Elisabeth Lewis Ditchfield

Mrs. Ditchfield was born in New Castle, PA November 4, 1915. She attended the Bible College of Wales from 1937 to 1939, where she met her husband, Leslie F. Ditchfield. He was also a retired Methodist minister and he died in 1988.

Mrs. Ditchfield returned to the United States at the start of WW II and entered Houghton College where she graduated in 1946. She was named to Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities.

She was a well known Youth Evangelist in the northeast and traveled from Pennsylvania and the surrounding states to Maine and Canada during the early 1940’s preaching in revivals and special meetings for youth groups. When the war ended she travelled to England to be with her husband who was still serving in the British Merchant Marines.

She and her husband settled in Asheville in 1950 after living in England briefly after the war. The couple served many United Methodist churches in the Asheville area and taught child evangelism classes in the Buncombe County area elementary schools in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.

Mrs. Ditchfield was also a teacher at the Asheville Christian Day School during the 1960’s before being ordained as a United Methodist minister in 1971.

She is survived by her daughters, Lisbeth D. Hedgecock of Collegeville, PA and Denise D. Gottshalk of Orlando, FL; three grandchildren, Daniel Hedgecock, Anne Gottshalk, and John Gottshalk; and a sister, Dorothy Thomas of Youngstown, OH.

A memorial service will be 11:00 am Friday in the Patton Avenue chapel of Groce Funeral with the Rev. Ralph L. Reed officiating.

Memorials may be made to the Western Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church Brotherhood-Sisterhood Fund, PO Box 1096, Belmont, NC 28012-1096.