Amelia Mei-En Kaplan

Amelia Mei-En Kaplan, of Upper Darby, PA, passed away on August 2, 2025.

Amelia was born on July 12, 2004 to parents Bill and Jeanette Kaplan. Three years later, she became a big sister to her brother Ian. For 21 years and 21 days, Amelia brightened our lives with her sweetness, intelligence, creativity, derring-do, humor and beauty.

As a young child, Amelia loved to read, sing, organize and rearrange things. She loved being with her family and friends. She recited whole picture books from memory before she learned to read. She made art installations out of her stuffed animals and other found objects and scattered them around the house. She protested loudly when her mother tried to clean them up, mistaking them for forgotten toys.

Amelia attended the Kindergarten Center, Highland Park Elementary and Beverly Hills Middle School before graduating from Upper Darby High School in 2022. In her school years, she made many friends, read many books, dressed in princess clothes, danced in puddles, rode her bike, made things out of duct tape, played Rock Shop and “Laura and Mary” outside, and experienced a magical childhood. She persevered through Chinese school, learned to shoot a bow and arrow, played the violin and flute, ran a bit of track, joined marching band for a brief stint, worked at Kumon, Sesami, and Starbucks, took AP courses, drove stick shift, parallel parked like a pro, cut her own hair, learned to crochet, strung up fairy lights, won an award for outstanding literary analysis and stunned us all with what she could accomplish and do so well. She was a DIY-er extraordinaire.

All her life, Amelia loved pretty things. Making things beautiful was in her nature. No one could style an outfit quite like her. From an early age, she picked out all her own outfits and wore everything well. She loved getting her hair cut at the salon and getting glitter hairspray. Amelia had an eye for detail and was able to find gems among the shelves and racks of so many thrift stores. Goodwill had a good customer in Amelia. She was also the queen of her mother’s bulletin boards at Wallingford Elementary School, taking hours to pin and perfect them, to the admiration of all who saw.

During her late elementary and middle school years, Amelia moved and rearranged the furniture in her bedroom every few weeks, somehow managing to make dozens of unique configurations with only a bed, desk and two bookshelves. Later she begged to live in our unfinished attic, loving its dustiness, exposed beams and the odds and ends of forgotten, stored and precious things. She said it reminded her of Sara Crewe’s attic in A Little Princess, a book she read to shreds. She was heartbroken when we renovated the attic during Covid to create a new bedroom for her. And though she would have happily slept among the bins and broken railings, Amelia made her new bedroom a sanctuary of light and clean design. Very few were ever invited upstairs and it became her own private space, truly a room of her own.

After graduating high school, Amelia attended the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University. As with everything else, Amelia had strong opinions about design. She believed that good design should not only be the privilege of the wealthy. She wanted to bring human centered design into places and spaces that were occupied by regular people and those most in need. Although she was taught to design multi-million dollar homes and 5 star restaurants and hotels, she preferred to talk about libraries, gardens, public spaces, soup kitchens, affordable housing, and urban planning. She wanted to make design humane and accessible for everyone. Days before she passed, she had conversations with her advisor and friends and family on how to construct her own major, blending courses in interior design with sociology, civic engagement, and environmental science. That, or change course completely and study neuroscience - because Amelia could do that, too.

Cape May was one of Amelia’s favorite places in the world. It was the place her father and mother had their first date, and it was the place we took our family when we went down the shore. Some of her happiest memories were the years we rented houses with two other families. She loved the company, the sun, the waves, the cannolis and the smell of salt air. Even after traveling to many places around the world, she would declare that she loved Cape May best. In more recent years, she would often take day trips there with family and friends. She loved lying in the sun and getting tossed by the waves. She loved the quiet of golden hour on the shore and spent many hours collecting shells and a few hours trying to catch the gulls. She dreamed of striking it rich, so she could buy a very little cottage there for her mother.

Amelia was an observer and a watcher of people. She noticed what people liked and how they did things, their manners and their ways. Then she would do things for them and make us all feel so loved and special. She was her father’s bike riding companion and pro-Philly compatriot; her brother’s verbal sparring partner and confidante; and her mother’s best friend, teacher helper and restaurant guide. Though she hated dog hair, when thunder and lightning struck, Amelia comforted Lucy and allowed her to lie next to her bed in her room. (Truly an act of love for those in the know.)

