Arlene Betty Lenhard

Arlene Betty Calvert was born on December 12, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois to Vance and Bernice Calvert. To her older brother, Art, and her younger sister, Donna, she was known as Sissy. She attended Kelly High School where she was a member of both the National and Kelly Honor Societies and the marching band, where she played the bass clarinet. Arlene's mother, Bernice, died when Arlene was sixteen years old, putting her into the position of caring for her father's home and her siblings.
Arlene met Bill Lenhard, Jr. at the USO club while he was attending Electronics School at the Great Lakes Naval Training Academy and they quickly fell in love. They were married on May 5, 1962. Arlene followed Bill as a Navy Wife to his various duty stations in Philadelphia, PA, Groton, CT, Virginia Beach, VA, and finally Goose Creek, SC, where she was granted the dubious distinction of being Mother of the Boat. During that time, she had four children. Billy (the third) was born first, in 1962, then Kenny a year and 10 days later, Chris in 1965, and finally Jennifer in 1969. She always joked that the first thing she did when she came home from the hospital after giving birth to Chris was to change Billy's and Kenny's diapers. Having to raise four young children while Bill was at sea for up to six months a year was difficult, so Bill decided to leave the navy and the whole family moved to Delaware to be closer to Bill's family. After a year of renting, Arlene and Bill moved with their children to the last home Arlene would ever know. Her father, Vance, would come to live with the family for a short time before passing away at the age of 78.
After moving to the new house, Arlene got a job working in the keypunch department of ICI, working the night shift so that she could be home during the day for her children. Because of her dedication and work ethic, she was soon promoted to supervisor of keypunch. While Arlene was very good at her job, she did not feel very fulfilled. When a new position was being opened for a mainframe programmer, she decided to try for it. Bill and Arlene purchased a Tandy Color Computer, and Arlene used it to teach herself to program. She presented herself for the position, bringing along with her a word-processing program that she had programmed herself. She so impressed the interviewers that she was hired for the position even though she had no formal training and had not attended college. She was encouraged to take some courses at the University of Delaware, which she thoroughly enjoyed. Arlene retired from ICI after 20 years, having reached the title of Business Systems Analyst. Her most outstanding achievement while at ICI was writing the program that the company used to send purchase orders and invoices electronically across the company. Called EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), it was the first of its kind for ICI, and one of the first systems like it in the industry as a whole.
In 2002, when Bill retired, they purchased an RV and spent many months at a time travelling the country with their dogs and cats. They visited every state in the continental United States except Idaho, Washington, Utah, and Oregon.
Arlene had a lifelong love of learning and was always working to improve her knowledge and skills. She liked playing computer games and her interest in computers and technology was instrumental in inspiring her daughter's eventual career path. She also had a great love of animals. Dogs and cats were always a part of the Lenhard family.
Arlene passed away on January 1, 2023, at home. She is survived by her husband, Bill, and her sister Donna, her four children, William, Kenneth, Christopher and Jennifer, her two grandchildren, Jeffrey and Matthew, step-grandchildren, Amanda, Lauren, Kyra, and Conner, and three great-grandchildren, Jeff's sons, Hadden, Gregory, and Gabriel. Services for Arlene will be private. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to Faithful Friends or the Delaware SCPA.
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