Mary Deputy Brubaker

Mary Deputy Brubaker, Class of 1932

"When you start studying, it's really hard to stop," Mary Deputy Brubaker says."There's so much to learn, and it's all so interesting."

Mary, the 90-year old alumna named this year's recipient of the Founders' Lifetime Service Award, has approached her life with the same enthusiasm with wihich she has approached her studies.Even today she walks anywhere from one to three miles a day around the grounds at Virginia Mennonite Retirement Center, where she lives in one of the Woodland cottages.

She serves others with vigor, too, sending around 300 cards a year to friends and neighbors."I send birthday cards, sympathy cards, get well cards, and cheer-you-up cards."Known as a volunteer at VMRC, she has given time to office work, reading to residents, gardening on the grounds, and baking goodies for staff and residents.

Born and raised in Dale Enterprise, Mary feels fortunate to have been able to attend EMHS for four full years."Lots of girls back then didn't get to go to high school, but my mother wanted to make it possible for me to attend," Mary notes.

Following high school, Mary stayed home to help raise her younger siblings, four boys.She also assisted with church work in the Harman, West Virginia area.Eventually she decided to go back to school, enrolling in the Rockingham Memorial Hospital School of Nursing and graduating as a registered nurse in 1940.After several years of hospital nursing, she enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania and earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing Education in 1952.

She then served in Austria during the summer of 1953, helping with efforts to reconstruct a church that had been damaged during WWII, and meeting volunteers from across Europe.When she returned to Harrisonburg, she began to teach at RMH in the nursing program.Missing the rigor of the classroom, she returned to the University of Pennsylvania, earning a master's degree in Education.Following 10 years at RMH, Mary provided oversight to the new nursing program at EMU.

In 1966, Mary married Jacob Brubaker and received a ready-made family of four daughters and two sons.
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Mary has received a number of recognitions over the years.They include: RMH Nurse of the Year, 1977; Mennonite Nurses Association (MNA) Nurse of the year, 1976; Virginia Association of Nonprofit Homes for the Aging Volunteer Service Award, 2001.She was a charter member of the MNA, a charter member of the Harrisonburg MNA, president of the VMRC Auxiliary, and board member for the Virginia Lung Association for 30 years.She has also been archivist for EMU Old Grads since 1983.

Mary accepts this year's Founders' Lifetime Service Award with appreciation to her high school."EMHS helped establish me in my Christian life, and the Christian teachers were especially influential," she says.