Obituary for Mable Bontrager, class of 1948

Biblical Seminary graduate Mable Bontrager, née Busch, a retired English teacher, died Wednesday, January 19, in hospice at the Riverwoods Nursing Care Facility in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Bontrager had retired to Lewisburg in 1992 with her husband, Robert Bontrager. She was 88.

The cause was complications from Alzheimer’s disease.

Mrs. Bontrager is survived by her husband, Robert Bontrager; son and daughter-in-law Timothy and Rose Bontrager and grandchildren Devon Louis and Amy Rose Bontrager of Emporia, Kansas; son and daughter-in-law Thomas and Laura Bontrager of New York, New York; a sister, Alice Hanson of Bismarck, North Dakota; and a brother, John Busch of Las Vegas.

Mable Louise Busch was born June 14, 1922 on a farm near Underwood, North Dakota to John and Elma Busch. She was the second of what would be six children. She and her family weathered the Great Depression through farm living and Methodist faith. She became the firstchild in her family to attend college. It was as a student at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana that she met Robert Bontrager. They were graduated from Taylor in 1945 and were married June 13, 1946.

Mable Bontrager attended Biblical Seminary (now New York Theological Seminary) in New York City from 1946 to 1948. After she received her master’s degree in religious education, she and her husband served abroad under the auspices of the Congo Inland Mission, a Mennonite organization. Their mission took them first to Brussels, Belgium, where they intensively studied the French language and Belgian history and government. This prepared them to travel by ship to the Belgian Congo (later Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo), which was ruled at the time by a Belgian colonial government. They worked in Africa over the next 15 years as educators and publishers.

The couple returned to the United States in 1965, during a time of political unrest in the Congo. They adopted two boys, Thomas and Timothy, moving first to Syracuse, New York, then, in 1970, to Manhattan, where they lived and taught over most of the next two decades. The Bontragers were members of the First Congregational Church. Mrs. Bontrager became a high school English teacher, her husband a professor in the journalism school at Kansas State University.

She became known in her English department for her mastery of grammar, an accomplishment due in part to her background in French and Latin. She was the first teacher at Manhattan High School to offer courses in science fiction and the Bible as literature. She taught remedial courses as avidly as advanced ones, confident that she could impart the fundamentals of grammar and usage to anyone willing to work hard. Over the years, she acquired a following of former students who credit her with teaching them how their own language works.

She retired in 1987. She and Robert Bontrager later moved from Manhattan to Lewisburg, where they enjoyed years of travel and fellowship with friends old and new, including Chester and Margaret Jump, whom the Bontragers had known since 1950.

Mrs. Bontrager was diagnosed in 1999 with early-stage Alzheimer’s; in 2005, she entered Birchwood Lane, the Riverwoods nursing wing for dementia patients.

No funeral service will be held. A memorial service may be held at a later date, at the discretion of the family. Donations in memoriam may be made to Albright Care Services at 90 Maplewood Drive, Lewisburg, PA 17837.