Obituary
Ada Julius was born on Valentine’s Day 1912, in Unicorn, Pennsylvania, one of the many tiny towns, now vanished, that dotted southeastern Pennsylvania in the early 20th century. She was the third and final child of Edgar A. and Rena Miller Groff, joining an older sister, Helen, and their brother Edgar. Her father died in February 1918 in the global Spanish flu epidemic. In the years following his death, the situation was difficult for the family, with Ada’s mother working multiple jobs and the children often boarded out to friends and relatives.
Life improved when Rena Groff was remarried in 1929 to Charles N. Goshkey. Ada was always grateful to her stepfather for enabling her to study nursing at Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing in Philadelphia, where she graduated ‘in the early 1930s.
Ada married Frederic S. Julius December 10, 1934 in Boonsboro, Maryland. After several moves, the family settled in Lancaster, Pennsylvania where Ada lived from 1942 to 1978 while raising her four children and managing a physician’s office. She was widowed in 1967.
In 1978, Ada retired and moved to Daytona Beach Shores. It was an active retirement. She continued to work as a nurse until she was well into her 80s, was active in card clubs and was a long-time member of Westminster-by-the-Sea Presbyterian Church. She drove until she was 98 and lived on her own until she was well over a hundred. Above all, Ada loved to travel. She visited Europe when her younger son was serving there in the Army, travelled to Hawaii and the Virgin Islands with the mothers-in-law of her children, and took numerous short trips and cruises with friends from Daytona.
Ada was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, her brother Edgar C. Groff, a sister Helen G. Spencer, a son Robert G. Julius and a daughter Barbara Julius Brooks. She is survived by a daughter Patricia Julius McGonegal (husband William), a son, Frederic S. Julius Jr. (wife Marcia), a son-in-law, Linton F. Brooks, two granddaughters, four grandsons, two great granddaughters and four great grandsons. All of them give thanks that she is at peace, but all will miss her greatly.
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