Where were you born and where did you grow up?
I was born, and grew up, on a farm in central Illinois, just outside the tiny town of Meadows. If you've ever driven across Illinois on US Route 24, you've driven right past my home. It's in amongst all the corn, soybean and oats fields. By the time I was born, our house had electricity, a bathroom, and running water. Some of my friends were not so fortunate.
Share some stories about your childhood: school, activities, family and friends. Did you play an instrument or participate in any sports?
School was a two-room building (grades 1-4 in one room and grades 5-8 in the other). When I was going into 6th grade, there were not enough students to warrant using two rooms, so all 8 grades were in the same room. And my class was the last one to graduate from Meadows School - after that, it was consolidated into the Chenoa schools. I have great respect for the teachers who taught us at Meadows, and feel that my education was as good, if not better, than larger schools.
When I went to high school in Chenoa, four miles away, there were no school buses so we had to find our own transportation. I was very involved in music - played flute in band, sang in a girls ensemble as well as choirs, and accompanied some groups on piano. I took Latin from the same teacher that taught my mother. Favorite class was journalism where we put out the school paper, "The Super Snooper."
When did you learn to drive? Was there a driver's test at that time? What was the first car you drove?
When I was in high school, my brother Norman took me out in the car (I think it was a Nash - remember that make?) to show me the ropes and I promptly drove the car into the ditch. So I wasn't interested in driving for a while after that (he probably wasn't interested in my driving either). It wasn't until after I was in college and met Dean that I got a little more confidence behind the wheel and finally took my driver's test, in Lima.
Did you first come to Bluffton as a college student? Why did you choose Bluffton?
I didn't intend to come to Bluffton College - I was going to attend Illinois State University in Normal, about 20 miles from home. But several incidents happened the summer after I graduated from high school that changed the course of my life - including going to summer camp and meeting some really neat kids who were enrolled at Bluffton. Once I was here, I stayed.
How did you and your husband, Dean, meet?
You want the story? Here goes. . . Dean had a voice lesson in music hall (not the Mosiman Hall we have now, but a big house at the corner of College and Spring). My voice lesson was right after his. One day I came downstairs from my voice lesson and found my coat all tied up in knots. Next lesson, the same thing happened. I finally figured out who was doing it, so I promptly went and stole his car keys (nobody locked cars in Bluffton back then, and leaving your keys in the ignition was common). We started singing together, and that was that.
How is it that you and your brother, Norm Vercler, both ended up in Bluffton?
I was the first one here, when I came to college in the fall of 1947. Then my mother, who was a widow, came the following year to be a housemother at Lincoln Hall. Just a few years later, Dr. Rodabaugh enticed Norm to come here to run the laboratory at the hospital. So what was Illinois' loss was (we hope) Bluffton's gain.
I know you and Dean were always involved in musical activities. Tell me about the Goldenaires. How did that group get started? Who all was involved?
The Goldenaires got started in the early '50s when Earl Lehman was asked to put a group together to sing at the Triplett Company's 50th anniversary (hence, the "golden" name). Members were: Jean Szabo and myself, sopranos; Kate Patterson and Jean Triplett, altos; Dick Boehr and Dean Niswander, tenors; Earl Lehman and Fred Amstutz, basses. Edith Lehman accompanied on the piano and Jim Szabo did guest appearances with us on violin. We sang for all sorts of groups and in all sorts of places in the area for about 10 years. Then Dean and I moved to Michigan and our group disbanded. The Goldenaires had two "reunions" of sorts after that - one when we sang at Paul Dyck's retirement from Mennonite Home, and one when we sang for Kate and Don Patterson's 50th wedding anniversary.
You lived in Bluffton for awhile when your children were young, but you moved elsewhere and later returned. Did you work outside the home?
Yes, we moved to Okemos, Michigan in 1964 and then to Gibsonburg, Ohio in 1976, moving back to Bluffton in the fall of 1990 when Dean retired. While we were in Michigan, and the children were all in school, I worked as secretary in the middle school principal's office. Then, in Gibsonburg, I produced a monthly newsletter for Chemi-Trol, the company Dean worked for. I was also a docent (volunteer tour guide) at the Toledo Museum of Art for 14 years.
How many children? Grandchildren? Where are they now?
Do you have room for all this?? Here's a rundown on our six children. Rick is Dean of the College of Business at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. Jeanne is a first grade teacher in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Mark is training manager for Nice, Inc., a software company, with his office in Denver, Colorado. Lee, a scientist, works from her embryology laboratory at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. Tom works for BP in the procurement division, headquartered in Naperville, Illinois. Kay is an operating room nurse in Thomaston, Maine. I have 10 grandchildren that range in age from 27 to 13, with two grown step-grandchildren as well. Add to that 4 great grandchildren and it makes a houseful.
Share some stories about the years that you and Dean traveled around the country, representing Bluffton University (College then, I guess). When did you get your current vanity plate?
Oh, there are so many wonderful memories from those five years that we traveled more than 83,000 miles, meeting as many people as we could find that had been students at Bluffton.
I don't remember exactly when we got the BC ALUM vanity plate, but it was definitely during that BC travel time. One night we stopped at a grocery in Phoenix and, when we got back to the car, someone was standing there waiting for us. "Is that BC for Bluffton College?" he asked. His uncle (or some relative, I can't remember for sure) had attended BC. Every year, when I get the license renewed, I consider just getting a plain old plate - but can't quite do it.
So...you have just returned from several months in Woods Hole, Mass. Was that your first visit there? Why were you there? What did you enjoy most about your visit.
My daughter, Lee, has been going to Woods Hole for the past 13 years, first as a lecturer at the Marine Biology Laboratory's summer graduate program. Now she is co-director of the 6-week Embryology course there and invited me to come with her for her two-month stay. Dean and I had visited there 10 years ago, for a week, but after that he was no longer able to travel. So this was my first time back. It was a wonderful change of pace, and change of scenery. Lee has already invited me to go with her next year, and I hope to do that - "the good Lord willin' and the crick don't rise."
You're a columnist for the Bluffton Icon. When did you begin writing -- has that been a lifelong thing? Where do you get your ideas?
I think I've always been writing (strictly poems early on), but didn't really get serious about writing until I was nearing the half-century mark. A creative writing class got me started writing prose and I took off from there. When Dean retired and we moved back to Bluffton 20 years ago, I started writing a column for the Bluffton News. I did that for 16 years, then decided it was time to take a break. When you two started the Icon last fall, I couldn't resist trying my hand at writing again. Where do I get my ideas? Hard to say. Sometimes I go to the well and it's dry. Other times it's like a spring that won't shut off. That's creativity for you!
How do you keep yourself busy -- aside from writing? Interests, hobbies?
I have a most beautiful counted cross stitch piece that I've been working on since last fall - and it will probably take me until next spring to finish. With that, and reading, and crossword puzzles, and playing the piano, and traveling whenever I get a chance, I'm happy as a clam no matter where I am (there goes the poetry!).
