An expanded obituary project of MennObits.  Includes additional information of obituaries appearing in
The Mennonite and other newspapers.   Source of individual obituaries given with each record. 
Project managed by Thelma Martin.

2004  S

NAPPANEE -- Harvey E. Schmucker, 76, of 71877 C.R. 3, died at 9:20 p.m. Sunday (Feb. 29, 2004) at his home after an extended illness.

He was born Feb. 15, 1928, in Bremen to Emmon D. and Salina (Hochstetler) Schmucker. He married Lydia M. Miller on April 24, 1952, in Nappanee.

She survives with five sons, Marvin (Ruth) and Emmon (Dana), both of Goshen; Raymond of Syracuse, John of Pierceton and Daniel of Nappanee; three daughters, Mrs. Jeff (Barbara) Smith of Goshen, Mrs. Norman (Mary E.) Slabaugh of Etna Green and Mrs. Lloyd A. (Katie A.) Slabaugh of Nappanee; 19 grandchildren; three brothers, Freeman (Betty) Schmucker of Syracuse, Levi (Millie) Schmucker of Goshen and Marvin (Mary Etta) Schmucker of Nappanee; and five sisters, Mrs. Dan (Edna Mae) Stolzfus of Holtwood, Pa., Mrs. LeRoy (MaLinda) Hochstetler of Bremen, Mrs. John (Mahala) Troyer of Nappanee, Mrs. Vernon (Jemima) Yoder of Topeka and Mrs. John (Salina) Yoder of LaGrange.

He was preceded in death by a son, Paul; three daughters, Ida Sue, Bertha and Susan E. Schmucker; a grandson; a brother, Monroe Schmucker and a sister, Mary Schmucker.

Friends may call all day today and Wednesday at the family residence. The 9:30 a.m. Thursday service will be at the William Hochstetler residence, 29416 C.R. 52, and burial will be in Weldy Cemetery. Bishop Lonnie Miller of Old Order Amish Church will officiate, assisted by Bishop Levi Plank. Thompson-Lengacher & Yoder Funeral Home handled arrangements.

Mr. Schmucker, a lifetime area resident and retired farmer, was an Old Order Amish Church member.

The Elkhart Truth, Elkhart, IN
March 2, 2004
Submitted by: Thelma Hoover Martin

Schrock, Wilma J. Pomeranz
(1938 - 2004)

ARCHBOLD - Wilma J. Pomeranz Schrock, 65, of Archbold, died early Saturday morning, March 6, 2004, at her home.

Born July 24, 1938, at Toledo, to Rosella (Seiler) and Frank Pomeranz, she married Ray Schrock on Oct. 26, 1957, and he survives.

A resident of the Archbold area since 1957, she was a homemaker. She was a cashier at the Pettisville School cafeteria for about 11 years and had worked at the Sauder Village Cafe for about 10 years.

She was an active member of the North Clinton Mennonite Church at Wauseon and its WMSC, the Pettisville Garden Club and the C.C.L.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by two sons, Lyndon (and wife, Cindy) Schrock of Southlake, Texas, and Larry (Angie) Schrock of Greensboro, N.C.; a daughter, Mrs. Michael (Linda) Lawson of Lima; two grandchildren, Jonathan Lawson and Amanda Lawson; and a brother, Frederick (Carol) Pomeranz of Fox Island, Wash.

Preceding her in death were her parents; a brother, Herbert Pomeranz; and a sister, Mary Koehler.

Visitation will be held today from 4-8 p.m. and Tuesday from 3-8 p.m. in the Short Funeral Home, Archbold.
Memorial services will be held Wednesday at 11 a.m. in the North Clinton Mennonite Church with Pastors Brad Faler and John Schrock to officiate.
Memorials may be made to Hospice, The Caring Way, of Williams and Fulton Counties, or to Gideons International.  

[Obit: Bryan Times, 8 Mar 2004]

Surviving besides her husband is a son Norman E. husband of Lucille Mumaw Shank of Mechanicsburg, Pa. Four daughters: Esther wife of Jonathan Bucher of Morinville, Alberta, Canada; Mary wife of Ernest Swartz of Chester, Virginia; Miriam wife of Jesus Cruz of Lancaster, Pa.; Ruth wife of Kenneth Blackman of Roanoke, Virginia. Nine grandchildren, two step grandchildren, and four great grandchildren. She was the last of her immediate family.

