U.S. CONGRESSMAN BILL JOHNSON Proudly Representing Eastern and Southeastern Ohio

By Larry Shields
Salem News
Published March 9, 2012

As a very young girl she marched in Woman Suffrage Parades (1916) with her mother and to this day keeps up to date with political issues.

When she celebrates her 103rd birthday on March 18, Mary Alice Groppe will still read three newspapers each day while keeping her senior citizen issues up front.

Groppe retired as a poll worker at the age of 99 and was honored when she reached the 50-year service mark with a plaque by former Ohio governor and secretary of state, Bob Taft. She wanted to meet her U.S. Congressman, her grandson Vic Maroscher said, so he arranged for that to happen on Friday morning.

Maroscher said she still writes letters regarding senior issues to her elected representatives.

Groppe, who retired from teaching "American history and commercial law" in 1970, told Johnson, "I was glad to know the committees you're on. I think this is the most serious thing ... the nation faces a $15 billion debt."

Johnson reminded her it was $15 trillion and Groppe gave a little smile, "Oh, I was looking for the next number."

She was born in 1910, the eldest of three siblings. The children were orphaned by the flu and typhoid fever in 1921 and she helped raise the family when she was 12.

She was married to Dr. Carl Groppe who worked as a veterinarian for the state of West Virginia at Mountaineer Park and Waterford Park and had served under Gen. George S. Patton in World War II.

While in Wheeling they founded the Wheeling chapter of AARP.

Groppe earned a masters degree in commerce and social studies at West Virginia University and taught at three high schools in Wheeling, W.Va., for 23 years.

"I always thought teaching was the most important thing you could do," she said and Maroscher noted that, "she always did a lot of volunteer work."

Today she has two children, a son and a daughter, and eight grandchildren. Her husband died in 1991.

"I am blessed with a concerned family," she said, and Maroscher said, "She reads all the time ... and continues to write politicians on senior citizen issues."