Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
- Ethel Suzy Weisz
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
Ethel Suzy Withers (nee Weisz) (1902-1992), a deaconess in the United Methodist Church, was born in Butler County, Pennsylvania, to John Ziegler Weisz, a former Mennonite, and Martha M. Reader Weisz, a Methodist. In 1924, Ethel graduated from the Kansas City National Training School. She held appointments as a Parish Deaconess in the First Methodist Episcopal Church in New Castle, Pennsylvania (1924), in Picher, Oklahoma (1930-1932), and Bridgeport, Oklahoma (1932-1936), before moving to Bingham Canyon, Utah (1936-1940) and then serving thirteen years as a Deaconess and Parish Worker at Epworth-Euclid Methodist Church in Cleveland, Ohio (1941-1954).
In 1954, Ethel married Reverend Robert Blackwood Withers (1894-1979) and served alongside him in various churches in Pennsylvania including the Stoneboro United Methodist Church (1951-1956), Christ Methodist Church in New Castle (1956-1959), and Fredonia/Big Bend Methodist Church (1959-1966). Upon Robert’s retirement from the Fredonia Church in 1966, he served as a visitation pastor for the Sharon First Methodist Church. After her husband Robert’s death in March 1979, Ethel traveled in England (1979), Israel (1981) and Alaska (1984). In October 1984, Withers joined the Brooks-Howell retirement community in Asheville, North Carolina.