A memorial service was September 17, 2004 at Park View Mennonite Church Harrisonburg, Virginia. Private interment in Weaver s Mennonite Church Cemetery Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Source: GenealogyBuff.com Lancaster Co., PA
Obituary and Death Notice Collection, Sep 15, 2004
Submitted by: Leon Hertzler

Survived by her husband Roy and four daughters, Ruby Denlinger and Carolyn Showalter, both of Maugansville, Helen Hertzler of Mount Joy, Pa., and Bev Beiler of Gap, Pa.; three sons, Donald Showalter of Branford, Conn., Lowell Showalter of Clarkston, Mich., and Linden Showalter of Waynesboro, Pa.; three sisters, Elinor Showalter and Janet Crider, both of Chambersburg, and Thelma Diller of Shippensburg, Pa.; two brothers, Eldon Crider of Chambersburg and Harold Crider of Greencastle; 18 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Funeral services were September 22, 2004 at Salem Ridge Mennonite Church, Greencastle, PA. G. Joseph Martin, Roger I. Martin and Merle G. Cordell will officiate. Burial will follow in Salem Ridge Mennonite Cemetery.

Source: Hearld Mail News, Hagerstown, Maryland
Submitted by: Leon Hertzler

I was born on February 4, 1923. I was raised by my mother, Laura, and my grandparents, all of whom were born in the state of Virginia, hence my name. We lived in a house about six miles from Conway, Kansas in McPherson County. Usually we had three or four cows and sometimes pigs in the pigpen. The cows gave milk, cream and butter for our use. Some of the cream we sold to the creamery in Moundridge, Kansas.

When I was six years old I started to South Liberty grade school-two windy miles south of our house. No school buses in those days! And I distinctly remember two dust storms, like a real dense fog except that it was dust, as fine as flour, that came into the houses through tiny cracks, even though the doors and windows were closed. And I remember the grasshopper "invasion." They ate all the green grass and plants they could find. As I remember, one dust storm and the grasshoppers all moved into our community from the north-I don't know why.

My very earliest memories of going to the West Liberty Mennonite Church, also two miles from our house, include wrapping a warm lap robe around my feet and legs in the back seat of our Model T Ford on a bitterly cold day. No heaters were in the car in those days.

When I was eleven years old I accepted Christ as my Savior; a few months later I was baptized at the same church. Though I've made many mistakes in life, and had to seek God's forgiveness, I've never felt forsaken by Him. One of my favorite hymns is: "I need Thee ev'ry hour, Most gracious Lord, No tender voice like Thine, can peace afford."

My first experiences at Hesston College and Academy were in the exciting six-week Special Bible Term in early 1938. About a dozen of us girls roomed in what was later a men's dormitory located in the ELMS. I think tuition, room and board was $28.50 for the six weeks.

The first half of my freshman year of high school I was permitted to live in Green Gables, on first floor. The second half of that school year l lived with another girl in the basement of Paul Erb's home, all the while getting all our meals in the basement of Green Gables.

I wasn't able to go straight through high school because some semesters I stayed at home, in rural Conway, with my grandmother while my mother went paper hanging. (My grandfather had passed away earlier.) The times I stayed home I took some schoolwork through Hesston Academy by correspondence. By the spring of 1944, I completed all my high school subjects and graduated from the academy in May.

Two more events of early 1944 had lasting effects on the course of my life; I became 21 years old and my grandmother passed away. After that my mother got work as a proofreader in the Mennonite Publishing House in Scottdale, Pennsylvania and I was free to do a variety of things. I taught summer Bible school for two or three weeks in Mississippi and did housework for my cousin's little family in northern Texas.

Because of the war going on, by spring of 1945 there were shortages of public school teachers. My good friend Eunice Wilma Diener, who was already an experienced teacher, invited me to go with her to Goshen College for the summer school term of 15 weeks and then teach the lower grades in Happy Hollow School located seven miles south of Galva, Kansas. I taught grades 1-4 while Wilma taught grades 5-8. We taught together for two years.

During those school-teaching years, I wondered more than ever what God wanted me to do with the rest of my life. Should I continue teaching or see about studying to be a registered nurse? I attended Hesston College during the fall semester of 1947. Near the end of the semester it seemed clear to me that I should switch to nursing. I was accepted at Bethel Deaconess Hospital in Newton, Kansas for the three-year course that prepared me to write the state board examinations and become a registered nurse. After graduating from nursing school in March of 1951, I spent a year working in Dr. Fred Brenneman's office here in Hesston and then volunteered to go to Puerto Rico to work in the Mennonite Hospital under Mennonite Board of Missions.

