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Kathleen Newcomer poses for this church directory photo taken in 1995. (Submitted photo / July 7, 2012) |
Kathleen Smith didn’t know how to cook when she married Richard “Dick” Newcomer in November 1938, but after living with her in-laws in the Newcomer farmstead for several months, she learned from her mother-in-law.
Since those early cooking lessons, Kathleen became known for her generous hospitality and the pleasure she derived from feeding a crowd.
“She always had oodles and oodles of food,” said oldest niece Catherine “Cate” Smith of Hagerstown. “When she told you she’d have a little bite, she had enough for an army.”
She has another fond memory from the 1950s. Cate’s family lived in the Beaver Creek area, and got a television set in March 1953. She remembers Dick and Kathleen and their daughter, Ruann, coming over every Sunday night to watch a preacher, which was followed by Roy Rogers.
“Ruann wanted to watch Roy Rogers with us,” Cate said. “Of course, all the kids wanted to watch Roy Rogers.”
Kathleen was the fifth of Harry and Sadie Smith’s six children. Harry worked for Brining Undertakers and was 33 when he died of the flu in 1918, Ruann said.
The youngest, George, was born on Christmas Day 1918. Harry died the next day in the same bed his son had been born in a day earlier.
With Harry’s death, the children were split up among the family. Kathleen lived with an aunt for about two years.
Sadie got a job as a housekeeper for the Lemuel Toms family in Benevola and kept George with her. When George was 2, Sadie was doing a load of wash and told George not to pull the plug on the washing machine. Sadie turned her back briefly, just long enough for George to pull the plug, and he was scalded with the hot wash water and died.
Kathleen was the next youngest child, and after George’s death, went to live with Sadie. When J. William “Will” Stine divorced his first wife, he and his son moved back in with his mother in her stone house on Old National Pike. He worked at the mill, and when he learned that Sadie was working in the area, they started playing cards together. They married in 1923.
“She could not have asked for a nicer stepfather,” Ruann said. “He really treated her as a daughter.”
Kathleen worked in the store the family ran out of the stone house. She would have graduated from Boonsboro High School in 1934, but she missed too much school one year due to kidney stones, so graduated a year later.
She attended Harmony Hill school and Benevola United Methodist Church with Dick, both active in the Christian Endeavors youth group. They married on Thanksgiving Eve 1938.
As the wife of a farmer, there were no vacations, Ruann said. She attributed her mother’s longevity to her work ethic and staying busy.
Kathleen rarely ventured far from her home, but she traveled around Maryland with Ruann during the first two years of Ruann’s three-year term as Maryland state regent for Daughters of the American Revolution, which ended June 30.
“She enjoyed being with all the girls,” Ruann said.
Kathleen Newcomer liked her routines. There was the spring and fall cleaning of the Newcomer farmhouse in Benevola, where she lived for 73 years since her marriage to Dick. Kathleen did her seasonal cleaning until she was almost 95.
For years, there was the Friday outing to Hagerstown in her freshly washed 1985 Chevrolet Impala to get her hair done.
“That was her day,” Ruann said. “She enjoyed that.”
Since those early cooking lessons, Kathleen became known for her generous hospitality and the pleasure she derived from feeding a crowd.
“She always had oodles and oodles of food,” said oldest niece Catherine “Cate” Smith of Hagerstown. “When she told you she’d have a little bite, she had enough for an army.”
She has another fond memory from the 1950s. Cate’s family lived in the Beaver Creek area, and got a television set in March 1953. She remembers Dick and Kathleen and their daughter, Ruann, coming over every Sunday night to watch a preacher, which was followed by Roy Rogers.
“Ruann wanted to watch Roy Rogers with us,” Cate said. “Of course, all the kids wanted to watch Roy Rogers.”
Kathleen was the fifth of Harry and Sadie Smith’s six children. Harry worked for Brining Undertakers and was 33 when he died of the flu in 1918, Ruann said.
The youngest, George, was born on Christmas Day 1918. Harry died the next day in the same bed his son had been born in a day earlier.
With Harry’s death, the children were split up among the family. Kathleen lived with an aunt for about two years.
Sadie got a job as a housekeeper for the Lemuel Toms family in Benevola and kept George with her. When George was 2, Sadie was doing a load of wash and told George not to pull the plug on the washing machine. Sadie turned her back briefly, just long enough for George to pull the plug, and he was scalded with the hot wash water and died.
Kathleen was the next youngest child, and after George’s death, went to live with Sadie. When J. William “Will” Stine divorced his first wife, he and his son moved back in with his mother in her stone house on Old National Pike. He worked at the mill, and when he learned that Sadie was working in the area, they started playing cards together. They married in 1923.
“She could not have asked for a nicer stepfather,” Ruann said. “He really treated her as a daughter.”
Kathleen worked in the store the family ran out of the stone house. She would have graduated from Boonsboro High School in 1934, but she missed too much school one year due to kidney stones, so graduated a year later.
She attended Harmony Hill school and Benevola United Methodist Church with Dick, both active in the Christian Endeavors youth group. They married on Thanksgiving Eve 1938.
As the wife of a farmer, there were no vacations, Ruann said. She attributed her mother’s longevity to her work ethic and staying busy.
Kathleen rarely ventured far from her home, but she traveled around Maryland with Ruann during the first two years of Ruann’s three-year term as Maryland state regent for Daughters of the American Revolution, which ended June 30.
“She enjoyed being with all the girls,” Ruann said.
Kathleen Newcomer liked her routines. There was the spring and fall cleaning of the Newcomer farmhouse in Benevola, where she lived for 73 years since her marriage to Dick. Kathleen did her seasonal cleaning until she was almost 95.
For years, there was the Friday outing to Hagerstown in her freshly washed 1985 Chevrolet Impala to get her hair done.
“That was her day,” Ruann said. “She enjoyed that.”
