Mary D. Risser, 81

Mary Douglass Ritz Risser, 81, of Millersville, PA passed away at her home on Friday, February 4, 2011 after a long illness.

On September 2, 1929, in a big white farmhouse along Route 24 between Rhinely and Winterstown, York County, Mary Douglass Ritz was born to Theo Jeanette Douglass Ritz and John W. Ritz, a veteran of the 28th Division who was wounded in the Argonne Forest in WWI. As a four year old, with the help of her beloved grandfather, John Douglass, who was a fiddle player for dances, Mary earned her first dollar skinning out and stretching a weasel for the one dollar state bounty. Later that year, when Mary was still only four years old, her thirty-year-old mother died of tuberculosis. In 1935, her father remarried, and they went to live in Blymire Hollow with her father’s family. At the height of the Great Depression, her grandfather Clinton Ritz had a massive stroke, and so the family moved again.

They moved to Red Lion and rented a three-story house on High Street for fifteen dollars a month with one cold water faucet. Mary was graduated from Red Lion High in 1947 and entered nurses training at St. Joseph’s Hospital School of Nursing from which she was graduated in 1950.

On January 14,1951, Mary married the love of her life, Peter Hershey Risser, who served four years on the minesweeper USS Strive during the invasion of Anzio, the invasion of Southern France, the Normandy invasion, Okinawa, and for the clearing of mines for the USS Missouri to go in for the surrender of Japan. Peter Risser died March 5, 2009.

Mary and Peter had two dearly loved children, Erica Lisa Runkles, wife of Dane H. Runkles, Conestoga, PA and Peter Philip Risser, Duncannon, PA and a precious grandson, Anton Risser Runkles.

Mary stayed in touch with her treasured friends from high school, nursing, and teaching, and they were there for her always.

Mary loved all living things except ticks, fleas, voles, and mosquitoes. She especially loved her six fish ponds with humongous Koi, her five dogs: Dorothy Beagle, Veronica, Joop, Dudley, and Hamish and her cats: Ralph, and Ethel. Mary had a special afffinity for snakes and frogs, and once saved the life of a green frog that a snake had already swallowed the frogs’s hind leg and part of its butt. Mary grabbed the snake and gently took the frog out of the snakes’s mouth. Limpy had a happy summer, and the garter snake was trucked off to the Little Conestoga.

In later years, Peter and Mary, as independent travellers, traveled through the Canadian Maritimes, the Hawaiian Islands, Scotland, Switzerland, Bermuda, Aruba, France, Italy, Istanbul, and Greece.

In 1967, after being graduated from Millersville, Mary began teaching eighth graders in the Hempfield School District. In 1974, Mary completed her master’s degree with honors, doing her thesis on Emily Dickinson. After retirement, Mary edited the literary magazine, Expressions, for Landisville Middle School. At the time of her death she still held her nursing license.

Mary will be laid to rest beside her beloved husband in Mount Pleasant Lutheran Cemetery, Rhinely, just a stone’s throw from the big white farmhouse where she was born.  Friends will be received on Saturday, February 12, 2011 from 10-11AM at the Charles F. Snyder Funeral Home & Crematory, 441 N. George St., Millersville, PA, with the service to follow at 11AM. In lieu of flowers, please make contributions in Mary’s memory to Hospice of Lancaster County, 685 Good Drive, Box 4125, Lancaster, PA 17604-4125. To send an online condolence, please visit: SnyderFuneralHome.com. Charles F. Snyder Funeral Home & Crematory, 872-5041