Benjamin G. Shank

Former Lancaster County resident Benjamin Greenly Shank, age 97, died February 3, 2022, ten days following the death of his beloved wife Alma, at an assisted care facility in Laurel, Maryland. He is survived by his two daughters Vicki Shank along with her husband Barry Harlan, and Terri Reed, as well as a grandson William Michael Kemp Jr. along with his wife Amanda and their toddler son William Mason Kemp.

At the family’s request, no service will be held. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to your favorite charity. Burial will be at Bossler’s Mennonite Church in Elizabethtown.

Mr. Shank was born on a Mennonite family farm July 26, 1924, in Conoy Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and attended a one-room schoolhouse on Bainbridge Road west of Elizabethtown until the eighth grade. He was the 11th child of twelve children born to Benjamin M. Shank and Amanda Campbell Greenly Shank. Like most farm families during the Depression, the Shank family didn't have electricity or indoor bathrooms, and feeding a large family was difficult even with their own garden. They farmed-out their teenage children to neighboring farmers who needed help with crops and cows. Ben said as a teenager he resided and worked for several years with a stoic farmer who seldom gave him time off to enjoy himself.

At age 20, Ben enlisted in the United State Navy during World War II, eventually serving as a pharmacist’s mate at a Navy hospital in Puerto Rico. After he was honorably discharged in 1946, he took a road trip west with a couple Navy pals, “Go west young man! Go west!” but he got homesick and returned to Lancaster County, getting a job as a feed truck driver. In 1948, he went to a square dance and met a cute 18 year-old girl Alma Longenecker whose family was also farming Mennonites, and a year later they married at the First Church of God in Elizabethtown.

After marrying Alma, Ben decided to work for himself as a poultry farmer with the help of his wife. But several years later, even with the help of his two daughters, Vicki and Terri, small farm-subsistence worsened when large commercial farms commoditized agriculture. Ben found a job with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor as a liaison to farmers in Lancaster County, helping them to comply with labor laws and also earning his G.E.D. He eventually tore down two chicken houses, retired, became a fanatical golfer preferring to walk with his golf bag rather than drive the course, and with Alma moved to a senior community in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. They spent over 20 years there, gaining a reputation as badminton players who showed no mercy to their opponents.

Ben will be remembered fondly by his daughters and others, even when vascular dementia robbed him of his memory. His best moments during his years of declining memories were captured in this 2018 video made by his daughter Vicki . . . . https://youtu.be/F366OLp8NdQ