Mary Windhaus Ternes was born 3 January 1884 to Anton Windhaus (1858-1905) and Elenora Feldman Windhaus (1858-1944).
Mary Windhaus married Frank Joseph Ternes (1883-1949) in 1906. They lived at 1413 Cumnock Street in 1920, and later lived at 1518 Clay where they raised 5 children. Mary was a well known Henderson East Ender.
Mary Ternes died on 13 February 1988 (aged 104) and buried in Saint Louis Cemetery.
No need for cane, 100-year-old says
Evansville Courier and Press January 8, 1984
Mary Ternes’ five sons described her as a “strong-willed, independent woman” when they gathered at her Henderson apartment last weekend for a mass to celebrate her 100th birthday.
“Why not be independent?” quipped the woman who turned 100 Tuesday. The walking cane Mrs. Ternes acquired four years ago after suffering a fractured ankle stands unused in the hallway. She gets around on her own in her small apartment.
Mrs. Ternes likes living alone and sees nothing unusual in the fact that she does her own housework. “It’s my place. I live here,” she said. She cooks her breakfast each morning. “I eat an egg each morning, a slice of bacon, a piece of toast and coffee… My gosh, eggs are high!” she said.
Mrs. Ternes made weekly trips to the grocery until a year ago, but now her son, Bill, and his wife Katherine make that trip for her. “She always wants whole chick-ens, though. She cuts them up herself to fry,” Bill Ternes said. “She’s used to being busy.” Three meals a week are delivered to her apartment by the Henderson County Senior Citizens program. I could get them evary day, but it’s more food than I can eat,” she said.
Mrs. Ternes’ face is softly framed with snow-white hair and pearl earrings. Completing her jewelry ensemble is a gold wedding band, a sparkling dress pen and a wristwatch given her by her husband more than 35 years ago.
She doesn’t get out as much as she did a year or two ago, but she keeps her Tuesday appointments with her hairdresser, who drives Mrs. Ternes to and from the beauty salon. “I’d have been there last week, but the weather was too bad,” Mrs. Ternes said. She was slightly peeved, too, because she wanted a new hairdo for her 100th birthday celebration.
She was born Jan. 3, 1884, to Anton and Eleanor Windhaus and was the oldest of seven children.
“We lived in Evansville on Second Avenue, around the neighborhood of (the old) St. Mary’s Hospital,” Mrs. Ternes said. When she was a girl, the family moved to Henderson, where her father was associated with a furniture manufacturing company. She attended Holy Name School through the sixth grade. “I quit school to go to work in the cotton mill,” she said.
Her apartment is less than a block from the old schoolhouse and is near Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church, of which she has been a member for nearly a century. She married Frank Ternes of Henderson in 1906. He worked with her father as a furniture manufacturer. Ternes died in 1949. The couple had seven children, but a son and daughter died in an influenza epidemic in 1918. Four sons live in Henderson, and one resides in Bloomfield, Ind.
Mrs. Ternes is known as a shrewd card player who can call every card her opponent is holding. Bill recalled taking her in his Model T Ford to the Ohio River ferry at the end of Main Street in Henderson to get to a weekly card game across the river in Indiana. “My favorite games are 500 rummy and canasta. I played weekly for over 60 years and still play sol (solitaire) here in the kitchen every night. The light is better in here,” she said.
Mrs. Ternes is a baseball fan and a staunch Democrat.
She is remembered for her large well-tended garden on Henderson’s east end. She enjoyed quilting parties when she was younger. “I used to quilt many a quilt, but not by myself,” she said. Bill remembered the gala. gatherings from his youth, when women would gather at his mother’s home to quilt and share the latest talk. Mrs. Ternes is also known for her pies and cakes.
References:
Evansville Courier and Press January 8, 1984
