Becker, Nancy Gladyne Baumgartner (1907-2010)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2010 Feb 15 p. 9

Birth date: 1907 May 27

text of obituary:

N.GLADYNE BECKER

Nancy Gladyne Becker, 102, of Glendale, Ariz., died Jan. 9, 2010, after suffering a stroke. She was born May 27, 1907, to Abraham and Elizabeth Baumgartner near Bluffton, Ohio.

Her family moved to Aberdeen, Idaho, in October 1907, the same year the Mennonite church there began. They moved back to Ohio soon after that. Her mother died in 1916, so the children went to Upland, Calif., for three years to be cared for by her father’s sister. After he remarried in 1919, the family moved back to Idaho.

She attended junior college in California. An uncle offered to pay her college expenses if she attended Bethel College in North Newton, Kan., which she did. There she met Dietrich Becker, and they were married on May 25, 1930.

They moved to Wellington, Kan., in 1942, where Dietrich opened an optometry practice. That year they adopted two daughters, Lee and Velma. Upon retirement, they moved to Phoenix in 1973 and later to Glencroft Retirement Center. She became an avid quilter and was active in Glencroft’s annual quilt auction. She was a member of First Mennonite Church of Phoenix.

Survivors include a daughter, Velma Becker Frank and her husband, Neil; a son-in-law, Jim Saner; a niece, Nancy Baumgartner and her husband, Chester, of West Liberty, Ohio; 11 grandchildren; 32 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.

Memorial services were held at Skinner Memorial Chapel at Glencroft in Glendale.