Elaine M. Budd

Elsie May (Hipple) Budd, age 95, passed away in hospice of natural causes at Reading Hospital/Tower Health, Reading, PA, on September 5, 2025, with family by her side.

Born March 3, 1930, in Hamburg, PA, as the Great Depression began, she was the daughter of Homer William Hipple and Ida May (Rambo) Hipple of Spring City, Chester County, PA.

Elsie grew up on the Hipple farm on West Bridge Street, attended the Locust Grove one-room schoolhouse, and later graduated from Spring City High School in 1948, where she lettered in softball and field hockey. Graced with vivid red hair and freckles from her German/Irish ancestors, Elsie was active and social, taking friends to football games in the old pickup truck on which she learned to drive. After graduation, she worked as a seamer at the Apex Hosiery Mill in Spring City.

Elsie married Dale V. Budd, Sr. of East Nantmeal Township, Chester County, on March 31, 1951, at Bethel Methodist Church. The couple had three children: Judy, Deborah and Dale Jr.

As a U.S. Navy wife, Elsie lived in Lakehurst, NJ, while Dale served, moving back to the farm after the death of her father in 1952. She was a full-time homemaker, green-thumb gardener, sang in the church choir, lead a Girl Scout troop, and cheered her son in multiple sports. She was a loving mother, and later, a devoted grandmother to Erika, Kim and Lynn. She was especially delighted to watch her three granddaughters become high school softball players, as she had been. She was further blessed to know her three great-grandchildren, Kelsie, Anthony and Rebekah.

Elsie was also a caring mom to a lifetime of cats, dogs, bunnies, guinea pigs and turtles. The gathering of fur babies at the Rainbow Bridge should be something to see!

She and Dale took family camping excursions, and road trips across the United States to the Jersey shore, Chesapeake, Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, National Parks, and visiting relations in Arizona, Michigan and Washington state. She even braved air travel to visit her half-sister in Chicago.

Elsie was caregiver to her mother Ida, her mother-in-law Florence (Shick) Budd, and Dale’s aunt Alice (Shick) Collins in their declining years.

Selling the farm in 1989, the couple relocated to Brecknock Township, Berks County, and later to Elverson, PA, Chester County, where they joined the congregation of Goodwill United Methodist. The couple celebrated their 71st anniversary shortly before Dale’s death in 2022, when Elsie moved in with her granddaughter Kimberly and daughter Judy in Birdsboro, PA.

Elsie is survived by her daughters: Judy Jernegan (husband David, deceased) of Birdsboro, PA, and Deborah Budd of Reading, PA; granddaughters and their spouses Erika and Mike Panfile, Lynn and Kevin Yocom, and Kimberly Jernegan; and great-grandchildren Kelsie, Anthony and Rebekah. She was pre-deceased by her half-sister Marion I. (Hipple) Giosa, Chicago, IL; her half-brother Robert E. Hipple, Spring City, PA; her son, Dale V. Budd, Jr.; and her husband Dale.

Services will be private at the discretion of the family. In lieu of flowers, we invite donations to Animal Rescue League of Berks County; St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital; or Goodwill U.M.C., Elverson, PA.

Final arrangements are through Whelan & Schwartz Funeral Home and online condolences may be made at www.whelanschwartz.com