AGE: 83
GILBERT, Gretchen J.
Paw Paw
Family will receive friends Saturday, June 15th, 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church, Paw Paw where a memorial service will be held following visitation at 12:30 p.m. Arrangements are by the Adams Funeral Home, Paw Paw. Memorial contributions may be made to Alzheimer's Disease or Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America.
Gretchen Jane Schnoor was born on Thursday, June 27th, 1929, in Borgess Hospital, Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her parents, Peter H. Schnoor and Marie J. Klewer, met in Chicago. Peter was born in Germany and came to the U.S. when he was 16. Three of Peter's siblings also came to the United States in the next few years. Marie was born in Chicago along with her siblings. Her parents were from Stolp in Pommern. Peter worked in his brother-in-law's grocery store and Marie worked in her father's bakery, when they met. In 1919, Peter purchased 158 acres on 56th Avenue in Paw Paw. There he planted corn, asparagus, and strawberries. The next year, Peter's brother, Fred, bought his farm on old U.S. 12 (now Red Arrow Hwy) in Paw Paw. While Peter lived and worked on his farm, he remembered Marie from the neighboring bakery. He was visiting in Chicago and sent Marie stationery, and on her birthday he called her. Thus began their friendship and after a few short months they became engaged. They were married in Chicago on November 16th, 1921. Peter and Marie had three daughters, Elfriede Marie, Ruth Louisa, and Gretchen. Elf passed away in 2004 and Ruth will be celebrating the age of 90 next year. Gretchen was born six years after her oldest sister, Elf. In 1929 the stock market crashed and the Schnoor's sold their 120 acre farm. They bought a 45 acre farm on Red Arrow Highway and moved closer to town. Peter and Marie opened a roadside stand. The farmland was a mixture of vineyards and fruit trees. Marie and the girls worked in the roadside stand. Gretchen, even though being the youngest, was just as good at making change for the customers as her older sisters. They all learned how to pick fruit, sort fruit, keep the store swept and do whatever chores arose. Gretchen and her sisters would spend most summer mornings picking raspberries, to help pass the time they would sing in harmony or play guessing games. The girls also entertained themselves by playing dress up with their mother's and aunt's costumes. There were many outdoor games to be played, lots of card games, Monopoly and the piano was played. No one ever had lessons, but they all learned to read music and play by ear. Summer holidays would bring visitors from out of town to shop at the roadside store, and by the end of the day after a lot of hard work the family would be pleased to see the cash drawer full. Peter would always pay the girls for their work and the money would be saved for their school books and Christmas. On laundry day, when Gretchen was too young to participate in the laundry work one of her jobs was to pick sandburs and wild oats out her father's socks. Gretchen would often help her dad clean and dress chickens that were sold in the roadside stand. When Gretchen was still too young to go to school she would go with her mom to Friday Club and sew. Gretchen made her first hot pad and kept it for years. Before Gretchen was in school she and her dad would play cards while her sisters did homework. If her dad was reading she would do arithmetic for fun or play solitaire. In 1935, Peter bought more farmland on 52"d Avenue which contained vineyards, hayfields and open land ready for farming. When mom was in second grade she began taking violin lessons and continued to play until 11th grade when she was told she had to play in the orchestra for a play and she wanted to sing instead. A love of singing has been with Gretchen throughout her life. She sang in the church choir and the community chorus for many, many years. She had a very wide singing voice range. When Gretchen was young she enjoyed reading. Throughout her life Gretchen has always been a very organized person. She put together scrapbooks containing events from her early childhood through her college years. The books contain report cards, clippings of her sister's activities, friend's activities and many odds and ends. Her organization skills have helped her save news clippings, photos, even her fabric was organized by print and pattern. She has been praised and teased for her organization. She has always been very prompt, if not early. When she said dinner is at 6, we needed to be in the house and ready at 6 and if we weren't we were needled until we got there! Looking back, I'm glad that I got this skill from her, and, perhaps, my sisters are at least a little happy to have some, if not all, of her organizations skills. A few years ago, she and dad went through all of their photos and identified everyone, even grade school classmates. The photos are in boxes by years. In 1939 Gretchen met her friend Geraldine Jennings. They became lifelong friends and she was Gretchen's maid of honor when she married Jack. Even though many miles separate them, they have stayed in touch throughout their lives. Jack and Gretchen met at Pretty Lake Camp in 1946. Throughout their courtship Jack rode the bus from Benton Harbor and was dropped off in front of the Schnoor's home. After graduating from Paw Paw High School, Gretchen started college in 1947 at Western Michigan University. She got a job in the dormitory kitchen cleaning and washing dishes (working Monday, Wednesday and Friday). During this time she also taught herself how to knit. On November 9, 1948, Jack and Gretchen became engaged at WMU's homecoming. In February 1949, Gretchen left college and started working at the Paw Paw Telephone Company. On June 18, 1949, Jack and Gretchen were married at the First Presbyterian Church in Paw Paw, Michigan. Their supper reception was held at the Eagle Lake Lodge. Gretchen moved in with Jack at the apartment that he had rented a few months earlier on 110 McDonald Court in Benton Harbor. On the Monday following their marriage, Jack returned to work at Whirlpool in St. Joseph. Their first apartment was a "cold water" apartment, meaning they had to heat all of their own hot water. They had an ice box and had ice delivered to chill the box. Gretchen hand dug the first garden in their yard and planted potatoes. After being married about a month, Gretchen started working at Michigan Bell Telephone. For almost the entire first year of their marriage, Jack and Gretchen walked or used the bus to get around. In April 1950, they moved to 252 Bellview in Benton Harbor. In May 1950, they bought their first car, a blue Ford and paid $1900 cash for it. They had to put the car in Jack's mother's name because they were not old enough to legally own a car. The year 1951 was busy for them, in January they had their first real vacation and went to Florida. In August 1951, they bought their first