Amelia would paint the nails of her younger cousins and spend nights with them, reading to the little ones and doing make-up for the older ones. She told great stories and roasted her father during family Thanksgivings with the Hutchinsons. She measured every inch of the meeting hall of the Church in Philadelphia and made blue prints and planted trees with her Gong-Gong. She carefully arranged the platters for hot pot and dutifully invested in her Roth IRA for her Po-Po. She showed up for every birthday and family gathering even though she was so busy at Drexel. For her friends, Amelia cut hair, pierced ears, planned trips, gave rides, mixed drinks, and made so many cakes. She loved picking out little gifts for people whenever she went on vacation. She wrote the best birthday cards. She tied the laces and gave impromptu skating lessons to little kids (and bigger people, too) at Laura Sims Skate House.

This past year, the Laura Sims Skate House became a place of escape for Amelia. She bought hockey skates and a stick, mastered the art of skating backwards, and became a fixture there. She watched hours of hockey, becoming a rabid Flyers fan (having already established herself as a rabid Eagles fan). She studied hockey moves and meticulously copied and learned how to execute them on the ice. She dreamed of becoming part of the Professional Women’s Hockey League, calling it the “pipe dream to end all pipe dreams.” When she stopped going to everything else, she would still make it to Laura Sims to skate. Over and over, Amelia said skating felt like flying. Hours and hours were spent there, multiple times a week. She skated until she flew and flew until she was finally free.

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When Amelia was four, on December 14, 2008, she prayed to receive the Lord and was saved. We had been reading an illustrated children’s Bible book, and she asked, “What is godly people?” I said, “It’s the people who believe in God and have Him living inside of them.” She asked, “What’s ungodly?” I said, “It’s the people who don’t have God living inside of them.” She was quiet, so I said, “One day you can ask God to live inside of you and be like mommy and daddy.” She was thoughtful, so I asked, “Would you like to ask Jesus to come live inside of you?” “Yes!” she answered definitively. So we prayed, with her repeating after me to receive the Lord into her heart. Then spontaneously she sang:

And I’m so happy

So very happy

I’ve got the love of Jesus in my heart

Down in my heart!

On the Wednesday, before Amelia died, we were driving in the car. I was playing some hymns quietly in the background. We were chatting about this and that. And then a familiar song played. Amelia began to sing softly. It had been a while since I had heard her sing, so I just listened and drove. She sang:

I am breathing out my sorrow

I am breathing out my sin

I am breathing, breathing, breathing

All Thy fullness in.

I looked over and her face was soft, full of peace– like the little girl I prayed with so many years ago.

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We thank the Lord for all the years He gave us to spend with Amelia. She brought light into so many people’s lives. We are now at rest because she is at rest, in her loving Father’s arms. She is finally free.

Amelia is pre-deceased by her grandmother Sun-Tok Kaplan and her grandfather Harry Kaplan.

She is survived by her mother Jeanette Kaplan, her father Bill Kaplan, her brother Ian Kaplan, her grandmother Cecilia Liou, her grandfather Earnest Liou, her uncle James (Sarah) Liou, and her aunts Rose (Jim) Hutchinson and Ruth (Joe) Rotzinger. She is also survived by her cousins Shaun, Christopher, Kevin and Amanda Rotzinger; cousins Rachael and Nick Hutchinson; and cousins Ellie, Rosalind, Jane and Cece Liou - all who will forever keep and cherish her memory.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Ed Snider Youth Hockey and Education (link here) designated in memory of Amelia Kaplan. They will match all donations 2:1. Donations will go to student athletes in the program that specifically skate at Laura Sims Skate House, a place she loved so dearly.

Visitation is scheduled for Tuesday, August 12, 2025, 5pm to 7pm at The Donohue Funeral Home, 8401 West Chester Pike, Upper Darby Township, PA 19082.

Burial will be held privately. (Amelia’s final resting place will be Arlington Cemetery, Hillview section. 2900 State Rd, Drexel Hill, PA 19026.)

Memorial Meeting - Saturday, August 16, 2025, 10am to 12 pm. Church in Philadelphia, 6391 Church Rd, Philadelphia, PA 19151. Reception lunch following. All are invited.