Miriam
Krotzer, 100
Miriam Krotzer moved
from eastern Missouri to Phoenix, Arizona,
with her parents and younger sister when she
was 10. “My mother had rheumatoid
arthritis,” Miriam explains. “We came here,
to the dry climate, for her health.” Miriam
lost her mother at the age of 16.
She married a local Phoenix boy when
she was 22. “He was half Native American and
came from a family of 10. His mother was the
sweetest person; she was very good to me.”
The family owned and operated a gas station
and grocery store, and Miriam and her
husband lived in the small house
“cattycorner” from it. Miriam’s
father-in-law had been killed a few years
earlier during a hold-up of the store,
leaving Miriam’s husband the sole supporter
of his mother and nine younger siblings.
Miriam tells that at that time, there
were a lot of people who came to Arizona to
treat and hopefully recover from
tuberculosis. A large colony of very tiny
homes developed at the western edge of what
was then the city limit of Phoenix, near
their store. It was during the Depression
and Miriam says that life was much harder
than even the most vivid portrayals
relate. “We had the flu, and we were both in
bed, very sick. But my husband got up to
work and tended to the store and gas
station; he felt he had to for the sake of
his family. I stayed in bed and took care of
myself. He caught TB and spent the next
three years in the Indian School Hospital
before he died.”
During that time, Miriam rented the
store and house and took a job at the local
“dime store,” where she worked for several
years while attending night school to take
business courses.“They were mostly typing
and bookkeeping (courses),” she says. I
moved closer to the hospital so I could
visit my husband every day.”
After her husband passed away, Miriam
got an office job, met her second husband,
Keith, and moved with him to Seattle, where
she worked for many years for Northwest
Airlines as a reservationist. “I was using
one of the earliest computers,” she recalls.
“It really was a new field, as was the
entire reservation industry. It was
exciting. I loved living in Seattle.” But
after her husband retired, he wanted to move
back to Arizona for his health —war injuries
sustained during World War II. In 1990,
Keith passed away.
Miriam has been an active volunteer
in the VA for many years, is friendly, witty
and thinks and speaks at lightening speed!
Church and weekly Bible studies are
important to her. “I have read the Bible
entirely through three times,” she says,
proudly. “You need to keep re-reading it and
studying because you can’t remember all
that’s there.” Miriam reads several passages
and special prayers each day, saying that it
grounds her. “Some days, I read more,” she
remarks.
She still drives and maintains her
independence, although a fall on New Year’s
Eve four years ago has required her to use a
cane for assistance. “I was getting out of
my car at the VA to go in to help serve a
special dinner to the residents, and I
slipped getting out of the car and broke my
hip. It’s bothered me ever since.”
But never
one to dwell on a negative she counters,
brightly. “Did you know that Genesis 6:3
tells us that God has intended us to live
for 120 years? I believe it.”
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