Benbrook Place’s Bowling Babes Have Stories to Spare

Seven pins crashed to the floor, and Brenda Ihlenfeld, 86, wasn’t entirely sure how much credit she deserved.

“Oh, I got seven,” she said. “But see, you have no control of where the ball goes.”

Ihlenfeld hadn’t bowled in years. She can no longer hold a ball the way she once did, and the bumpers were unfamiliar. She was learning to bowl a different way, one frame at a time.

“I’ve never bowled like this,” she said. “But I’m still here doing it, which is the main thing.”

Welcome to another afternoon with the Benbrook Place Bowling Babes.

They arrived wearing matching purple shirts, each with a personalized nickname across the back.

“Years ago, I used to bowl with Pat and Jean,” Ihlenfeld recalled. She hadn’t expected to find familiar faces from her bowling days at Benbrook Place.

“It made me happy.”

One of those familiar faces belonged to Jean Wittenmeyer, 91, who has spent much of her life around bowling alleys.

Wittenmeyer first started bowling as a teenager. Over the years, she competed in numerous leagues, made friends and passed her love of bowling to her daughters, Karen Martin and Kathy Bucci.

On this particular afternoon, both daughters had come along.

“It’s fun,” Wittenmeyer said. “I’ve got my two daughters with me and the people we have at Benbrook. They got us shirts.”

She laughed when asked what she thought of the team’s name, the ‘Bowling Babes’, which was displayed on their custom shirts.

“Sure, why not?”

On the back, each woman wore a personalized name.

There was “Queen Judy,” along with “Granny Bunz,” a nickname borrowed from the grandchildren who call her that. Another resident proudly wore “Gigi.”

But the name across the back of Wittenmeyer’s shirt had a meaning that wasn’t immediately obvious.

It read “Double G/Jean.”

Wittenmeyer’s late husband was named Gene. They were married for 65 years.

When it came time to personalize her bowling shirt, Wittenmeyer wanted his name included to bring him along for the afternoon.

For her daughters, watching their mother bowl again was a pleasure.

“Oh, it’s wonderful,” Bucci said. “She’s always been a bowler, we all have, and she just loves this.”

Years earlier, Wittenmeyer had introduced her daughters to bowling. Now, the sisters were helping their mother and the other residents enjoy an afternoon at the lanes.

Ed Protzman Jr., a friend of the bowling alley’s owner, had once again picked up the tab for the group.

When Benbrook Place staff member Kathy Barkman received a call from Protzman, she held up the phone and announced who was on the other end.

“Thank You, Ed!”

The entire group shouted their appreciation.

Ihlenfeld is staying at Benbrook Place while waiting for a troublesome foot to heal. In the meantime, there have been outings like this one.

“That’s the one thing here, they keep you busy,” she said. “They take you places.”

Ihlenfeld knows how different her days might look if she were home alone.

“If I was home myself, I wouldn’t be doing nothing,” she said. “They got me out.”

Wittenmeyer put it another way.

“I think it’s important for things like this that we can go to and have fun,” she said.

“We’re too old to … do a lot of things, but … have you seen how we bowl?”