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| January 19th, 1953 |
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Mary Ellen was born in Reading, PA, the youngest of three children. She has an older brother Pete and an older sister Ana. |
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| 1967 - 1971 |
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Mary Ellen graduated from Holy Name High School in the Business Curriculum. She was a member of the Band, attended all of the football games and was even a member of the choir. In Mary Ellen's own words " if you heard my singing, you'll realize it must have been a short stint" Her favorite subjects in school were World Studies and Spanish. It was around this time that she began writing to her family in Spain and encouraged her father to start writing again. |
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| 1970 |
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Mary Ellen travelled to Europe with her family during the summer where they spent about 2 1/2 months. During this time, her father was reunited with many of his relatives that he had not seen for years and Mary Ellen got to meet both her Spanish and Italian relatives. She always retained fond memories of these family members and all of the memories they shared during their visit. |
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| 1971-1972 |
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Mary Ellen attended McCann's Business school while working part time at Boscov's Department Store. |
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| 1972 -1976 |
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Mary Ellen got a job working in the office at Carpenter Technology, the same steel plant where her Dad had worked for 37 years. |
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| 1974 - 1976 |
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Mary Ellen got married to Howard Reinert. In 1976 they moved to Clarion, PA, a small western Pennsylvania town while her husband attended school. She took at job at Weins Deparment store, a family owned where she was treated like one of the family, She enjoyed her different duties at Weins and all of the people contact that she had. |
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| 1978 |
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Mary Ellen moved to Allentown so her husband could attend Lehigh University. After having lived in Clarion for several years, she was initially intimidated by Allentown, "the big city". She found a job working in the office at Hess's department store but was stuck in a back office with very little people contact. She began her search for a new job. |
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| December, 1978 |
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Mary Ellen applied for a new position with the B'nai B'rith Apartments in Allentown, PA. The purpose of the B'ani B'rith Apartments was to provide housing for the elderly and persons with mobility impairments. After being interviewed by the Manager and the Board of Directors she was hired as a secretary/receptionist. This was the first time that Bob met Mary Ellen and over the next 16 years they would be not only co-workers but became close friends.
When Mary Ellen reported for work on December 26th for her new job as secretary, her arm was in a cast from a fall on the ice, so Bob did much of the typing for the first few weeks. This always gave them a good story to tell and a lot of laughs! |
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| 1982 |
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Mary Ellen and Howard divorced but parted as friends. Mary Ellen moved to a new apartment which was beautiful and she really enjoyed it. The only small drawback was that it was on the 3rd floor of the building. One time her Mom and Dad came to visit. Her Dad was using a walker at this time and had difficulty with stairs but he wanted to see the apartment and Mary Ellen was anxious for him to see it. Somehow between Mary Ellen and her Mom they managed to get Dad to the 3rd floor. Mary Ellen always joked that although her Dad liked the apartment and was glad that he got to see it, he said to her with his Spanish accent something like " I no comma here no more" |
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| March, 1983 |
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When a second apartment building, B'nai B'rith West was opened and additional staff was hired. Mary Ellen was appointed Assistant Manager by the Board of Directors and the Management Company. |
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| 1986 |
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Mary Ellen bought a small row home about 1/2 block from where she worked. She spent a lot of time and energy remodeling her home and she loved working in her little yard. She planted flowers and vegetables and had a small picnic table under her porch. She lived there for about 3 years with her cats Inky and Garbo. She made friends with many of the neighbors who had been there for years. They were so happy to have her there. She was always so proud of the fact that she was able to buy the house and maintain it. When she married Bob and they decided to live in his house, they sold this house and used the money toward an addition for their house. Several of her former neighbors moved into the B'nai B'rith Apartments and always remarked how nice her yard always looked. |
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| December 7th, 1989 |
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Mary Ellen accepted Bob's proposal of marriage. This happened only after she finally found the ring that Bob had placed in a small gift bad along with a jar of jewelry cleaner. She missed the ring the first time and thought only that Bob was given her a jar of jewelry cleaner. Bob suggested that she look again and when she found the ring, Bob officially asked her to marry him. |
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| April 28th, 1990 |
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Mary Ellen and Bob were married at the West Side Moravian Church in Bethlehem, PA. The temperature on this April day reached 90 degrees. They began their journey to their wedding ceremony with a short walk from Mary Ellen's house to the B'nai B'rith Apartments where they both worked. They wanted to share this special day with the many people who lived in the B'nai B'rith Apartments. They boarded a horse drawn carriage with their Matron of Honor Ana Hartung and their Best Man, Tom Sipos. The carriage took them to the church in Bethlehem where the marriage ceremony was performed. They had a reception in the church hall immediately following the ceremony.
They sold Mary Ellen's house and moved to Bob's house where they added a large addition. |
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| December, 1995 |
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Mary Ellen and Bob read an article about adopting children from China. They decided that this was the way to build the family they both wanted. They began the paperwork trail within weeks after reading the article. |
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| July 19th -1996 |
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After completing all of the paperwork for the adoption, Mary Ellen and Bob waited patiently (not really) until they finally received a call on Friday morning at 11:00 a.m.to tell them they had our referral. Bob took the phone call because Mary Ellen was interviewing a new tenant in her office. When Mary Ellen came into Bob's office to have him sign some papers, Bob told her that our referral had come through and that the picture of our daughter was waiting for us at Welcome House. Somehow she completed the interview, but for some reason didn't remember a thing about it! They left work and traveled to Welcome House where they were given the referral picture and information. They proceeded out to the Lehigh Valley mall where we had many instant copies of our daughter's picture copied. We gave them out to all of the immediate family in Allentown and then drove to Reading to give a picture to her Mom and her sister. |
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| January, 1997 |
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After an excruciatingly long wait to travel to China to bring our daughter home, we were finally on our way. We officially became a family on January 6th, 1997 (our time). This was the day that Mary Ellen first held our daughter Alyssa. Although Mary Ellen had been very nervous about becoming a mother, she took to it instantly and was great at it. |
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| January 11th, 1997 |
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Mary Ellen and Bob returned home from China with their new daughter.Their had come from 60 degree weather in China to snowy weather in the low 20's but nothing could affect their joy. Family and friends were there on their arrival and many came over the next few days to meet the newest family member. These were such special moments. |
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| November, 1997 |
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After having spend several months searching for and not finding a local organization for families who had adopted children from China or who were thinking about it, Mary Ellen along with her husband Bob decided to form a local chapter of the Familes with Children from China (FCC). They identified other families in the area who had adopted and along with a small core group the FCC-Lehigh Valley was formed. The local organization grew to over 100 families continues to this day. Mary Ellen served on the Board of Directors for over 3 years and served as chairperson for several of the larger events. Many friendships were made through this organization.
The FCC, upon learning of Mary Ellen's death paid tribute to her in several ways and the FCC members have been extremely supportive of Bob and Alyssa. |
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| March, 2003 |
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Several weeks after MaryEllen's 50th birthday, she returned to her home with Bob and Alyssa to find a surprise birthday party waiting for her. Mary Ellen had surprised Bob with one 2 years before, and she always told Bob that he would never be able to surprise her. With the help of a few good friends and family members, the party went off without a problem and much to her surprise. About 50 of her closest friends and family members attended the party. |
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| 2004 |
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Mary Ellen died very unexpectedly on December 03, 2004 at the age of 51. She had so much more to do and enjoy in life. |
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