home at 250 Hastings in Benton Harbor. Their first daughter, Kathy, was born in August 1952. After her maternity leave, Gretchen returned to working at night and Jack watched Kathy at night. In March 1954, the family moved into their new home built on Red Arrow Highway in Paw Paw on 22 acres of farmland they bought from Fred and Frances Schnoor. Jack continued to work at Whirlpool and Gretchen left her job at Michigan Bell. They became fruit farmers, cultivating grapes, cherries and raspberries. Gretchen even painted the house inside and outside. She worked along-side Jack in the fields or alone, while Jack did the other outside chores and worked at Whirlpool. He was left with very little leisure time. On January 26, 1955, Sally Jean was born in Lakeview Hospital in Paw Paw. After Sally was born, Gretchen started baking bread when she found she didn't have enough to do during the winter time. Perhaps shortly after this is when mom started baking bread for Communion for their church, she continued to do this for the church for 50 years. We always loved the time she would make bread. The smell of the bread baking and the anticipation of the bread coming hot out of the oven brought all of us into the kitchen to get a slice or two. On November 10, 1956, Peggy Sue was born at Lakeview Hospital. During the next years, Jack and Gretchen worked hard at cultivating their crops. They worked until dark almost daily and worked most weekends, taking time out to go to church on Sundays. The church has always been a big part of Gretchen's life. She joined the women's groups, choir and helped on money making projects that supported the church. She had many friends and acquaintances to visit with. She went almost every Sunday until her health prevented her from going. During their farming years, occasionally a weekend would come along that there wasn't much work to be done and we would visit with family and friends or they would play cards with family or friends. Gretchen did a lot of canning and freezing. She made 10 to 12 varieties of jams and jellies and sometimes up to 15 batches of just grape jelly. She gave jelly as gifts. Later, she stopped making a lot of jelly, but continued to make frozen strawberry jam until three years ago. We all enjoyed it, even Jack got to enjoy his special sugarless batch. When we girls were about 7, 8, and 11, Gretchen started sewing clothes for us and herself and she also taught the girls how to sew using the machine. We girls learned how to knit the German way and there was always a sweater eing created. Mom started working in late 1968 at the Van Buren County Courthouse in Probate Court. She started out as a clerk and became the Probate Register. In 1972, Jack and Gretchen sold their house and property on the south side of Red Arrow Highway and moved into a new house on the opposite side of the road that they built with the help of friends. I remember her staining wood and when it was finished she would carry it across the street to the new house. She retired from her job in 1991. Mom loved to bowl, and, like Jack, she sometimes bowled two or three times a week. Gretchen never liked sitting idle, she cross-stitched, did needlepoint, sewed clothing and continued to knit for many years. As her retirement approached, her crafting interests became more focused on quilting. When she did retire, she spent many hours working on quilts, saying there were too many quilts waiting to be made. She had quite a knack for picking out the coordinating colors for each quilt she made. For each quilt that she made, she numbered it and took a photo of it and put it in an album. Gretchen really enjoyed making the quilt tops and finally turned the actual putting together of the top, middle and bottom over to a family member and paid her for her valuable time. Sometimes a quilt was made for a specific person and sometimes she would make several and then let us take our choice of the one we liked best out of the selection. When visiting, many times we would leave with a quilt to take home. She also shared her quilts with members of the extended family. Gretchen and Jack enjoyed gardening together and put together a rather large veggie garden every year and she took pride in her flower gardens. When their free time became more abundant they took up their old interest in fishing. They became avid fans, fishing in the Ozarks for two weeks in the spring and two in the fall. It was quite a task preparing for their trip because Gretchen would pack nearly every baking pan and utensil in the kitchen that she might need to make desserts while they were there. Her love of baking supplied us with pies, cookies and surprises for many years. She clipped recipes and sorted them by try it; keep it or didn't like it. The Betty Crocker cookbook has fallen apart and there are many recipe boxes. At Christmas she took on the project of making 14 or more different kinds of cookies and then packaging them as gifts for friends and neighbors and having dad deliver them. For years she made many dishes of food for the Sutherland family reunion; one of these being the brown sugar pie recipe. The pie has been in such demand that we created a group that has a 'secret' meeting with a 'secret' password that allows us to enjoy the pie before it set out for non-members of the 'secret' group. Mom has been an avid game and card player for as many years as I can remember. She was always ready to participate, learn or teach a new game. Many holidays and family gatherings were spent around the table together, be it two of us or 11 of us, ages ranging from 5 up to 88. She was either very lucky or a great strategist because it was normal for her to win the games and be very happy about it. Back to fishing, our eyes will always see mom sitting on the boat with the Jacquay's dog, Rudy, next to her, with her tackle box, her fishing pole, her hat and the boat keys in hand. She wasn't going to be left behind! In 2009, mom was diagnosed with dementia when we noticed something was amiss with her organization and take charge attitude. Dad and all of us worked hard to help her stay as strong and able as she could be for the past four years. The changes were gradual and they took their toll. As we have learned, couples that have been together as long as our parents have been learn how to share in their needs and cover for each other. Dad's dementia was very well hidden and we just thought he was tired and hard of hearing. He was diagnosed with vascular dementia in December and it quickly took control of his mind and body. Since December Mom and Dad's time together and quality of life has been very, very limited. We have been very blessed to have such wonderful and loving parents on this earth as long as we have had. They weren't big on kissing and hugging until in their later years, but they always were supportive, giving and caring to all of us. And we will carry on with our memories and values that they have helped us learn throughout our lives.