Smucker, Anna Hostetler (1869-1968)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1964 Jul 2 p. 8 [bio]

Birth date: 1869

text of obituary:

TWO GREAT GRANDCHILDREN, Beth Ann and John David Smucker, chilodren of Rev. and Mrs. John R. Smucker, enjoy a visit with Mrs. Anna Smucker of Smithville, Ohio.

Great-Grandmother Leads Active Life at 95

By John B. Smucker Fort Wayne, Ind.

"TO HAVE good health in the spring,' claims 95-year-old Mrs. Anna Smucker of Route 1, Smithville, Ohio, "is to eat home stewed rhubarb sauce and fresh dandelion greens." She further claims that she keeps her back in shape by using her hoe in the garden. This is a part of the neat thrifty housekeeping which she had been doing for the past 72 years. Except for several intervals, she has lived alone since her husband John died 13 years ago.

Sunday, June 7, she celebrated her 95th birthday. She attended the Smithville Mennonite Church in the morning like she does every Sunday. In the afternoon members of her family and friends stopped in to congratulate her. Her children gathered Friday night in her honor.

Mrs. Smucker has been a resident of Wayne county all of her life, being born June 7, 1879 [sic 1869] to Jephtha and Salome King Hostetler. She was raised on a farm in Wayne Twp. Her schooling was at Wayne Twp. Number Seven School.

ON FEB. 9, 1892 she was married to John Smucker and became his co-worker in farming. John bought a farm two miles east of Smithville from his father Jonas which adjoined farms of his brothers Peter and Noah. Here they farmed until 1931 when they retired to her present home which they built on the corner of the farm. At that time her son Mervin took over the farm. Her grandson Ralph is currently operating the farm with a dairy operation.

Mrs. Smucker is the last of her brothers and sisters remaining on the earthly side. They were Mrs. Noah Burkholder, Jonathan K., Christian K., Mrs. Elam Horst and Jeptha. All spent most of their lives in the Smithville-Orrville area except Christian K. who served as business manager at Goshen College, and later as a mission worker at Youngstown, Ohio.

ALL OF HER LIFE she had been active in the Mennonite Church. In her earlier years she was a Sunday school teacher and until recent years was active in the women's sewing circle. She still actively follows the life and thought of the Mennonite Church by its periodicals.

About fifty years ago Mrs. Smucker lost her hearing. By learning to lip read she has not let this impair her active life.

Mrs. Smucker also finds fulfillment in seeing her family grow and enter into their life's vocations. Her four children are Jeptha, RD, Dalton; Mervin, R. 1, Orrville; Marion, Orrville; and Mrs. Saloma Falb, R. !, Orrville. One son, Elam, died in 1933. Included in her family are her 19 grandchildren and 29 great-grandchildren.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of braided and hooked rugs, quilt tops, etc. have been produced by Mrs. Smucker. She has provided some of her handiwork for the homes of each of her grandchildren. She laments that it now takes much longer to thread a needle and that her shoulders can't take the tugging so well to hook a rug. However, when she is not coaxing along her flower beds or racing the potato growers for the earliest potatoes from her garden, she still comes back to her needle work — that is when she's not baking bread, cleaning house, or studying her Sunday school lesson.

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1968 Dec 12 p. 7