Submitted by Dan Rich
Apr. 12, 1882 – Apr. 17, 1938
The Elkhart Truth 8/18/1938
Atha Louise Wenzel, 56, wife of Joseph J. Wenzel of 115 Wagner avenue, foreman of the New York Central roundhouse, died at 19:45 Wednesday night in St.Joseph Hospital, Mishawaka. She had been ill three weeks when taken to the hospital on July 26.
Daughter of Thomas and Louise (Meyers) Pecher, the deceased was born April 12, 1882, on a farm seven miles south of Mishawaka. She had lived in Chicago four years at the time of her marriage to Mr. Wenzel, July 28, 1909, and in the following year they moved to Elkhart.
Surviving besides Mr. Wenzel are the following children: Mary, Edward, Jane, James and Anna Louise, at home, Paul J. who lives in Elkhart, Joseph W., whose home is Brooklyn and who is a machinist mate in the navy, at present assigned to the destroyer Somers, and Esther, who is taking nurse’s training in the hospital at Mishawaka. There are three grandchildren.
There also survives a brother, Urban Pecher of Mishawaka, and the following sisters; Mrs. John Schmitt, Mrs. Nelson Christinson and Clara Pecher, all of Mishawaka, nd Mrs. Richard Archer, Mrs. Clyde Uhl and Mrs. Ernest Jones, all of South Bend.
Mrs. Wenzel was a member of St. Vincent’s Catholic Church and of its Rosary Society and the Woman'’ Catholic Order of Foresters. Members of these societies will meet at the home at 7:30 Friday evening to recite the rosary.
The funeral service will be held at the church at 9 a.m. Saturday, with burial in the parish cemetery.