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S H A R E
Memorial Service -
Sunday, March 26, 20171:30 pm21 Front StreetExeter, New Hampshire 03833
Gladys Mengel
DURHAM - Gladys Mengel, 99, passed away peacefully on March 17 surrounded by her family at Brookdale Sprucewood where she resided for the past six years.
Gladys was born on June 12, 1917 in Cumberland, Rhode Island, the daughter of the late William Dunbar Hebden and Janet Kinniburgh Hebden. One of 11 children in a large Scottish-English family, Gladys was known for her spirited personality and her unflagging determination and will, which remained with her to the end.
Gladys attended Pembroke College, the women’s arm of Brown University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1936. After college, she became a first grade teacher in East Providence, Rhode Island, which she always recalled as her favorite age to teach. When the male teachers were sent off to World War II, Gladys was drafted to fill their role at the high school level, where she taught chemistry and served as advisor to the school’s newspaper.
It was while she was a teacher that her best friend Phyllis Roberts set her up on a blind date with a Pennsylvania Dutchman named Walter Mengel. Though Walter cheered for the wrong team at that first date football game, prompting the spirited Gladys to shake her fist at him, she invited him to dinner, where family lore says she hooked him with the swordfish dinner she made. Walter didn’t ask Gladys out again for some time and it turned out he was waiting to get a new car before asking her. Once he did, they went out every Saturday night. He always arrived with flowers, chocolate and his guitar.
They married on July 12, 1947 and made their home in Rumford, Rhode Island, where Gladys devoted herself to her two children, Libby and Wally, and became active in a number of community groups and as a Girl Scout Troop leader. An independent thinker, Gladys became the first female president of the East Providence Citizen’s League, whose aim was to inform voters in a nonpartisan manner.
Walter was the president of the East Providence Civic Music Association for many years and Gladys often hosted dinners and cocktail parties for visiting musicians. She loved to cook and entertain, a talent passed down to her from her own mother, whose cooking remains legendary to this day.
Some of Gladys’s best memories were made during family camping trips to Moosehead Lake, Maine and Acadia National Park, where she often brought along her two nephews and niece. She brought four generations of her family to the same cottage on Seconsett Island, Cape Cod and loved to tell, and retell, stories of these trips.
Gladys had a lifelong love of reading and was always an active volunteer at libraries where she lived. In Rumford, she was very involved with efforts to bring a children’s room to the library. In later years, she volunteered to teach children to read.
Gladys and Walter lived in Fairfield and Easton, Connecticut before retiring to Sanford, North Carolina, where Walter could play golf year round. In their retirement, they traveled extensively to Hawaii, Bermuda, Vienna, Alaska, Scotland and the U.S.
Gladys was a selfless and devoted caretaker for Walter at the end of his life. After he passed away in 2005, she moved to live with her granddaughter Lara Bricker and her husband Ken Berkenbush in Exeter in 2006, where she found a new purpose in life, caring for her great-grandson Will.
Gladys made her home at Brookdale Sprucewood for the last six years of her life and her family is very appreciative of the compassionate care they gave Gladys at the end of her life. Gladys’s quality of life in her last year was greatly enhanced by the care she received from Wentworth Hospice including granting her wish to visit a classroom again, and to spend Christmas Eve with her family at church.
Gladys was predeceased by Walter, her husband of 58 years. She is survived by her son, Walter H. Mengel, of Cincinnati, Ohio; her daughter Libby Bricker, of Vershire, Vermont; Grandson Will Bricker, his wife Ashley and their daughters Taylor and Brooklyn, of Vershire, Vermont; Granddaughter Lara Bricker, her husband Ken Berkenbush and their son Will Berkenbush, of Exeter; sisters Elizabeth Bertenshaw, of Lincoln, Rhode Island and Jean Waterman, of Cumberland, Rhode Island, as well as several nieces and nephews. She was also predeceased by her siblings John, Phyllis, Janet, Barbara, Edward, Howard, Irving and Dot.
A memorial service will be held at the Congregation Church of Exeter on Sunday, March 26 at 1:30 with reception to follow at the church.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the pastor’s discretionary fund at the Congregational Church of Exeter.
