Family File for David Saul MITTMAN - Person Sheet
Family File for David Saul MITTMAN - Person Sheet
Obituaries
From Mar 5, 1985, page 6 - Quad-City Times at Newspapers.com: [3933]
Blanche Mittman
Services for Blanche W. Mittman, 93, of 3905 5th Ave., Moline, will be 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at Moline Gospel Temple. Burial will be in Riverside Cemetery.
Visitation is 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 p.m. today at Trimble Funeral Home, Moline.
Memorials may be made to the temple, of which she was a member.
Mrs. Mittman died Monday at her home.
She retired in 1958 from the canvas room at John Deere Harvester Works, East Moline, where she had been employed for 29 years.
Blanche Merkelbach married Ernest Mittman in 1915 in Muscatine, Iowa. He died in 1922.
Survivors include sons, Paul E. and Jack J., both of Moline, and J. George, St. Petersburg, Fla.; five grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren; and a sister, Nettie L. Merkelbach, Moline.
From Mar 06, 1985, page 1 - The Dispatch at Newspapers.com: [3936]
Sisters were inseparable, even in death.
They were known as the Merkelbach sisters, and for 90 years, Blanche and Nettie were practically inseparable.
Today, their friends and relatives said goodbye to the two Moline sisters, who, even in death, couldn’t be parted, at a joint funeral service at the Moline Gospel Temple.
Relatives don’t believe the death of Blanche W. Merkelback Mittman, 93, on Monday after a brief illness, precipitated the death of her sister, Nettie Merkelback, 90, a day later from a heart attack.
But those close to the pair say the coincidence was right for the sisters. They had lived together most of their lives, worked in the same department of the same factory for almost 30 years, belonged to the same church, and arranged their schedules so they could accompany one another on outings.
“Someone was saying at the house. ‘We realized they did everything together, but we didn’t think they’d take it quite this far,’” said Blanche Mittman’s daughter-in-law, Bessie Mittman.
Nettie “was just feeling very sad,” after Blanche’s death, Bessie Mittman said, but she wasn’t despondent.
The two were a common sight at church functions, she said. They were both charter members of the Gospel Temple and were active there.
From so many years of togetherness, the two developed a real rapport. “They would know how the other would react to something. They would get together and you could ask one a question, and they would talk about the answer. Nettle was the leader, but she always depended on what Blanche said,” she said.
The sisters also planned their outings together. “If one wasn’t feeling well, they’d both stay home,” Mittman said. “They seemed to depend on each other so much.”
“Yet they were individual personalities,” she said. “Blanche was more the ladylike type; she liked lace and fancy things. Nettie, her tastes were more strict, yet feminine. She had simpler tastes.”
They were “good-humored people,” she said. “They would get a lot of fun out of life.”
The sisters were born in Oskaloosa and later lived in Muscatine, where their father ran a sheet metal shop. Nettie worked in a hat shop there. Blanche studied to be a concert pianist, but gave up those ambitions when she met the man who would split up the sisters for a few years.
Blanche left her sister and her parents when she married Ernie Mittman, an employee in her father’s shop, in 1915. They had four children before Mr. Mittman died in 1922.
Blanche moved back in with her parents, but the two sisters soon moved to Moline to find work and make a home together with Blanche’s children.
“They moved to Moline 60 years ago. They came down to work at John Deere,” Mittman said.
They both got jobs in the canvas room at John Deere Harvester Works, East Moline, where Blanche sewed canvas and Nettie made buckles. Blanche worked there for 29 years, and her younger sister for 32 years.
In 1954, Blanche’s son Paul Mittman and his wife, Bessie, moved in with the sisters at their two-story four-bedroom house at 3905 5th Ave., and the extended family enjoyed the arrangement.
“We’d become very close,” Bessie Mittman said.
Both sisters were active until their deaths. Blanche was sick in bed for about a week before her death from congestive heart failure Monday morning, she said. “Blanche had been up and around until then,” she said. “She was alert up until minutes before she died.”
Nettie was in charge of cooking supper for the household, and she enjoyed the task. “At 90, she was doing the cooking of the evening meal for five adults,” she said.
They shared a hobby — needlework. “They used to do lots of embroidery work, making quilt blocks for the mission group at the Temple,” she said.
They made pillow slips for the group, the Mabel Watts Circle of United Foursquare Women, of which they were charter members.
