'Laughter and ice cream' is this former York Suburban teacher's secret to living 105 years
Mary Grace Holtzapple has lived through 19 presidents and eight wars. The beloved York Suburban teacher turned 105 surrounded by family, friends and former students during a lunch in her honor Thursday at the Village Green Family Restaurant in Springettsbury Township.
Holtzapple was born in 1919 in St. Thomas, a small village west of Chambersburg in Franklin County. “That was a time when the world was in turmoil, during the First World War,” friend Eileen Druck said, adding, ”born before hairspray and pantyhose…”
“Only 0.4 percent of females and 0.09 percent of males will survive to 105 years which is 10 times rarer than survival to 100,” according to a Boston University Centenarian Study updated this year.
One of Holtzapple’s earliest memories as a small child was going to church “as soon as I was able. I had wonderful parents. I’m so grateful all of my life that they were such a good influence on me,” she said.
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Holtzapple knew in the 1920s “from the very beginning that I was going to grow up and go to college and be a school teacher.”
The future teacher graduated from Gettysburg College around 1940 and continued her studies for teaching in Vermont, she said.
She is best known today as a “beloved Latin and French teacher at York Suburban,” Druck said, adding that her total education career spanned 45 years.
More Centinerian Secrets: Her secrets to turning 107? Faith, good genes — and a Yuengling lager every day
Meg Zarfos, of Berwyn, was a student of Holtzapple’s between 1960-63. So inspired by Holtzapple making Latin exciting, she went on to become a Latin and French teacher herself for 37 years in Chester County. At the time, “everyone took Latin and then you would branch out to a modern language after that,” she said, adding that her teacher “mixed excitement with subject matter.”
She “gave us an inspiration to teach,” Zarfos said.
Holtzapple continues to live in her tri-level home of 63 years in Haines Acres, Springettsbury Township, and until recently, independently, when her retired son John moved back to York to be there for her.
A poem written for Holtzapple that was recited during the luncheon outlined the two most important ingredients of her longevity: “Laughter and ice cream.”
This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Laughter and ice cream fuels 105-year-old York Suburban teacher
