Elizabeth (Zeitler) Haenlein

Elizabeth Riviora Zeitler Haenlein passed away on Sunday, September 25, 2022.  She was born in Doylestown, PA on January 23, 1929, the 2nd daughter of 6 children. Her parents, Peter and Elisabeth Zeitler, had immigrated to the USA in 1923 from Theta near Bayreuth, Germany. 

Lizzy attended Newark High School in Newark, Delaware where she was Valedictorian of her 1948 graduating class. She excelled in sports and was captain of her field hockey team.  After graduation, she attended Golden Beacon College in Wilmington, DE and later Benjamin Franklin University in Washington DC, where she earned an MS degree in Commercial Science.  Her first job was as an accountant for a construction company in Washington D.C., later she was employed by the DuPont Co. in Wilmington, DE. In addition, she was the bookkeeper on her parent’s dairy farm, Zeitler Farms Inc., in Glasgow, DE. 

In 1952, she met George F.W. Haenlein, a German graduate student on a US State Department scholarship at the University of Delaware, College of Agriculture.  They married on February 20, 1954 after he had immigrated. Together they raised 5 children: Theodore, Elizabeth, Alice, Walter, and Carl on their mini-farm.  

She participated in many of George’s animal nutrition projects including joining him on the study-abroad program in Vienna, Austria for University of Delaware students. In 1959, Lizzy won 1st prize in the 29th Annual Hoard’s Dairyman” All American Dairy Cow Judging Contest” out of 83,833 contestants.

Lizzy and her mother were charter members of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Newark, Delaware.  Later when they moved to Maryland, they attended Shrewsbury Episcopal Church in Kennedyville and later Olivet United Methodist Church in Galena.  In 2013, they moved into a retirement home near their daughter Alice in Ona, WV.

Lizzie is survived by her sister, Louise Witmer, her husband, George, four children, Theodore, Sue, Alice and Walter, 14 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

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