Christine Marie Hapke age 98 of Honey Brook, PA formerly of Hackettstown, NJ, died Thursday, July 9th, 2015 at home in PA. She was the daughter of the late Albert and Emily (Rose) Wagner.
A funeral service will be held at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Springfield, NJ on Saturday, July 18, 2015 at 9 am with the burial to follow at Laurel Grove Cemetery, Totowa, NJ.
A narrative as told by Gail Werner, daughter of Christine:
Mother’s life was filled with passion and perseverance to see a task at hand and to move any mountain to achieve her faith guided goal. Whether it was organizing a local civic association to preserve the quality of life on Little Falls Road in Cedar Grove; organizing a rummage sale for Little Falls United Methodist Church; baking the most wonderful Christmas cookies and gifting them to those who had performed an act of kindness for our family; volunteering weekly at the East Orange Veterans Hospital, along with other CG Garden Club volunteers to offer flowers to the veterans; growing award winning Chrysanthemums; or working outside our home in the fifties and sixties, attaining necessary skills to work at Glass Fabrics, Mountainside Hospital , and Singer Kearfott Guidance and Navigation Systems.
However her most prized legacy and those fortunate enough to have known and received mom’s cookies will attest to the love she mixed into those delicacies, was but a mere sampling compared to the love she tirelessly gave to Al, Karen, Me, her grandchildren David, Jeffrey, Gregory, their wives Ann, Lisa, Haruka, her great granddaughter, Gretchen Van Ess who is the apple of everyone’s eye and, most of all to her beloved husband and life partner, our dad.
It took enormous courage to rally after dad’s sudden death in 1964 shaken but not broken. She prayerfully continued to believe that God would show her the way through this valley, as he had shown her through those of Karen’s illnesses and Dad’s first heart attack at age 31. She reassured this 16 year old that all would be well. What a remarkable example she demonstrated how her employment skills would be a saving grace. And so it was, Mother’s crisis management served us well.
On a spring evening in 1967, mother received a phone call from Al, our brother, who was stationed at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, informing her that they were sending him to Walter Reed Hospital in DC to do further tests having seen something suspicious on an x-ray of his brain. The findings of the test showed an enlarged bone that holds the pituitary gland and attributed it to being congenital and not caused by a tumor. Welcome news!
Suddenly on July 2, 1983 Al was in Mountainside Hospital and I was needed. Al had been out running as he would several times a week since his high school track days, it was his last run, and he was returning home when his body went limp behind the wheel of his truck and suddenly died. Mercifully, no one was involved as his vehicle came to a halt when his foot came off the accelerator and the truck slowly struck a STOP sign.
Even this dreaded event that a parent should never have to face the death of their child had not deterred mother’s faith and courageous outreach to live life to its fullest. After a year, Mother made a choice to move from the home she and dad had lovingly built upon purchasing property from my granddad. This land contained the family homestead where dad was born, having been in the family since the early 1900’s. A hugh move for her.
Mother lived several years in a Cape Cod Style home in Frelinghuysen with a pool that delighted her 7 year old grandson and later gave respite several years to summer exchange students she hosted from Italy, France and Spain.
As her needs changed, I could sense she was looking to move so I brought mom to visit assisted living facilities in the area. She politely went to each place with a little comment about this and that, as I awaited her decision. I was surprised the next time the topic came up, and I asked if she had made her mind, “Yes,” she said with assertion, “I am going to purchase a condo in Panther Valley.” No assisted living for this independent 84 year old!!
Many lunches and dinners were hosted by mom for her faithful neighbors and friends. Good times, indeed! Faithful friends visited mom many, many, times through her years of being a shut-in. Never complaining Mother filled her days and nights with reading and was hailed by the local library mobile unit as one of the most avid readers they had.
At times when things seemed the most challenging, she would never end the evening or discussion without saying… Let’s have a cup of tea. So this is how I will remember Momma, the German off spring of a disciplinarian who would make certain that a late Saturday night babysitting job was no excuse for not attending church, equally important that homework was not an acceptable excuse to miss church, followed by the joy of Christmas Eve at our home, unequalled as it was also our parent’s anniversary. We would go out to dinner and then go to the Candle Lighting Service followed in the German tradition to come home and open gifts on Christmas Eve, ahead of all the kids who had to wait until Christmas morning.
Mother loved family celebrations, birthdays, holidays any excuse to have fun and share life, laughter, and love together! She appreciated the comical antics of her son-in-laws through jokes and magic. Her legacy is the love of family and God.
So let’s have a cup of Green Tea for you MOM. AMEN! Miss you !!
In-lieu of flowers please send donations to Common Sense for Animals, P.O. Box 589, Broadway, NJ 08808. This no kill shelter the only one in Warren County for 25 years.
Francie Callahan
#1
July 15th, 2015 4:44 pm
God bless you, Mrs Hapke. You have always been in my life and you treated me as an extra daughter in your home. Your grace under pressure during your many family crisis showed me, as a child, life will will go on. No one handled troubles and difficulties like you. Throughout your life, God was preeminent in every detail. You taught those little Hapke's the importance of family, school, service and faith. You were loved and admired by all who knew you. Later in my life, when I became a widow, I turned to your life for guidance. I treasure my best friend, your daughter, Gail. I know you have been welcomed into heaven by both of your precious Al's, your family members and your Little Falls Road friends, the Bredder's and the Rombough's. I would be remiss if I didn't mention your Candy Cane Christmas cookies. I make them every year to remember our idyllic life on Little Falls Road. xxoo to Karen, Gail, and your extended family.