Fellowship and Fun were 'Happy Hearts' Hallmark
Happy Hearts Club members, from left, Elma Spangler, Anna Huber, Lois Landis, Grace Peifer and Ruth Hershey gather at Landis Homes. (Suzette Wenger / Staff)
July 5, 2010
By Lori Van Ingen
Lancaster Newspapers Staff Writer
After 74 years and more than 470 meetings, the friends from the Happy Hearts club have met together for the last time.
In 1934, Grace Kautz Landis Peifer and Anna Weaver Huber formed the Happy Hearts with eight other girls from their church, Mellinger Mennonite.
"When we were young and there were no activities for the youths at the church. We wanted to sing for sick people or something like that," Peifer said. "We wanted to help them enjoy life in spite of their unfortunate circumstances."
Besides Peifer and Huber, the other charter members were Anna Landis Charles, Mary Harnish Esbenshade, Mary Heller, Ruth Martin Hershey, Gertrude "Gerty" Martin Hollinger, Mary Leaman, Verna Fager Rohrer and Ruth Leaman Rutt.
Eventually, several women dropped out and others took their places. Elma Spangler took the place of her relative, Mary Harnish Esbenshade, when she was killed in an auto accident. Lois Landis took Verna Fager Rohrer's place, and another Lois Landis took the first Lois' place.
"We always had 10 girls," Peifer said.
When the group organized, they took the name Happy Hearts and elected a president, secretary/treasurer and card sender. Dues were 25 cents a month.
They chose their own colors - blue and white - and created their own matching dresses.
They also had a club flower, the chrysanthemum, and their motto was "I know something good about you." Their theme song, "Sing and Smile and Pray," was sung at each meeting.
Among their many causes were supporting a child in China and another one in Greece, contributing to the Leper Society, making scrapbooks for hospitals and flannel-graphs for African missions, furnishing a room at Welsh Mountain Home and packing Christmas bundles for abroad.
They also visited the sick and elderly at various hospitals and nursing homes.
Special activities included an old-fashioned night; camping at Camp Deerpark in the Catskills; going on day trips to such places as Longwood Gardens, Winterthur Gardens, Franklin Institute and Strasburg Rail Road; attending Sandy Cove Bible Conference; relaxing at a Tioga County hunting cabin; and spending the day at a Mount Gretna cottage.
The ladies recalled one time, when Peifer lived in New York City, the gang all went up to her home and ate corn roasted on the grill by Hershey's husband.
With the addition of husbands and more than 20 children at one time, the fun increased exponentially.
The meetings were "special. We looked forward to seeing each other," Peifer said.
There were "gales of laughter, musical voices, great fun and tasty treats. ... Our moms would be in the midst of a serious business with all the proper protocol when all of a sudden we children would hear gales of laughter or uproarious giggles spilling from the session and floating throughout the house. We always wondered what was so funny," wrote Betty Louise Hershey, a Happy Hearter child, for the group scrapbook in 1997.
The seven remaining women are now in their 90s. Landis, Peifer and Hollinger are 93, and Spangler, Huber, Hershey and Rutt are 92.
Five of the women - Landis, Spangler, Huber, Peifer and Hershey - are residents of Landis Homes Retirement Community, while Rutt lives at Woodcrest Villa and Hollinger at Pleasant View Retirement Community.
Because only Peifer still has her driver's license and health issues are a huge concern, the women decided their June meeting would be the last.
"The name of our circle 'Happy Hearts' has been our experience throughout the years, as we fellowshipped and shared together. I have been blest by being part of this circle," Huber said in their scrapbook.
All the women said they were going to miss the friendships they have shared throughout the years.
But Landis noted - and the others agreed - that they would not miss the activities as much as they would have 10 years ago.
"When we got to be 90, things were a bit different," Landis said.
For their last meeting, the seven women had a special dinner in a private dining room at Landis Homes.
lvaningen@lnpnews.com
© 2010 Lancaster Newspapers
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