Gertrude A. Shears

Gertrude Amanda Shears (née Smith, aka G.A.S., Grem, or Gremmy), just died at the age of 98. She had a twin brother, Harvey, who died last year at the age of 97.

She spent a good amount of her formative years in an orphanage despite the fact both of her parents were alive (long story), and she brought this up every chance she had, usually to complete strangers. At the nursing home toward the end of her life, she sat with another lady in the dining room at a place they christened "The Orphans' Table," and they wouldn't let non-orphans join them. When she was seven, her appendix burst and the doctor gave up and called someone in to give her last rites, but after that happened, she said a pow-wow doctor came in off the street, laid hands on her, and left before anyone found out who he was. In the 1950s, she tried to show her daughters she could also do the new dances on American Bandstand and broke her leg doing the jitterbug. One day her ear was ringing, so she poured household chemicals into it to make it stop and then never heard anything on that side again.

She sewed parachutes during the war at what later became Vanity Fair. She bet on gray or roan horses, and she played 3-6-9 in the trifecta because that was her clock number at work. She only started driving at 38. At 4'11", she could barely see over the steering wheel and truly enjoyed yelling at other drivers. My grandfather, who served on an LST in World War II, said the only time in his life he was frightened was when he was teaching her how to drive. She called firetrucks "the apparatus." When she was 72, she came to visit me when I studied abroad in Germany; she stayed in the dorm with me and cooked breakfast for the international students in the hall. One Japanese student gave her his prized rice bowl and chopsticks, which she proudly displayed on a shelf in her house. When we traveled to German wine country to meet her cousins for the first time, she hiked mountains, drank homemade pear schnapps for breakfast, and ate her weight in cheese. She successfully smuggled an original Budvar beer home for my uncle. When she was almost 80, I watched her drink some wine with her neighbor friend and shoot firecrackers off the back porch. At midnight. On a weekday, nowhere close to Independence Day.

Children were not even allowed TO THINK about bringing edibles or potables into her living room. The only filter she had was the one she used to make tarry black coffee every morning. If you ever went to her to complain about something or to find a sympathetic shoulder to cry on, she said, "Well, that's your own dumb fault!" All millennials were terrified of her. Despite her hard crust, everybody eventually found out that her center was pure sweetness. She called me her little "moshey apple." She laughed easily, loved fiercely, and smiled brightly. She waited on my grandfather as if he were the Emperor of Evans Avenue.

She spoiled all grandchildren, so long as they ate everything she cooked, didn't act suspiciously in the living room, and didn't step near the flowerbeds. She was 100% into whatever she was doing at that moment, whether it was watching tv, playing bingo, listening to a sermon, or doing a craft in the nursing home. She appreciated the small things in life, and she poured her love into family and home. She went out on her own terms, with typical toughness, by deciding she'd had enough and refusing to eat. Her hunger strike lasted over a month. She will be sorely missed. Somewhere, out in the ether, after a 17-year break, my grandfather just saw her and said, "Gert, where's my newspaper?", and she said, "Aw, get it yourself—I'm busy with a word search."

Services will be private at the convenience of the family. Edward J. Kuhn Funeral Home Inc., 739 Penn Ave., West Reading, 19611 is in charge of arrangements. Online condolences may be expressed at www,kuhnfuneralhomes.com.