Business ed. instructor was active in her church

11/3/2006

Wanda A. Trombly, 90, a business education teacher in high schools of northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan for more than 40 years who was deeply involved in her church, died Tuesday in Swan Pointe Care Center, Maumee.

Family members did not know the cause of death. She was not seriously ill and lived most of the last four years at the Crestview Apartments in Sylvania, her brother-in-law, Carl Dorcas, said. Her home for many years was on Erie Street in Sylvania.

Miss Trombly retired in 1979 from Sylvania Northview High School, where she taught shorthand, bookkeeping, typing, and other business subjects and then helped students perfect their skills.

She taught business for about a decade at Clay High School in Oregon and, earlier, taught in Lulu, Deerfield, and Morenci public schools, all in southeast Michigan.

"It was her life," said Mr. Dorcas, who was married to her late sister, Lelah. "She never married. She just devoted [her life] to the kids.

"Occasionally, we would all be together someplace [and] people would come up, 'You sure straightened me out in that class,' and expressed thanks," he recalled. "At the time, maybe they didn't like the fact that she was strict. But in later years, they appreciated it."

After teaching public school students all week, Miss Trombly taught Sunday school with her sister and a friend at Sylvania First United Methodist Church, of which she was a 55-year member.

She volunteered for the church's communication network as a caller on the prayer chain, as a trumpeteer phoning members with bulletins of important church events, and as a caller for the Susannah Wesley Circle.

"Church was very important in her life," Mr. Dorcas said.

She traveled widely in earlier years and visited the Holy Land, England, Italy, and China with church or university groups, Mr. Dorcas said.

In later years, she played bingo and liked to talk on the telephone with friends.

"She was not a person who would stick herself into other people's affairs," Mr. Dorcas said. "She pretty well minded her own business. She was well liked by most people she kept in contact with."

Miss Trombly was born on the same farm in Monroe County's Whiteford Township as her father, Milton. She went to a one-room schoolhouse through eighth grade and was a graduate of the former Burnham High School in Sylvania.

She attended Davis Business College and received a bachelor's degree from Bowling Green State University.

There are no immediate survivors.

The body will be in the Reeb Funeral Home after 1 p.m. Sunday. Services will be at 1:30 p.m. Monday in Sylvania First United Methodist Church.

Tributes are suggested to the church.