Crowning Glory
Erna Snyder of Greenwich Township was crowned Mrs. America 50 years ago. Today, she lives a quiet life with her husband and sells antiques.
FORMER MRS. AMERICA Erna Snyder of Greenwich Township lives a quiet, domesticated lifestyle with her husband, Kenny, and their beloved pet Doberman, Mimi, despite all the fuss about Erna these days.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of her winning the title “Mrs. America 1954." She actually was crowned on Sept. 13, 1953, in New Jersey.
She was 24 when the reigning queen placed the crown on top of her head. Her victory was shared on stage with Kenny and their two sons, Steven, 3, and Kevin, 1. Peter, their third son, was born the following year. Her reign was a busy one.
For three weeks after winning the pageant she was unable to be with her family in Kutztown. Her schedule slowed down a bit, and she mostly traveled locally, making guest appearances at home shows and ribbon cutting ceremonies.
After her reign ended, she went on to become the owner and operator of Furst’s Fashion Shoppe on Main Street in Kutztown with a sister, Johanna T. (Furst) Danner.
About 15 years later, she opened an antique shop called American Classics in Kutztown.
Today, Erna and her husband own Greenwich Mills Antiques. The business is run from an old four story grist mill located a few feet away from their old stone farmhouse in Greenwich Township.
In her free time, she likes to play golf and travel with her husband in search of primitive antiques.
In an interview at her home, Erna, who was casually dressed in khaki colored golf shorts and a white long sleeved blouse, talked about her life as the former Mrs. America.
A LOCAL BEAUTY
She was raised on a farm near Zion Moselem Lutheran Church in Kutztown.
It was a time when milking cows, cooking, sewing your own clothes and driving a tractor were just something a 13-year-old Pennsylvania Dutch girl did without question.
A 1945 graduate of Kutztown High School, Erna was captain of the basketball team and voted most athletic in her class.
She was 19 when she met her future husband at a Halloween party in Kutztown. Was it love at first sight? “No," she said. “He threw confetti in my mouth, and I didn’t think that was very funny."
The two married in 1948 in St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Kutztown and moved into a Cape Codstyle house on West Walnut Street.
Kenny, an apprentice lithographer at the time, was making $32 a week at Kutztown Publishing Co. Times were tough for the young couple. Erna, a full-time homemaker and part-time seamstress, wanted to help provide for the family.
In order to do that, she decided to enter the Mrs. Pennsylvania pageant hoping to win the $1,000 cash reward.
She won the title and money and a month later went on to compete in Mrs. America.
From the start, she was most confident about her domestic skills, even though she had the stuff — a svelte figure, full lips, large brown eyes and wavy shoulder length brunette hair — beauty queens are made of.
“The pageant had more to do with sewing and homemaking," she said. “And, you know, you had to write up a menu, a well-balanced one, stuff like that."
WORLD OF PAGEANTRY
The Mrs. America Pageant is believed to have started in 1939. David and Elaine Marmel, owners of Marmel Entertainment Co., San Diego, Calif., acquired it in 1975.
Homemaking skills are no longer a requirement. The rules, however, have basically stayed the same. A contestant must still win her hometown state pageant before she can enter the national pageant, be married and be at least 18 years old.
Contestants are judged on their beauty, poise, personality and overall appearance. During the pageant, there is an interview along with swimsuit and evening gown competitions.
But it was the homemaking competition that Erna — who impressed the judges with her deviled clams recipe and handcrafted taffeta cocktail dress — was most proud of.
Homemaking was eliminated in the 1970s because the new owners believed cooking and sewing ceased to define the role of married women, said Shamus O’Brien, a state pageant director and owner of Shamus Productions, Dedham, Maine.
“Today, marriage is more of a team effort," O’Brien said. “The reality is that home domestics are shared by both partners because more wives have careers that take them outside the home."
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2000 the state labor force showed that about 1.2 million married women, or 51 percent, worked outside the home.
Fifty years ago about 450,000 married women, or around 18 percent, worked outside the home.
Originally published in Reading Eagle Newspaper, September 2004
