Lois Shank Gerber, 80

June 28, 2023

On June 28, 2023, Lois Shank Gerber, age 80, died at home in Lititz, Pennsylvania, in the loving care of her family, almost five weeks after a diagnosis of glioblastoma.

Born and raised on the family farm in Spring City, Pennsylvania, fifth child of Norman and Irene (Souder) Bechtel, she was known as the oldest of the four youngest children. Lois enjoyed growing up on a dairy farm, even with all the work. With her siblings, she attended their church-run one-room schoolhouse and dreamed of being a teacher someday. Upon graduation from Christopher Dock High School (1961), she worked for a year as maid for knitting mill owners.

Lois went to Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia (class of 1966) to study home economics education. She thrived in college, finding herself, new friends, and joy in serving with a student team to rural West Virginia churches. The world opened up as she became more aware of injustice and inequalities. She fulfilled her childhood dream of becoming a teacher shortly out of college, teaching home economics and other subjects back in West Virginia, and later in Delaware, Virginia, and Ohio.

She married Henry Shank in 1967 and in the following years they were delighted with the births of Kristin, Karl, and Michael, marveling with each child the miracle of life. While Henry was in seminary in Elkhart, Indiana, he and Lois lived with a family whose mother had been recently murdered, with Lois managing the household and providing care for the family’s four daughters along with her own first baby, Kris. During this difficult year, Lois and Henry found vital support and mutual care with friends who together began Fellowship of Hope, an intentional house church community, which continues as a church to the present.

When their young family moved to Kidron, Ohio, for Henry’s new teaching job, Lois found support and friendship in small groups there as well – women with young children like her own, women of mixed generations, families with children – and many of these friendships continued over the years.

Henry and Lois bought a mini farm and grew much of the food they ate, raising animals, vegetables, flowers, and children with dedication and persistence. Lois sewed many of their clothes and blankets with her college-honed home economics skills. The children were expected to help daily with the responsibilities of this little homestead, tending chickens, sheep, and goats; weeding in the hot summer sun; plucking beetles from bean plants; shelling peas in the shade of the crabapple tree; helping to preserve a cellar and freezer full of fruits and vegetables. One of Lois’ favorite early summer meals was bread and butter sandwiches filled with sliced radishes and green onions. When she reconfigured their huge garden into beds with wider mown grass paths, she loved sharing these colorful nurturing spaces with friends and family. Her backyards in Kidron and later in Lititz were the peaceful settings of many a sunset campfire for roasting hot dogs and smores.

Henry’s teaching career ended when he became disabled with an untreatable heart condition. Lois remembered these as hard years as they both took part-time jobs trying to make ends meet, struggled with expectations of faith healing, and tried to maintain some sense of normalcy for three young children. They became co-supervisors for Choice Books Ohio, and Lois continued with Choice Books for thirteen years, most of them as a single parent after Henry died in 1983. She experienced a dark night of the soul after Henry’s death, from which grew over time an acceptance of God’s mystery and the unanswerable questions, a deep sense of empathy, and recognition of the complexity of life.

In mid-life Lois got her master’s degree from University of Akron (1993) and felt like she had come home into a new career as a mental health counselor. For nearly twenty years, she worked with families, children, and women in Ohio and Pennsylvania, often those in the Plain community, offering hope to those needing hope.

Lois married Lowell Gerber in 1997 and after several years together in Kidron, Ohio, they moved to the home in Lititz where she lived the rest of her life. Lois was glad to live closer to her mother and visited her regularly at Souderton Mennonite Homes until her death at age 99.

With empathetic listening skills affirmed by many, Lois developed meaningful relationships in each congregation where Lowell was pastor. As a worship leader in those churches, she enjoyed planning services where several people were invited to write and share a 100-word God moment they had experienced. These services were deeply meaningful for the speakers, the congregation, and for Lois herself. At the time of her death, Lois was a member of Blossom Hill Mennonite Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Travel was a regular part of Lois’ and Lowell’s life together, beginning with their honeymoon in the Bahamas. Lowell remembers the risk Lois took by going parasailing on that trip, even with their mutual fear of heights, but only after he went first! In the following 26 years, they visited 34 states, three Canadian provinces, and three South American countries. They enjoyed connecting with friends across the country as church delegates to Mennonite conventions and at Mennonite Health Assembly for her work as mental health counselor and his work as chaplain. Many other trips were focused around Lois’ love of the ocean and the lighthouses nearby. She and Lowell also enjoyed surprising each other in their gift giving, sometimes concocting elaborate plans involving many friends and family in the surprise.

