Hunsberger, Franklyn (1864-1968)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1964 Mar 26 p. 11 [bio]

Birth date: 1864

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1968 Mar 21 p. 11

text of obituary:

Called by Death at Age 103

Centenarian Shared in Wadsworth, O. History

By Mrs. Rachel Kreider

Wadsworth, Ohio — Franklyn (Dick) Hunsberger passed away Sunday noon, March 3, one month before his 104th birthday. He had entered the hospital four days earlier breaking his hip when he fell in his bedroom. He seemed to be recovering well from his surgery when he suddenly took a turn for the worse and quietly slipped away. Although his mind often wandered in the past year, he was up and about every day before his fall.

Frank was the youngest son of Ephraim Hunsberger, co-founder of the General Conference of Mennonites, and was born during the Civil War — in the year when the groundwork was finished and the foundation laid in Wadsworth for the first Mennonite college in America. By the time he was 15 the school was closed.

AT AGE 17 he was baptized into the local church fellowship, which by then was also waning, since the leadership was moving away and the young people were gravitating toward their English neighbors in town. He was a member of First Mennonite Church, however, for 87 years, during which time the congregation worshipped first at the site where the constitution of the General Conference was signed, then for 68 years in the former Congregational church near the Square (still the oldest building in town), and since 1960 in the new building on Trease Road.

When Frank was 30 he became a partner in a Main Street dry-goods store, which he operated for 28 years, retiring in 1922. When asked, "Dick, why did you retire so soon?" he quipped, "I didn't know I was going to live so long."

For years he made his daily rounds at the Square, stopping for coffee and spirited discussions along the way — appreciated everywhere for his ready wit, his genial spirit, and his lively interest in the world about him. Townspeople affectionately called him their "grand old man".

WADSWORTH was founded the year that his father was born (1814). Frank saw it change from an agricultural village to a mining town, to an industrial town, and then into a suburban area. For years he was the oldest active voter in Medina County but quit at age 99 when he could no longer read the names on the ballot. He had not missed voting in a presidential election since 1884, voting only once for a democrat — Woodrow Wilson. He had lived through the assassination of four presidents.

He was one of 13 children, whose descendants have scattered far and wide and have lost trace of one another. However the two sets of children and the second mother in Ephraim Hunsberger's household had always lived together in an exceptionally fine relationship. Frank and Augusta were the only surviving children from Ephraim's second marriage. ("Aunt Gustie" married N. C. Hirschy, the young student from Oberlin, who revitalized the church in Wadsworth and moved on to become the first president of Bluffton College.)

IN 1899 Frank married Ethel Daykin of Wadsworth and they lived all their remaining years in their house near the Square. They had two sons, who survive him. Willard, a history teacher in the local high school, and George, professor of economics at the University of Arkansas.

About 15 years ago Willard and family moved into his home, caring for him with filial affection and his same spirit of good humor. There are four grandchildren and one great-grandchild, all of whom are returning for the funeral services conducted by Rev. Lester Hostetler at First Mennonite Church on March 6.

Wadsworth will greatly miss this "grand old man" who was always young in heart.