| Notes |
- CENTENARIAN ENJOYS LIFE -- ESPECIALLY PRO WRESTLING
[Z2 Edition]
Morning Call - Allentown, Pa.
Author: MARIE LATHROP, The Morning Call
Date: Jul 29, 1993
Start Page: N.02
Section: NEIGHBORS
Text Word Count: 768
Document Text
Sevilla Seidel reached up and yanked at the shirt of a girl who was blocking her view at a wrestling match in Tampa, Fla. "Sit down," Sevilla screamed.
Her children don't get it, but Sevilla does. Professional wrestling is her passion. She glues herself in front of the television and cheers the good guys and boos the bad.
Through the years, Dusty Rhoads was her favorite. "But he doesn't wrestle much anymore. I guess age sidelined him," she says.
But age hasn't sidelined Seidel, who turned 100 on July 6. She's still glued to the television Monday nights to watch the action of the World Wrestling Federation.
And, she's planning to go to another live wrestling match someday.
In honor of her 100th birthday, the Borough of Emmaus issued a proclamation declaring July 6, 1993, as Sevilla L. Seidel Day. Family and friends gathered at her home to celebrate. Her "baby sister," Beulah Weidner, 84, presented her with a $100 bill and others gave her gifts and cards.
Seidel's soft voice still holds a hint of the Pennsylvania Dutch she spoke at home with her parents and family. "I learned English in a one-room schoolhouse in Crackersport where I was born." Although she speaks English with her children and grandchildren, she says she often yearns for conversation with a Dutch-speaking friend.
She remembers how she and her husband James looked forward to reading Pumpernickel Bill Troxell's Pennsylvania German column in The Morning Call. "We had many a laugh and good discussion over it," she says.
Sevilla Wisser was the second of seven children born to the late Oliver and Amanda (Hamel) Wisser. Her dad owned and farmed the land now occupied by Springhouse Farms in South Whitehall Township. Only the small farmhouse and one barn remain standing among the homes in the development.
A farm child, she learned how to cook, clean, use the horse-drawn hay rake and do most other farm chores. "I used to harrow until I got so tired I could hang my tongue out," she says. She remembers walking about three miles to school and how she carried her shoes when it rained so they wouldn't get muddy.
Her favorite job was baking. She used to enter her chocolate cake in competitions at the Allentown Fair and win prizes. Her son, Ernest, remembers how she hid the cakes from the kids so she could present a whole cake to the judges.
Sewing was another love. After a three-year apprenticeship to a dressmaker, she spent the next 70 years and millions of stitches making clothes for area women.
She always says her farm chores, school work and apprenticeship kept her so busy she didn't have time to think about boyfriends. However, James Seidel, a school friend, courted her with a horse and buggy until she said "yes." They were married Sept. 5, 1914, shortly after Sevilla's 21st birthday.
Cooking, cleaning, sewing and raising six children kept her busy, but she found time to cook on school days at the former South Whitehall High School. Those were the days when hucksters and butchers came to the school and she could pick and choose what she would cook for the more than 200 boys and girls.
In those early days, vacations were rare. "But, every year in September, James watched the kids and I went off to the Fair. Working in Agricultural Hall at the Allentown Fair was my vacation. I got to see many of the same people year after year and we would exchange family news. They were like old friends."
After James died in 1976, Sevilla moved in with her son Ernest and wife Emma. She moved in without her sewing machine. To keep her hands busy, she took up crewel work. Her expertise and attention to fine detail is evident in the dozen or so pictures decorating the walls of the home in Emmaus. Emma Seidel likes them all but is most proud of one that won a prize in a contest at Framing Palace, Wescosville.
The Seidel's raised six children: Henry of Jacksonville, Fla.; Ernest; James of South Whitehall Township, and three daughters: Arlene Schreiber, South Whitehall Township; Miriam Fluker, Tampa, Fla., and Olive Wood, Jacksonville.
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1893 - 2000 (106 years)