Among the survivors are a niece, Alberta Engels, Big Island, Milan, and a nephew, Paul Hinsberger, Moline.
Blanche Mittman
Services for Blanche W. Mittman, 93, of 3905 5th Ave., Moline, will be 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at Moline Gospel Temple. Burial will be in Riverside Cemetery.
Visitation is 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 p.m. today at Trimble Funeral Home, Moline.
Memorials may be made to the temple, of which she was a member.
Mrs. Mittman died Monday at her home.
She retired in 1958 from the canvas room at John Deere Harvester Works, East Moline, where she had been employed for 29 years.
Blanche Merkelbach married Ernest Mittman in 1915 in Muscatine, Iowa. He died in 1922.
Survivors include sons, Paul E. and Jack J., both of Moline, and J. George, St. Petersburg, Fla.; five grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren; and a sister, Nettie L. Merkelbach, Moline.
From Mar 06, 1985, page 1 - The Dispatch at Newspapers.com: [3936]
Sisters were inseparable, even in death.
They were known as the Merkelbach sisters, and for 90 years, Blanche and Nettie were practically inseparable.
Today, their friends and relatives said goodbye to the two Moline sisters, who, even in death, couldn’t be parted, at a joint funeral service at the Moline Gospel Temple.
Relatives don’t believe the death of Blanche W. Merkelback Mittman, 93, on Monday after a brief illness, precipitated the death of her sister, Nettie Merkelback, 90, a day later from a heart attack.
But those close to the pair say the coincidence was right for the sisters. They had lived together most of their lives, worked in the same department of the same factory for almost 30 years, belonged to the same church, and arranged their schedules so they could accompany one another on outings.
“Someone was saying at the house. ‘We realized they did everything together, but we didn’t think they’d take it quite this far,’” said Blanche Mittman’s daughter-in-law, Bessie Mittman.
Nettie “was just feeling very sad,” after Blanche’s death, Bessie Mittman said, but she wasn’t despondent.
The two were a common sight at church functions, she said. They were both charter members of the Gospel Temple and were active there.
From so many years of togetherness, the two developed a real rapport. “They would know how the other would react to something. They would get together and you could ask one a question, and they would talk about the answer. Nettle was the leader, but she always depended on what Blanche said,” she said.
The sisters also planned their outings together. “If one wasn’t feeling well, they’d both stay home,” Mittman said. “They seemed to depend on each other so much.”
“Yet they were individual personalities,” she said. “Blanche was more the ladylike type; she liked lace and fancy things. Nettie, her tastes were more strict, yet feminine. She had simpler tastes.”
They were “good-humored people,” she said. “They would get a lot of fun out of life.”
The sisters were born in Oskaloosa and later lived in Muscatine, where their father ran a sheet metal shop. Nettie worked in a hat shop there. Blanche studied to be a concert pianist, but gave up those ambitions when she met the man who would split up the sisters for a few years.
Blanche left her sister and her parents when she married Ernie Mittman, an employee in her father’s shop, in 1915. They had four children before Mr. Mittman died in 1922.
Blanche moved back in with her parents, but the two sisters soon moved to Moline to find work and make a home together with Blanche’s children.
“They moved to Moline 60 years ago. They came down to work at John Deere,” Mittman said.
They both got jobs in the canvas room at John Deere Harvester Works, East Moline, where Blanche sewed canvas and Nettie made buckles. Blanche worked there for 29 years, and her younger sister for 32 years.
In 1954, Blanche’s son Paul Mittman and his wife, Bessie, moved in with the sisters at their two-story four-bedroom house at 3905 5th Ave., and the extended family enjoyed the arrangement.
“We’d become very close,” Bessie Mittman said.
Both sisters were active until their deaths. Blanche was sick in bed for about a week before her death from congestive heart failure Monday morning, she said. “Blanche had been up and around until then,” she said. “She was alert up until minutes before she died.”
Nettie was in charge of cooking supper for the household, and she enjoyed the task. “At 90, she was doing the cooking of the evening meal for five adults,” she said.
They shared a hobby — needlework. “They used to do lots of embroidery work, making quilt blocks for the mission group at the Temple,” she said.
They made pillow slips for the group, the Mabel Watts Circle of United Foursquare Women, of which they were charter members.
Among the survivors are a niece, Alberta Engels, Big Island, Milan, and a nephew, Paul Hinsberger, Moline.
Spouses