The hospital was located in a tobacco seed warehouse, made over into a hospital, complete with X-ray department, operating room, delivery room, pharmacy, men's and women's wards, three miniature private rooms and a few pediatric cribs. Something I'll always remember about those days in the "tobacco-barn hospital" (as we called it) was the evening a public car (a station wagon probably) stopped right at the entrance of the hospital and I saw that something unusual was happening. Oh, a baby must have been born in the car, I thought. A nurse aide and I went rushing out to see what was going on. There on the middle seat was a brand new, beautiful girl beside her mother. But something didn't seem quite right, concern in their voices--then I saw it-a twin baby ; girl was there too, whose water had never broken. She was drowning in the liquid she was born with! Because the membrane had never broken, I opened the membrane with my fingers and pulled out the second girl-very pale and not breathing. Very shortly an experienced doctor arrived and resuscitated the little girl-both girls are living and quite well with families of their own by now.

In March of 1957 we moved into a new hospital built about five miles away. Besides working as a nurse there, a couple of times I taught nurse aide classes. By the summer of 1965 I was privileged to go to St. Louis, Missouri to study Medical Record Science at the Homer Phillips Hospital. Nearly two years later I went back to work in the Mennonite Hospital as nurse, then more of the time in the Medical Records department.

Ten years ago I retired in Hesston, Kansas at Schowalter Villa. The years here have been busy ones-here a committee, there a committee, here a new resident to visit, a blind person to read to, etc. As for my health, I don't often "feel sick" though my Parkinson's limits my walking and my handwriting.

Let me share one of the key verses of the Bible: "For God so loved the world that He gave His one only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16, NIV translation.

Memorial Service in Celebration of the Life of M. Virginia Showalter was Wednesday, June 23, 2004 at Schowalter Villa Chapel, Hesston, Kansas.

Transcribed and edited by: Thelma Hoover Martin
Source: Funeral program
Submitted by: Don Stutzman, Halstead, KS

He belonged to the Brownsville Mennonite Church Brownsville, OR. He lived in Harrisburg from 1929 to 1957. He was educated through the eighth grade at Alford School. He lived in Roseburg from 1957 to 1973, then moved to Ohio, living in Lisbon and Salem. He moved back to Harrisburg in 1978, where he operated Wilton Smucker Warehouse from 1980 to 2000, then retired. He also had been a grass seed farmer and a builder. He had lived in Halsey since 2000.

Survivors include his wife; four sons, Steve and Paul, both of Harrisburg, Philip of Conrath, Wis., and John of Minsk Mayowiecki, Poland; three daughters, Barb Smucker of West Virginia, Lois Birky of Halsey and Rose Leichty of Lebanon; two brothers, James and Milford, both of Harrisburg; four sisters, Wilma Swartz of AuGres, Mich., Luella Yoder of Chicago, Allene Smucker-Klassen of Sedona, Ariz., and Nadine Young of Cleveland, Ohio; and 27 grandchildren.

Funeral service was Nov. 23, 2004 at Brownsville Mennonite Church in Brownsville. Burial was in Alford Cemetery in Harrisburg, Oregon

Source: Murphy-Musgrove Funeral
Home of Junction City, Oregon
Submitted by: Leon Hertzler

Surviving in addition to his wife are nine children; a son, Monroe Z., married to Jane Schopf Stoltzfus of Akron; a son, John W., married to Edwina Gibson Stoltzfus of Narvon; a daughter, Martha, married to James R. Thomas of New Danville; a daughter, Annie B., married to David Donaldson of Montney; British Columbia, a daughter, Lydia Mae, married to Jacob L. Stoltzfus of Gordonville, a son Carl, married to Hilda King Stoltzfus of Elverson; a son Stephen R., married to Lori High Stoltzfus of Lancaster; a daughter, Grace S., married to Eric P. Miller of Mount Joy; and a son Calvin D., married to Beverly Adams Stoltzfus of Elverson; 29 grandchildren; 25 great grandchildren; two sisters, Lydia, married to Amos Z. Stoltzfus of Kennedyville, MD, and Naomi, married to John Z. Stoltzfus of Kennedyville, MD; and two brothers, Stephen S. Stoltzfus of Morgantown, and Jonas L., married to Sadie Smoker Stoltzfus of Elverson.

He was preceded in death by a grandson, Scott Mitchell Thomas; and three brothers Uri, John and Ammon Stoltzfus; and two sisters, Barbara Stoltzfus Glick, and Rebecca Stoltzfus Fisher.

Funeral service was May 12, 2004 at Hopewell Christian Fellowship, Elverson, PA, with the Rev. Mark B. Kraybill officiating. Interment will be in Pine Grove Cemetery.

Source: GenealogyBuff.com Lancaster Co., PA
Obituary and Death Notice Collection, 05/08/2004
Submitted by: Leon Hertzler