Elsie Marie was born on April 12, 1941 in Penrose, Colorado to George W. Schweizer and Elsie May Elliot Schweizer. Elsie was the youngest child of twelve. Her father passed away in 1943 when she was just 2 years old. She was raised in Walsh, Colorado and began working for Bernie Newman at the Gem Theater taking tickets when she was 14.

Elsie attended school in and graduated from Walsh High School in 1959. After graduation Elsie, Betty and their mother got themselves a car and took off to Denver, working secretarial jobs. From Denver they followed Betty to Hutchinson, Kansas. Elsie returned to Walsh and married Guy Keith Bitner (Tuff) on November 20, 1963. Over the next years Elsie worked numerous jobs in Walsh. She spent several years with Dr. Roger and Dr. Bill at Troup Clinic. She then moved on to help open a new physician’s clinic in Johnson and Lakin.

Elsie always put her family before herself. She gave up her weekly beauty shop appointments with Florence Doner to save up enough money to get her girls a piano. Family was always important and the gatherings were great. One time the cousins were over to play. Starla remembers either Elsie threatened them with her famous fly swatter or Starla warned them ahead of time about that swatter! So, they decided the best idea would be to hide the swatter. Needless to say, if you knew Elsie, it did not turn out to be a good idea! Whew, my red headed, fireball mother did put “the fear of God” in me! But we still, as cousins and best friends, could not stay out of at least some trouble.
Elsie endured a major gallbladder surgery at the new University Hospital in Denver. It was then she made up her mind that she was going to live in Denver again. She had to get on a two year waiting list for an apartment opening. Finally in March 2017, off she went with a fully loaded U-Haul truck determined to go. Her apartment in Edgewater had a beautiful view overlooking Sloan’s Lake and downtown Denver. In March of 2018, when her health began to fail and against her wishes, the U-Haul truck was again loaded up and she moved into her new home in the Holly Nursing Care Center or HNCC. HNCC was known to Elsie as the Holly Nursing Correctional Center! However she made new friends, worked in the gift shop at the center and enjoyed the indoor smoking room. Most recently she had accepted the idea to just let the cigarettes go. She had tried to quit before when raising Starla and Maurina. Those were difficult days for Elsie and the girls!

Elsie was preceded in death by her husband Tuff; brothers, Ralph and Lavina, Earl and Geneva, Jim, John who went off to WWII and was buried in 1945 in the Lorraine American Cemetery near Avold, France, and Bill who would call in the middle of the night, not because of an emergency but just because he wanted someone to talk to; sisters, Lou Ella and Kenneth Conner, Wilma Hannafious, Georgia May Failes and Garney, Patty Demuth who thought Elsie was a spoiled brat (but so is Maurina!), Mildred Doyle who was Elsie’s special big sister and Uncle Junior.

We say Thank You to all of Elsie’s friends and helpers, especially Kip and Virginia