Gladys Mentzer is feted at 100 th birthday celebrations
For more than 99 years, Gladys (Copenhaver) Mentzer lived on one side or the other of the double house where she was born on West Fourth Street in Waynesboro and she’s attended Otterbein Church all her life.
“Mother carried me in her arms as a baby,” she said.
Mentzer, now a resident of The Leland of Laurel Run, turned 100 on Sunday, Aug. 21, and is in the midst of two weeks of celebrations in her honor.
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Born in 1922, she was the next-to-youngest of Albert and Sarah Copenhaver’s four boys and four girls.
“I wouldn’t know,” she replied when asked about living to 100, then added, “I never ran around a lot, I didn’t drink and I didn’t smoke.”
She also has good genes — her father, two brothers and an uncle all lived into their 90s, said her only child, Nancy Cline, who lives in Hagerstown with her husband, Fred. Their daughter Christine Cline and her husband, Angel Venancio, live in Stephens City, Va., and the residents of The Leland love it when their sons, Nicolas, almost 9, and Andrew, 7, come to visit their great-grandmother in the personal care facility.
Her quilting group started the festivities last week, followed by her Sunday School class at Otterbein and going out to lunch with family on Sunday. This week, there’s one party at The Leland and another get-together with more family members for cake and ice cream on Saturday.
“Too many parties,” said Mentzer.
Still, she has a sweet tooth, gets a milkshake almost every Sunday after church and is enjoying the treats that come with the parties.
It used to be her husband Jim “Spurry” Mentzer who baked the cakes in the family, and she decorated them.
She graduated from Waynesboro High School in 1941, while he grew up in Tomstown and graduated from Quincy High School.
They met at Miller’s Furniture at 69 W. Main St., where she went to work in the office right out of high school and he was a salesman.
“We just matched, I guess,” Mentzer said. “We liked the same things.”
Cline noted that her father was ornery, and her mother is not.
She recalls having one of her father’s former teachers saying, “You’re that Spurry Mentzer’s kid,” hearing about him throwing jelly beans at singer Tex Ritter when he performed at the Strand Theater in Waynesboro, and some sort of incident involving a skunk.
Orneriness aside, he loved to cook and she loved to clean. She’d get her hair done every Thursday after work and dinner was always ready when she got home. One meal Mentzer remembers fondly is her husband’s pot roast with potatoes and carrots.
The couple also shared a love of movies and sports, going to all the high school football and basketball games in Waynesboro.
Once a year they would go to Rehoboth Beach, Del., “a little quiet town, where we knew a lady with a boarding house and a restaurant,” Mentzer remembered.
She worked at the furniture store for about 25 years until it closed, then went to work at Ken Pryor’s tire and appliance business.
She lost her husband to cancer just before her birthday 41 years ago, when he was 61.
“We always teased her about getting another man, but she said she had a good one and didn’t want another one,” Cline said.
“Most my age are gone now,” Mentzer observed.
She retired from Pryor’s after her husband died, traveled some in an RV with a brother, his wife and another sister, enjoyed knitting until her eyesight declined, liked to garden and walked a lot.
In June, Mentzer moved to The Leland, where she plays bingo, does crafts and periodically has a milkshake at happy hour.
Shawn Hardy is a reporter with Gannett's Franklin County newspapers in south-central Pennsylvania — the Echo Pilot in Greencastle, The Record Herald in Waynesboro and the Public Opinion in Chambersburg. She has more than 35 years of journalism experience. Reach her at shardy@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Waynesboro Record Herald: Gladys Mentzer, resident of The Leland in Waynesboro, turns 100
