Gert Slabach: A Life of Faith, a Heart for People, and Stories Worth Sharing

Some friendships begin with an introduction. Mine with Gert Slabach began with a question about a website. She was considering Vegas Solutions, the company behind mine, and wanted to hear about my experience before committing. A few emails later, I found myself discovering a woman whose story went well beyond choosing a webmaster.

By the time we sat down to talk, I had an important literary matter to address: she had used the word “cattywampus” in a blog post. I loved it. Any writer who can work a word like that into an article and make it feel perfectly at home has my attention. We were off to a good start.

Gert is a retired registered nurse, wife, mother of six, Sunday School teacher, and writer. At the time of our conversation, she had ten grandchildren with another on the way. She and her husband have also fostered fifteen children, in addition to providing respite care for others. That is a considerable amount of living, loving, and laundry.

What interested me most, though, was how naturally those parts of her life fit together. Whether she is caring for children, teaching a Bible lesson, or helping someone tell a difficult story, Gert wants to be useful. Her faith in God gives that desire its direction. Speaking about her writing, she explained, “Mine is also to fill other people’s souls.” That purpose became clearer the longer we talked.

Raised in western Maryland and now living in southern Virginia, Gert worked as a nurse in Morgantown, West Virginia, before marriage. Afterward, as she put it, she “nursed babies instead of patients.” When her husband fell from a roof in 2004 and shattered both heels, she returned to nursing while he faced months without being able to walk.

That practical instinct surfaced during our interview. I mentioned an upcoming knee replacement, and she immediately emphasized doing the exercises beforehand. We had briefly stepped away from discussing her life, but I was seeing something essential about it. Give Gert an opportunity to help, and she takes it.

Her work with children comes from much the same place. “I think it’s really important that children learn about God when they’re young,” she explained. Lessons also need to be interesting and understandable. She recalled three Sunday School students whose favorite song thanked a mother for praying. All three were being raised by relatives other than their mothers. She remembered the song, but she also remembered the circumstances of the children singing it.

There is plenty of humor in her household experience, too. “I’m a little bit more structured,” she admitted. “I do better if I know what I’m doing.” We discovered that we both appreciate a good list. When her children were young, Gert sometimes listed the separate stages of doing laundry so she could see what she had accomplished. I admitted that I will add something spontaneous to my list just for the satisfaction of crossing it off. Surely we are not the only ones.

Her love of writing began much earlier. In fifth grade, a teacher praised the imagery in something she had written and asked to keep a copy. That encouragement stayed with her. Years later, with her husband's support, she took a course through the Institute of Children's Literature. “They say you need to read, read, read, and I’ve always been a reader,” she said. Practice and experience continued her education.

Today, her books offer several ways into her work. Her website features Southside Glimmers, Aren’t We Having Fun Dying?!, A Place for Ruth, and Out of the Shadows: My Journey with Complex Mental Illness, credited to Kathy Beachy with Gertrude M. Slabach. There is also Second Batch Recipes, the Miller Six family cookbook. People remain at the center of her work.

The book currently holding my attention is A Place for Ruth. As a history buff, I appreciate writing that helps me understand what historical events meant inside an ordinary family's home. This extraordinary account of surviving Nazi occupation makes that connection personal. Gert's writing allows me to envision the hardships Ruth's family endured, rather than simply registering them as another piece of wartime history.

When we spoke, I had reached the part where German soldiers occupied the house and the family was reduced to one room. Think about that for a moment: your home, your routines, your sense of safety, suddenly subject to someone else's control. Those details bring the human experience into focus. I was still reading, so this is an impression of the journey so far, but it had already made an impact.

Ruth is also someone Gert knows and cares about. “I love this woman,” Gert told me. “When I go home to visit, I still drop in and see her.” Hearing that added another dimension to the book for me. Their relationship continues beyond the final page.

“I love to help people tell their stories,” she said. That is a straightforward description of her work, and an important one. A person can have a remarkable life without knowing how to shape it into a book. Someone willing to listen carefully and do that work helps preserve experiences that might otherwise remain scattered among conversations and memories.

Even the cookbook grew out of a practical family need. Gert and her sisters had favorite recipes spread across different cookbooks and households. Gathering them made it easier to find what they wanted, including when visiting one another. Other people wanted copies, too. There is something wonderfully familiar about a publishing project that begins with trying to locate a recipe.

She has also helped preserve family histories, gathering stories and photographs with relatives. Some of those projects were intended for the family rather than the public. I appreciate that distinction. The value of recording a life does not depend on how many strangers buy the book. Children and grandchildren deserve the chance to know the people who came before them.

Her website, My Windowsill, brings that same personal spirit to a broader audience. “I would say it’s a ministry,” she told me. “I decided when I started writing that I was not going to get on a bandwagon about things.” She wants readers to feel “relaxed and encouraged, and also challenged sometimes,” and to look forward to visiting her works as they would in visiting her home.

Keeping that welcome available has taken persistence. After her previous website manager died, she faced the possibility of losing years of work. Much was recovered, and she began rebuilding. During the interruption, she questioned whether she wanted to continue. Then she would hear something that suggested a blog post and find herself making notes again. “As time went on, I realized I needed to keep writing,” she said.

Retirement has hardly emptied her calendar. Along with family and writing, she coordinates blood drives at her church three times a year. “I’m passionate about donating blood,” she told me. Her outlook on growing older is equally clear: “I don’t want to be put out to pasture.” Then she added the words that, to me, best capture her approach to life: “I want to keep being useful.”

I went into this conversation knowing Gert as a fellow writer with a website connection. I came away appreciating a kind woman whose faith finds expression in practical care and the stories she shares. You can explore all five featured books at My Windowsill’s books page. I will be continuing A Place for Ruth. I want to know what happens next.