A Mother’s Day Tribute

Happy Mother’s Day – A Tribute to Mom!

Hazel K. Bentz Druck, age 86

 My mom is an incredible woman. She still swings a mean golf club, and at age 86, she continues to hit the links often. She’s in better shape physically than I am. Not only does she do most of her own yard work, riding on her John Deere mower (it’s a big yard), she also lovingly tends dozens of flowering plants every summer, and she still bakes up a storm at Christmas.

 The youngest of four children of Harry Alvin Bentz and Martha “Mattie” Dentler, Hazel Kathleen Bentz was born in 1923 in York County, Pennsylvania. According to family legend, her mother’s ancestors were of Irish descent. To date, however, I’ve not determined from which country they emigrated.

Mom’s life was not an easy one. Her parents divorced when she was just six weeks old. Her sister Martha is about 14 months older than Mom. They had two older siblings, Jacob Franklin and Edna Kathryn, both deceased, who were around 13 and 14 years old when Hazel was born.

Hazel Bentz, right, with big sister, Martha.

Mom was not quite seven when she and sister Martha went to live with their paternal grandparents in Emigsville, York County. After about a year they moved to Lancaster County, but they came back to York in 1933.

Hazel walked to a two-room schoolhouse for her early education. “It was about a two-mile round trip in all kinds of weather,” recalls Mom. After sixth grade, she walked and took a trolley to a larger junior high school, until her mother moved again to a small country farm. Hazel walked a mile to a one-room school, where she finished eighth grade.

In the waning years of the Great Depression, Hazel, Martha, and their mother eked out a living by raising vegetables, which they took to the city to sell. Martha drove the car. “I stayed at home and tended the animals or worked in the fields,” says my mother. But as a teenager, she also enjoyed roller-skating. Their mutual fondness for going around in circles on wheeled footwear is how Hazel met her future husband.

50th Wedding Anniversary Photo taken several months early, in 1990

 

After dating for a year or so, she and Benjamin E. Druck were married. The bride was 17; the groom 22 years old. They started out small, in a little summer house on the farm of the bride’s mother. “It had two rooms,” recalls Mom, “one up, one down; toilet outside.”

School Days

About six years later, they moved to a 40-acre farm in York Township, where they raised five children and thousands of chickens, which laid millions of eggs. The kids, the chickens, and the eggs  required much time and energy for many years, and Mom and Dad  often struggled to make ends meet. They eventually went out of the egg business. Dad  started his own garage-door company, a smart move. It’s still going strong. The kids grew up, married, and moved out,  eventually producing 12 grandchildren, who gave Mam-maw and Pap-paw 21 great-grandchildren.

Throughout the years, Hazel has enjoyed traveling, hunting, and square dancing. Nowadays, when she’s not cutting the grass, raking leaves, or baking cookies, Mom enjoys reading, working on crossword puzzles, or making beautiful cross-stitched pieces, many of which she gives as gifts.

Despite some recent nagging shoulder problems, she continues to golf regularly throughout the season. Her energy and enthusiasm are boundless.

Happy Mother’s Day to a  truly amazing woman!

 

 

What a hat!

Hazel's mother, Martha "Mattie" E. Dentler