Hodel, Marie Brunk (1919-2006)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2006 Mar 20 p. 8

Birth date: 1919 Dec 25

text of obituary:

MARIE BRUNK HODEL

Marie Brunk Hodel, 86, of Garden Spot Village, New Holland, Pa., died March 7, 2006, at Fairmount Homes after a short struggle with lymphoma. She was born Dec. 25, 1919, to George and Anna (Holloway) Brunk in Denbigh, Va.

She grew up in Washington, D.C. She attended Eastern Mennonite College in Harrisonburg, Va., and graduated from George Washington University. She worked at the Library of Congress for several years. From 1944-52, she worked for Mennonite Central Committee, then for the World Council of Churches in Egypt, Holland and primarily Germany, to help relocate refugees during and after World War II.

She married Walter Hodel. She and her husband were Charter members of Lombard (Ill.) Mennonite Church, where she was actively involved for 40 years.

She was an elementary school teacher and school librarian and taught in the suburban Chicago area schools for many years before her retirement.

She and her husband enjoyed traveling around the world, which was part of her husband’s civil engineering job as well as for pleasure.

While living at Garden Spot Village she attended Forest Hills Mennonite Church.

Survivors include three children, Michael Hodel and his wife, Stephanie, of Egg Harbor Twp., N.J., Anne Niemiec and her husband, Paul, of Baldwinsville, N.Y., and Hilda Alajajian and her husband, Charles, of Williston, Vt.; a sister, Irma Ogburn of Biglerville, Pa.; a sister-in-law, Elisabeth Koenig; a brother-in-law, Heinz, married to Dora Hodel, all of Germany; and six grandchildren.

She was preceding in death by her husband, Walter Hodel, in 1995; a brother, Harold, in 1995; and a sister, Emily, in 2003.

Funeral services were held at the Garden Spot Village Chapel, New Holland. Burial will be private in Illinois. A memorial service was held at Lombard Mennonite Church.