Whatever happened to

By Harold Flickinger ’07

On life after retirement, Eleze Mc-Kenzie ’35 said, “You’re always busy. Just because you’re retired—that’s a misnomer.”

Retiring after the fall semester, during one of Shippensburg’s famous bitterly cold winters in December 1976, she and her late husband packed up and left for warmer climates overseas. They most often visited Europe on these annual trips, stopping in London where the former English professor could visit the birthplaces of some of her favorite authors.

Their most memorable destination was Marbella, a city on the southern coast of Spain. “We had been to Europe several times and toured much of it by car.” But when they drove through Marbella, they both agreed, “We found it. It was just so perfectly gorgeous.” She spoke fondly of the area’s peacefulness and its people, how they would rent a car and drive the two hours to see the Rock of Gibraltar. “The city became like a second home.”

Their most extensive trip took them the entire way around the globe beginning and ending in San Francisco. They covered 25,600 miles, on twenty-one flights, in seven weeks. In all her travels she never made it to Australia or New Zealand.

In between her traveling, and tending to her gardens at home, Eleze worked closely with the Kittochtinny Historical Society to recognize the Zion Reformed Church in Chambersburg as an historical site. The Church which she still attends was erected in 1811, and named a historical building in 1979. Today it is the only active church in Franklin County with this historic honor.

She and her husband spent eighteen months in the late ’70s restoring a 92 x 40 inch candlelight chandelier. They discovered the enormous ornamentation packed away in a shed on the premises. Eleze noted, “Some of the pieces were wrapped in newspaper from 1835.” They carefully polished each of the 1,725 individual crystals, and reassembled all of the festoons. Now the chandelier is lit for Christmas Eve services.

Her passion for history continued well into the ’90s. Eleze published Genes of Eleze: Poes and McNairs in 1996. The book, complete with personal photos and birth records of relatives, details her paternal lineage five generations back. Disappointed she didn’t find any relationship to Edgar Allen Poe, she did say, “It was surprising to see some of my earliest relatives attended Zion Reformed as well.” Parts of the book were written during vacations in southern Spain.

Between traveling the globe, performing her civic duties with the historical society, and writing a researched book of her heritage, Eleze has become somewhat of a sage on delegating her time between hobbies and work. “You have to make time for what’s most important because it can have historical significance.”

But it’s always important to include the things that make you most happy as well, from traveling to gardening, to simply relaxing at home in the company of a good book.