Marcella Dittenber turned 100 on Nov. 13 of last year. She was born on a farm near Lynch, Nebraska, in 1918, and grew up during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl era. She remembers her father losing five farms.
She found respite in the country school she attended in Eastern Nebraska. She loved the teacher who “was a good Christian person and a good leader,” says Dittenber.
This teacher started Dittenber on a lifelong love of music and helped her learn to play the piano. Dittenber still plays piano and organ for her church and is skilled with the accordion and harmonica.
The influence of this same teacher led her to take teacher training while in high school. Her teaching career began as soon as she graduated from high school in 1937. She later attended Chadron State College, Eastern Wyoming College, the University of Wyoming, and a college in Greeley, Colorado, where she graduated with her teaching degree.
Dittenber prospered as a teacher. Remembering the fun, loving atmosphere she learned under, she strived to provide this for her own students.
More than half a century later, Dittenber still hears from her students. She received a letter last year from a student who attended a VBS she taught in the 1940s. He wanted to thank her for being a good influence on him.
According to Dittenber, a long happy life includes having fun in the classroom and enjoying your work. She believes in clean living and has never used alcohol or smoked. She’s a long-time vegetarian, which she says is just “cleaner.”
“Being a Christian is most important,” she said, adding to her list of keys to a happy life.
“Marcella is one of the sharpest 100-year-old
people I’ve ever met,” said Ed Barnett, RMC president. “She drives herself to church, speaks up in Sabbath school, plays the piano in church, and still lives by herself.”
Dittenber has had to adapt to the changing times. Yet she’s an example of staying firm and committed to her faith and church.
