Lucille Liechty, 1910-2013

Educator also helped family poultry farm

6/18/2013

Lucille Liechty

Lucille Liechty, who taught for decades in area schools and led schoolchildren on tours of her family's poultry operation in Wauseon, died June 13 in Burke, Va. She was 102.

She had been living in Virginia with her daughter and son-in-law since September, 2003.

Mrs. Liechty taught English, French, and drama in Attica, Bryan, and Stryker high schools, and later was a substitute in Fulton County area schools and for Ohio’s summer school program for the children of local migrant workers.

Mrs. Liechty was valedictorian of her graduating class at Stryker High School when she was 16.

She received a bachelor’s degree in education from Bowling Green State University in 1931.

Her husband, Chris Liechty, developed one of the first integrated poultry farms in northwest Ohio, Sunnycrest Farms, and Mrs. Liechty led students on tours of the hatchery operation. She explained the hatchery process on a television broadcast of the popular children’s show, Romper Room.

Sunnycrest Farms had a 100,000-egg hatchery, two farms for raising and breeding, and offices on Reynolds Road.

“Sunnycrest birds are true capons and are not treated with a hormone,” Mr. Liechty told The Blade in 1963. “Our true capons are what they are because they eat a well-planned ration.”

At the age of 90, she received second place in the Sauder Village poetry writing competition with an entry titled “Treasures” that spoke of the simple beauty of family and nature.

She was born Sept, 25, 1910, near Stryker, Ohio, to Oliver and Cora Young. In 1939, she married Chris Liechty. He died in 1995.

She was a member of the National Retired Teachers Association and the Fulton County Historical Society.

Surviving are her son, Philip; daughter Marilyn Harris; three grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be held from 3-7 p.m. Friday at the Chapel at Crossroads Evangelical Church, Wauseon. Services will be held in the Chapel at Crossroads Evangelical Church at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, with a second service to be held at a later date in Burke United Methodist Church, Burke, Va.

The family asks that memorials be made to Crossroads, Hands of Grace, the Fulton County Historical Society, Fulton County Health Center Auxillary, or to a hospice of choice.