Sara Zenge

Editor’s note:  Each Sunday, The Herald-Mail runs “A Life Remembered.” Each story in this continuing series takes a look back — through the eyes of family, friends, co-workers and others — at a member of the community who died recently. Today’s “A Life Remembered” is about Sara D. Zenge who died May 26, 2012, at the age of 98. Her obituary was published in the May 29 edition of The Herald-Mail.

Sara Zenge loved words. From her undergraduate degree to the doctorate in linguistics she was awarded at the age of 70, it was words and education that moved her.

“Grandma loved words. Preferably, there was a dictionary in every room,” said granddaughter Kate Grumbacher of Alexandria, Va.

When her only child, Judy Grumbacher of Alexandria, Va., was young, Judy loved having her children’s dictionary read to her over and over, to which Sara obliged.

When Judy’s only child, Sara Katherine “Kate” Grumbacher, was born, Zenge bought an even bigger children’s dictionary for her.

“I will return the favor by getting Sophie an even bigger dictionary,” said Judy, referring to the upcoming birth of Kate’s daughter, due around Labor Day.

“I was lucky. I was her only grandchild ever. I didn’t have to share her with anyone else,” Kate said.

Four days before her death, the 98-year-old Zenge was reading to kindergarten students at Salem Avenue Elementary School in Hagerstown, where she and several other Ravenwood Assisted Living residents volunteered twice a month.

Sara had volunteered for the past two school years and worked exclusively with Sara Dillow’s kindergartners on reading.

“You could tell her heart was in education. She really took to the kids. She was a real inspiration to me,” Dillow said.

Sara Dunning was born and raised in Tamms, Ill., a “dirt-poor town” in the southern tip of the state. She was one of five children, but only three lived to adulthood.

Sara was 5 when the car in which her father Henry, mother Maisie, and an infant brother were riding was hit by a streetcar while they were out Christmas shopping. Sara’s brother died in the crash, and her father died the next day.

Her mother was in a coma for several days, but recovered and relied on her training as a teacher to support her family until she remarried.

The accident affected Sara’s perspectives in many ways.

“She always told me everyone needed to be able to support themselves,” Judy Grumbacher said.

Her mother’s father, who had four daughters, was an avid reader, although he probably attended school only to the sixth-grade.

“She grew up with people who valued education. Her aunts — she just grew up around strong women, smart women,” Judy said.

“Mom was the first in her family to go to college,” she said.

Sara told her family that she had some incredible teachers during the Depression. She was taught and encouraged by educators with master’s degrees and doctorates, who were happy to get teaching jobs where they could.

After high school, Sara went to normal school for training to become a teacher. She worked in a one-room schoolhouse in Bowling Green, Mo.

Unconventional and nontraditional are two words that would describe Sara. She valued education so much that she quit a paying job during the Depression to go to college, which did not earn her overwhelming support from her family.