Obituary of Gretchen Vineyard

Gretchen Mignonne Schott Vineyard touched all in her circles with beauty, grace, and boundless enthusiasm. On November 16, she passed away peacefully at her residence at the Oaks in Pleasant Gap, PA. in the company of her loving husband Lowell and only daughter Julie Gittings who survives with her husband Gary.

Gretchen was born in Springfield, Illinois in 1916, the daughter of Alice Listmann Schott and Paul Stanton Schott. Her ashes will return to the family plots in the Oak Ridge Cemetery not far from the Lincoln tomb on whose steps she played as a girl with her younger brother Paulie and older cousin Virginia. Grandma Gretchen most cherished her two granddaughters, Hilary Gittings Trethewey and Leslie Gittings and their spouses, Jeremy and Erica. The 2014 arrival to each couple of the great grandchildren, Lyra Gittings Trethewey and Grayson Cole Gittings, thrilled her beyond all telling.

Gretchen was to leave Illinois as a teen and spend the rest of her life in Pennsylvania. As the Great Depression ended the manufacturing of fine timepieces in Springfield, her father moved his family to Lancaster, Pa. for a new job at Hamilton Watch. Gretchen enrolled in courses at Millersville College while she worked as an executive secretary at the then Armstrong Cork Company. She met A. Lowell Vineyard, a young Navy WWII veteran and University of Illinois graduate. He courted her with corsages and fox trotting at the Hershey Ballroom to the big band sounds of Guy Lombardo and Glenn Miller. They married in 1950.

Gretchen and Lowell relocated to Pittsburgh in the mid 1950's becoming ardent fans of the Pirates, Steelers, Pitt Panthers and later the Penn State Nittany Lions, their daughter's alma mater. Gretchen's lifetime activities included adult art classes, fine china painting, Japanese flower arranging, French and Spanish study, some serious bridge and homemaking of course. She joined the Baldwin Manor Garden Club, Investments Club, Civic Light Opera Women's Guild, the Baldwin Manor Community United Methodist's Church Women's Circles and continued in a ballroom dancing club with Lowell. She excelled as the local Brownie Troop Leader and volunteered many years at the Whitehall Public Library.

As a lifelong member of the Church of Christ, Scientist, Gretchen believed that all things work together for good and that harmony is enforced by an omnipotent, omnipresent loving God. Always faithful in serving her local branch churches, in Lancaster, York, Mt. Lebanon, and State College, she clerked, arranged flowers, selected music, taught Sunday School, took class, read aloud the Bible Sermon from the platform, organized and decorated Reading Rooms, and sought daily spiritual directions through prayer and her scriptural study.

Though sad to leave her own house, yard, vegetables and flower garden in 2010, Gretchen embraced new neighbors and interests at the Allegheny Lutheran Social Ministry supported facilities at the Oaks. She resumed playing bridge, learned pinochle and 500, painted in watercolors, made jewelry, and exercised to music. Whether the activity was an American history lecture, travelogue, Mystery Lunch, tea party, planting a new Kousa dogwood tree, thinning the geraniums, setting up bird houses or a new location for the community coffee pot, Gretchen's participation was her attempt to add more “pizzazz”.

We thank everyone who has surrounded Gretchen with loving care and prayers especially at the Oaks and at church. We are grateful too for the comfort of her nurses and kind respect of the physicians, their interns and their assistants at the Oaks, at the Mt. Nittany Medical Center and in the community.

On Saturday, November 28, 2015, the family will receive friends at 10 a.m. in the Community Room at the Oaks, 200 Rachel Drive, Pleasant Gap PA 16823 and hold a brief Memorial Service in her honor at 11:00. Lunch will follow. All are warmly invited to each or all events.

In lieu of any flowers, contributions could be sent to the Salvation Army Corps, 2603 E. College Ave. State College PA 16801, your own local Salvation Army, or to the Environmental Defense Fund, 257 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010, a 4 star rated charity working in non-partisan, scientifically grounded ways for climate and wildlife protection.

Arrangements are under the care of Koch Funeral Home, State College. Online condolences and signing of the guest book may be entered at www.kochfuneralhome.com.