https://longeviquest.com/2025/05/ohio-resident-ethelyn-fitzsimmons-celebrates-her-110th-birthday/

Ohio Resident Ethelyn Fitzsimmons Celebrates Her 110th Birthday

Ethelyn Fitzsimmons, a resident of Mantua, Ohio, USA, celebrated her 110th birthday on 17 May. Her birthday was confirmed by the Mantua Police Department on Facebook.

Ethelyn Fitzsimmons was born in Marietta, Ohio, on 17 May 1915. She was the only child of Herman VonHelmers and Lucille Boothby. Her parents separated six months after her birth and later divorced. Her father, a German immigrant, was not a significant presence in her life. She recalled meeting him once and not liking him very much. Her mother later remarried Clyde Timblin, a reporter for the Marietta Times.

Fitzsimmons grew up in Monroe County, attending a one-room schoolhouse and often missing class due to asthma. She skipped fifth grade and never learned fractions. Despite health challenges, including double pneumonia and whooping cough, she earned a scholarship to Marietta College, where she studied German, creative writing, and geology. Passionate about language, music, and poetry, she composed her first song in high school and her last for a young child.

In the 1940s, she worked in the X-ray department at Green Cross Hospital in Akron for over seven years. She married James Paul Fitzsimmons in 1950. Later, she served as a secretary at Kent State University for nearly two decades, working in the office of three university presidents. In 1955, Ethelyn and her husband moved to Mantua.

Happy Birthday!