Photos courtesy family collection
Lois, our grandmother BY
SUSAN FISHER MILLER ’79
Lois Gunden (1915-2005) became my grandmother when she married my grandfather, Ernest Clemens, in 1958. The wedding ceremony on the Goshen College campus united Midwesterner professor Lois to Easterner banker Ernest, who almost six years earlier had suffered the loss to cancer of his first wife, Clara (mother to my mother, Pauline Clemens Fisher ’48). Entering into mid-life marriage (Lois was 43, Ernest 58), Lois joined to her accustomed role of independent career woman the roles of wife, stepmother and grandmother. Our family received, for close to five decades, Lois’ gifts of intelligence, resourcefulness and affection. To my younger sister Margaret Fisher Aeschliman ’87 and me, Lois was first our grandmother, “Mom-mom.” On visits to our grandparents’ home in Lansdale, Pa., Mom-mom’s cheerfully instructive, bemused demeanor made genial projects of everyday tasks. Mom-mom also directed us in creative and athletic undertakings, such as building an elaborate cardboard market in the basement, or plunging with us into the city swimming pool. She was also, to our family’s benefit, a faithful, highly organized letter-writer, photographer, Christmas celebrator and telephone caller.
Lois Gunden Clemens ’36 with granddaughter Margaret Fisher Aeschliman ’87, around 1968
Margaret and I became aware that Mom-mom was also, in this Pennsylvania phase of her life, Lois Gunden Clemens – holder of a Ph.D. in French, founder of a branch of the American Association of University Women, tutor to international students, leader within the Plains Mennonite congregation, editor of the Women’s Mission and Service Commission publication Voice and, eventually, author of the book Woman Liberated, a forward-looking scriptural study arguing for gender equality. As I grew older, I recognized Lois as one of my life beacons. She spoke perfectly accented French, something I realized with heightened respect once I became a French major. She demonstrated tremendous personal discipline while displaying the lightest of spirits. She was a rock-steady affirmer in times of doubt: her calming pep talk delivered during one faltering Thanksgiving break likely got me through my first semester of graduate school. While she had a merry side, she could show an unmistakable regard for decorum. She once silenced a table of cousins as we loudly disparaged Richard Nixon, commenting in her dignified way that every president deserved the respect of the office. I also admired Lois’ faith: comfortable with mystery, inviting, serene.
Four generations, around 1994: (left to right) Ernest Clemens, Peter Miller ’09, Susan Fisher Miller ’79, John Miller ’14, Pauline Clemens Fisher ’48, Christopher Miller, John J. Fisher ’48, Lois Gunden Clemens ’36
Lois did not tell us many details of her service in wartime France. She gave more emphasis to her experience of being interned in BadenBaden and of her eventual repatriation to her beloved Gunden family. I am grateful for the light now being shed on Lois’ efforts in the early 1940s to nourish and protect refugee children, in which her legacy of intelligence, resourcefulness and affection is already so clear.
Fall 2013 | BULLETIN
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