Domestic life
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Our Centenarians
Alumni who have reached 100 or will this year. If
we have missed you, please let us know
(330-263-2187).
Mary Courtney Bourns ’27, 99, Needham, MA. Homemaker.
Birthday July 3, 1905
Osie Drushel Feusier ’27, 100, Wooster, OH.
Teacher. Birthday September 4, 1904
Myrtle Ross Hawken ’27, 100, Calgary, Alberta,
Canada. Birthday February 17, 1905
Mary Park Henke ’27, 99, Kathleen, GA. Birthday
October 23, 1905
Bernice Buckley Kuskey ’27, 99, Alhambra, CA.
Teacher. Birthday August 25, 1905
Celia Bethune Paden ’27, 100, Cleveland, OH.
Teacher. Birthday March 30, 1905
A. Milton Spining ’26, 101, Brentwood, TN. Chemist.
Birthday October 13, 1904 |
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George Grosjean began work as a traveling salesman for Pillsbury, then
bought a grain business in Apple Creek. With the Great Depression coming
on, business got hard. The couple had to give up their house in Wooster
and move to Apple Creek. Then they lost their Studebaker, then the business.
"Anyone who lives through a depression never forgets it. We saw
many changes," Grosjean says. But the couple was happy. Their first
child, Walter (Class of 1951, see "Family Tree"), was born
in 1929. Three girls – Carol, Judith, and Georgeann – followed. "We
had friends, we played a lot of ping-pong and cards. We accepted things
as they came."
The Grosjeans moved back to Wooster in the mid-1930s to care for George’s
father. George eventually bought his father’s business, Farmer’s
Livestock Associa-tion and ran the auction house for thirty-two years.
Alice Grosjean knows it sounds dated, but the work of raising four active
children and keeping house satisfied her. "I never was a career-minded
person. I was very domestic. I loved raising my children," she says.
"I see these people on Dr. Phil (complaining about raising kids
and other frustrations), and I don’t know what was wrong with me.
I never had issues like this."
She loved cooking and gardening. She canned up to nine hundred quarts
of fruits and vegetables in the summer. Outside of the home, she served
as president of local women’s clubs and school PTAs. She hosted
alumni get-togethers at reunion time.
The Grosjeans bought a house on Burbank Road in 1942. They soon renovated
and expanded the home. Alice took well to choosing colors and redesigning
the space.
"If I had to do it over again, I think I would have liked to have
been a decorator instead of a schoolteacher."
Grosjean hasn’t been afraid to speak her mind, heading up such
efforts as a decades-long fight to keep fluoride out of the city’s
water supply.
"Alice has always been a woman ahead of her time," muses Marian
Cropp, who belongs to several organizations with Grosjean and worked
with her on reunion planning before Cropp retired from the College’s
alumni relations office. "She knows how she feels and expresses
it, but she wants to know your opinion, too.
"She’s got a special kind of class," Cropp adds. "She
has such a sparkle about her."
Friends kidded Grosjean about the way she fed her family – lots
of produce and water, not a lot of sweets. "In midlife, I realized
my father was on to something," she admits. She still drinks a lot
of water. She gave up coffee some ten years ago.
When George retired in 1972, the couple enjoyed extensive travel. "We
visited sixty-two countries," she counts.
George died in 1989. "I really lost him a few years before that,
to Alzheimer’s. But we had wonderful fun together."
Alice enjoys bridge. "At one point I belonged to four bridge clubs.
They’re all gone but two people now."
She boasts of eight grandchildren and thirteen great-grandchildren.
Family gatherings range from graduations and weddings to birthday parties
for the youngest great-grandchildren. Until the last year or so, Grosjean
was entertaining former classmates, such as Mary Courtney Bourns ’27,
when they came to town for reunions.
"It’s a fact: I love people."
Aging "is not all easy," Grosjean admits. The hardest part
is not being able to do work, to accomplish things. She doesn’t
like asking for help. She gave up driving when she was ninety-seven,
after eighty-three years behind the wheel.
She believes in positive thinking. "I’ve had some unhappy
times along the way, but I don’t dwell on them.
"Don’t hold grudges," she advises.
And stay active.
"I feel I need to keep moving," Grosjean admits. "If
I had my druthers, I’d rather just read and sleep and sit all day.
But I feel I can’t let myself do that, I have to push myself."
She smiles.
"I’ve enjoyed every phase of my life. Now I don’t mind
being old."
Send greetings to Alice Grosjean, 1814 Burbank Road, Wooster, OH 44691.
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