5 day forecast
Century Club: Margarete Gourse and Arlene Hill Teets mark their milestone birthdays
-
Greta Gourse. -
Arlene Hill Teets.
Share with others:
Two residents of Concordia of the South Hills celebrated milestone birthdays this week.
Margarete "Greta" Gourse turned 105 on Saturday. She was born in Vienna, Austria, on Sept. 1, 1907, and lived there until the Germans invaded in 1938. She fled to Belgium, then France, and back to Belgium after World War II ended. After the war, she was selected to teach corset-making skills to a group of young women who had survived the Holocaust. In 1949, she and her first husband, Ernest Erdheim, immigrated to America. When asked where she wanted to live, she said San Francisco because she had heard it was a beautiful place.
A professional corset maker or corsetiere by training, she worked 20 years for I. Magnin, the fashionable department store in San Francisco. After Mr. Erdheim died, she married again. Then, when her second husband, Milton Gourse, fell ill, they relocated to Pittsburgh to be near her niece. She moved to the Covenant, now Concordia, in 2004. Her friends attribute her longevity to her sense of humor.
Arlene Hill Teets turned 100 on Monday and celebrated with friends at Concordia.
She was born in Baden on Sept. 3, 1912. She married Reed H. Teets on Aug. 25, 1937, and they had two children: Virginia L. Hausele, who also lives at Concordia Haven I, and Edward H. Teets Sr. of Rochester.
Mrs. Teets was a nurse at Rochester Hospital until 1963, when she became owner of Teets Hardware Store in Rochester. She retired in 1977.
A member of Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Rochester, she enjoyed crocheting and reading mystery and adventure books. She attributes her longevity to her strong faith, keeping active and an interest in current events. She has seven grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren. She has lived at Concordia for more than two years.
First Published September 4, 2012 12:00 am
