Bisel will have lived a full century on December 11.
Courtesy | Lisa Hamilton

“I love you to the moon and back,” said 99-year-old Betty Bisel. She says this as often as she can to everyone she meets.

Bisel will celebrate 100 years of life with a huge party on Dec. 11 at the Hillsdale Senior Center from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., open to the public.

From serving as house mom on Hillsdale’s campus, to having two children, to being baptized in the Jordan River as a young adult, Bisel has lived an incredible century marked with a love of people and God, according to her niece Lisa Hamilton.

“She loves to travel,” Hamilton said. “She knows that when the time comes, Jesus will return to earth on a cloud, and that’s why she loves to look at clouds.”

Bisel was born on December 11, 1925, in Dover, Ohio, to a family of seven siblings. She moved to Hillsdale about 75 years ago and has lived in the same house for 65 years.

According to Bisel, she has served as the house director of Simpson Residence, Kappa Kappa Gamma and Chi Omega sororities, and worked at the George Roche Sports Complex before her retirement at age 80.

“I was the head resident assistant in Simpson in the fall of 1998, and Betty stepped in,” said Brock Lutz, the director of Health Services. “It was a very interesting juxtaposition because she was soft-spoken and very sweet, and now she was in Simpson. But she also possessed an inner strength that made her a really great fit.”

When Bisel’s husband died, she began to watch the television game show “Jeopardy!” to keep her mind sharp, according to Hamilton. She keeps a list of the birthdays of students, store clerks, friends, and church acquaintances to send cards from her home, where she lives independently, Hamilton said.

“She does really well on her own, although less than a week ago she scared us,” Hamilton said. “She had fallen between her chair and her nightstand, but thank God everything was fine.”

Bisel was in the Hillsdale County Medical Care Facility last year for some time, before moving back to her house, where Hamilton stayed until Bisel sent her home and resumed living on her own.

“There’s no place like home,” Bisel said to Hamilton. “So you need to be home, and I need to be home.”

Bisel said she worked at Smucker’s in Orrville, Ohio, with her brother when she was in her early twenties, before she moved to Hillsdale. She said she loves to show people the Smucker’s jar with her image on it that the company gave her to celebrate her time working with them.

Lutz reflected on a prank that Bisel still mentions to him with laughter every time she sees him.

“One of the students, who happened to live on a farm, decided it would be really funny if they siphoned 800 pounds of feed corn into my car,” Lutz said. “The interior of my car was completely full up to the bottom of the windows, and Betty just thought it was the funniest thing. It was a pretty good prank.”

Bisel now lives near campus on Summit Street and said she loves getting to know the students as well as reading The Collegian every week. The students know her for her loving words, according to alumna Laura Luke ’25.

“Every day she reads the Bible,” Hamilton said. “She’s read the Bible front to back many times. She taught me about faith.”

After living for a century, Hamilton said, Bisel has befriended countless people.

“I cannot believe how many lives she has touched,” Hamilton said. “And the encouragement she has given people to pursue what they love and believe in.”

With a century of love under her belt, Bisel has one question: “Are you coming to my birthday party?”