a nursing degree from Temple University and worked at Chevalier Jackson Bronchoscopic Clinic until she married Mengle and settled in Blue Ball. When Mengle died in 1940, she worked as an operating room nurse at Ephrata Community Hospital, which her husband had helped to establish. She married Mitchell in 1943 and moved to Reinholds in the 1960s.
Fowler was born in Qu'appelle, Saskatchewan, on Nov. 27, 1904. She taught second grade at the city school in Regina, Saskatchewan. She also earned a degree in voice from the Conservatory of Music in Toronto and sang with The Elizabethans, an English madrigal group that performed once a week on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. She married George Fowler in 1941. They had three children, nine grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. After World War II, they moved to Waterbury, Conn., and became U.S. citizens.
Kachel was born in Rothsville on Dec. 1, 1906. She married Lester Kachel in 1930. They had two sons, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. A homemaker, she enjoyed working in the yard.