Rebecca Hersh Longenecker

Rebecca Hersh Longenecker, born October 22, 1925, and formerly of Elizabethtown, went home to her Savior on December 18, 2013 at the Susquehanna Valley Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Columbia. She was 88 years old. Rebecca was the daughter of the late Phares B., Sr. and Kathryn Hersh Longenecker.

She was an active, life-long member of Bossler Mennonite Church, Elizabethtown, having served on the Stewardship and 200th Anniversary Committees for the church, as well as functioning as the Mennonite Mutual Aid representative for the church.

Rebecca graduated from the former East Donegal High School in 1945, Lancaster General Hospital School of Nursing, and earned a BSN from Millersville University in 1968.

She was an office nurse for the late Drs. Garber, Leight, Bovard, and Newman (1952-1968) and worked in post-op at the former Elizabethtown Crippled Children’s Hospital. In 1970, she began working at the Hershey Medical Center; she was there when the first patients were admitted and continued working there for 22 years, retiring in 1992.

Rebecca was a world traveler and when asked one time where all she has traveled, she replied, “it would be easier to tell you where I haven’t been than to say where I have been.” Her travels included visiting the 550-year-old Langenegger ancestral farm in Langau, Switzerland, where her ancestors are still living. She visited Japan, Australia, Scandanavia and Israel.

Rebecca’s compassionate heart served many through numerous overseas medical mission trips, including two extended stays at Jamama Hospital in Somalia, sponsored by Mennonite Board of Missions. She also spent working vacations with the Christian Medical Society in Honduras, Liberia, Singapore, Taiwan, Guatemala, Nepal, and India from 1974-1982.

Although she had no children of her own, she shared her interest in organic gardening, fraktur painting, calligraphy, creative Bible study, photography, traveling, flower arranging, holistic living, and genealogy with her many nieces and nephews.

A sister, Lois Jean Kreider, and a brother, J. Wilmer Longenecker, survive Rebecca. She was also aunt to four generations of many nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by a sister, Esther Mae Hiestand; two brothers, J Howard Longenecker and Phares B. Longenecker, Jr.; one nephew, Leslie Kreider; and one niece, Carol Kreider Leigh.

A viewing will be held at Bossler Mennonite Church, 2021 Bossler Road, Elizabethtown on December 30, 2013 from 9:30 - 11:00 a.m. The funeral service will follow at 11:00 a.m. with Pastor Fred Garber and the Rev. Wilmer Longenecker officiating. Interment will be in the adjoining Bossler Cemetery. Arrangements have been entrusted to Miller-Sekely Funeral Home & Crematory, 130 N. Market St., Elizabethtown 17022.