Lois and Lowell were thrilled to become grandparents to Adrian and Micah, and loved their trip together to Cape May, New Jersey, each summer, riding the waves, watching for dolphins, combing the beach for special shells and stones, and eating ice cream. They created special play areas in their home especially for the grandkids’ visits, and played endless table games first with great patience and later doing their best to keep up with the growing speed of youth. They traveled to Virginia each spring and winter to hear Adrian and Micah sing with the Shenandoah Valley Children’s Choir and watched their concerts faithfully from home when the pandemic shifted to live music online. When both grandkids changed pronouns and legal names, Lois and Lowell continued their loving support and worked hard to change their habits of thought and speech.

During the last decade of her life, Lois’ health challenges included two knee replacements and three shoulder replacements (the first one broke!) due to arthritis, scoliosis, congestive heart failure, a stroke, multiple myeloma, and the glioblastoma which ended her life. Living with pain over many years was difficult, and she faithfully did her physical therapy and took her meds. Living with multiple high-risk conditions during the pandemic was scary and lonely; she took many precautions to avoid COVID-19 and stayed away from many social gatherings over those years. In the midst of these challenges, Lois kept her sense of humor, her warm smile, and practiced gratitude by thanking each person who provided care for her, often including Wilbur chocolate buds as part of her thanks.

Approaching her 80th birthday after several anxious years of pandemic isolation and months of treatment for multiple myeloma, Lois was overwhelmed with the kindness shown by many friends and family through a card shower celebrating this birthday milestone. She felt incredibly affirmed, and later, after the diagnosis of terminal glioblastoma, felt that she could die easily with her legacy conveyed with such care in those messages.

As a committed follower of Jesus, Lois was actively involved in each church community of which she was part. Throughout her life, she valued and pursued service opportunities and passionately advocated for issues including women in leadership, stewardship of the earth, climate change, migrant justice, food security, and refugee resettlement. She firmly believed that followers of Jesus are called to lift up the oppressed, care for the homeless, the poor, and the hungry. One of Lois’ book club friends described her as an out-of-the-box person, not afraid to think differently, ask hard questions, and speak out on things that were important to her. She and Lowell combined their desire to serve and love of travel by volunteering with service organizations in Washington, D.C., British Columbia, and Arizona. To do something useful during the pandemic, she did quality control at home for the local thrift store by piecing large puzzles which, if proven fully intact, were then sold by the store to benefit Mennonite Central Committee. Lois continued her life of service by donating her body through Humanity Gifts Registry for teaching purposes and research.

Lois cultivated pleasures passed on by her mother: good books, good food, and good music. An avid reader, she read aloud to her children and grandchildren until they too loved to read. She made delicious whole wheat bread and was a resourceful cook of the More-with-Less generation. Her radio was usually tuned to NPR’s classical music programming, and live concerts and really good hymn singing could be near-heavenly experiences for her. She delighted in the birds at their feeder, was a competitive player of word games, and spent time exploring her genealogy.

Family time received Lois’ intentional focus. She enjoyed hosting her children and grandchildren and traveling to see each of them and their work and homes. She cherished her sisters’ gatherings and valued connecting with her large extended family and the extended families of Henry and Lowell as well. Friends and family appreciated her listening, inquisitive, and affirming presence in their lives over the years, and the deep conversations, nourishing food, and belly laughs around her table.

Lois was preceded in death by her first husband Henry M. Shank; her parents; sisters Geraldine Stiedle, Lorraine Sayre, and Dorothea Ray; brothers Harold and Wilmer Bechtel; sister-in-law Reta Gerber; and brothers-in-law Jim Hardison, Earl Fuhrman, Paul Kolesar, and David Shank.

She is survived by her husband Lowell K. Gerber; children Kristin Shank Zehr (and spouse Kirk), Karl Shank, and Michael Shank; grandchildren Adrian and Micah Shank Zehr; sisters Eleanor Fuhrman and Doris K. Schmehl (and spouse Bob); sisters-in-law Fay Bechtel, Lois Shank, Ellen Shetler (and spouse Joe), Margaret Lehman (and spouse Daniel), Patricia Martin (and spouse John); brothers-in-law Paul Stiedle, Mike Sayre, Ken Ray, Keith Gerber, and Ray Shank (and spouse Marietta); and numerous cousins, nieces, nephews, and others in her large extended family.

A celebration of Lois’ life will be held on Saturday, September 16, 2023, at Blossom Hill Mennonite Church, 333 Delp Road, Lancaster, PA, 17601. Visitation will begin at 1:30 with the service at 3:00; all are welcome to stay for the meal afterward. The livestream is available at this YouTube link beginning at 2:40 p.m. on Saturday, September 16, and will also be viewable afterward: https://youtube.com/live/qft9VV_g8XU?feature=share

Because Lois valued the work of Blessings of Hope in fighting hunger, the family welcomes donations of non-perishable foods at the memorial service. Memorial donations may also be made to Mennonite Central Committee.