By DAN NEPHIN, Staff Writer
Lancaster Newspapers
Photo by Lancaster Newspapers
When someone reaches their 100th birthday, the inclination is to ask what the key to their longevity is. Elizabeth Denlinger Hershey’s response? “I just live one day at a time,” she said. “Well,” she added. “I don’t smoke, and I don’t drink.”
Hershey reflected on her life in an interview at Landis Homes. Faith has been her life’s cornerstone. “I think, first of all, I love the Lord,” she said. Her favorite Bible verse is Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord.”
Hershey was the sixth of 10 children — five girls, five boys, all two years apart — and grew up on 72-acre farm in Leacock Township with no electricity and no indoor bathroom. The work was hard, but rewarding. “It was healthy. We had work to do, and we enjoyed doing what we had to do, I think — most of the time,” she said. One chore she didn’t enjoy was milking. “I was afraid I’d hurt the cow,” she said with a laugh.
As a young adult, Hershey worked on the farm and did domestic work. She also worked five years at Hershey Garment Co. She also studied the Bible at Eastern Mennonite School and taught Sunday school for six years at Nickel Mines Mennonite Church.
In 1944, she went to Tampa, Fla., for what she said she anticipated being a few-months’ stint as a temporary worker doing Mennonite mission work. However, the woman she was relieving decided not to come back, and Hershey was asked to stay on. She ended up staying 15 years, running the lunchroom for school children, teaching Sunday school and driving people to church.
In 1959, Hershey needed a vacation and came back to Lancaster County, intending to return to Florida. But, she said, God had other plans for her. She met Raymond Hershey, a farmer and the man who would become her husband. A mutual friend invited them for supper. “Then after supper, he said he would take me home,” she said. “And then he decided that we’d start up a correspondence. So we did that for a while.” After a couple months of corresponding, they began dating, and, at age 49, she and Raymond were married on Sept. 16, 1961.
The couple had no children together, though Raymond Hershey had two daughters from a previous marriage. The couple ran Pleasant View Farm, a working farm. They also took in tourists. “A lot of people that we entertained came from New York. … They’d come and then they’d go home and tell their friends, and their friends would come,” she said. “One time someone told me, they think everybody in their block was at our place.” After a decade, the couple sold the farm and retired to a ranch home in Highland Acres.
Her husband died in July 1989, and three years later Hershey moved to Landis Homes. Hershey enjoys playing card games and Rummikub and crocheting afghans, but with her eyesight failing, she focuses on weekly bingo. She also enjoys biographies — people at Landis Homes read to her — and she’s currently reading a history of the Mennonite church.
Reading has long been a pastime, and from age 22 until recently, she had been a member of the Readers Hour Book Club.
Hershey plans to celebrate her 100th birthday with her nieces and nephews at Oregon Dairy. On another recent birthday there, she said the manager asked everyone in the restaurant to sing “Happy Birthday” to her upon learning her age. Hershey said she’s hoping for a repeat.
