Harriet Bernd Stapleton

Harriet Bernd Heilman Stapleton, 91, died Jan. 26, 2009, in Westminster Towers, Bradenton, Fla., where she was a resident five years.

She was born Aug. 8, 1917, in the village of Egypt, Lehigh County, to the late William J. Heilman and Mary E. Bernd Heilman.

She attended Ritter High School in Allentown. Her paternal grandfather, the Rev. Uriah P. Heilman, founded the Lutheran Home at Topton. Her maternal grandfather, the Rev. Franklin K. Bernd, was a professor at what is now Kutztown University.

In 1939, she married Martin Luther Stapleton, Reading, who retired from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1979. He died in 1993.

Harriet graduated from Kutztown University in 1939 with a degree in education and library science, and for the next 40 years was a teacher or librarian at public schools in Armstrong, Berks, Indiana, and Lancaster counties. By the 1960s, she had developed a concept of the library as a multi-media center that was in advance of her profession.

She had a love of watching baseball, playing bridge, swimming and travel. She was active in Business and Professional Women and the Audubon Society. She was the first librarian of the Kutztown Public Library, and volunteered at the Lake Placid (Fla.) Public Library and the Ruskin Branch of the Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library System. She was a lifelong member of the Lutheran church.

Harriet is survived by a brother, John F. Heilman, White Oak, S.C.; her daughter, Margaret S. (Peggy) Steinfurth, Palmetto, Fla.; and her son, Darwin H. Stapleton, Ossining, N.Y. She had five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Memorial services will be Saturday at 1 p.m. in the Westminster Towers Chapel in Bradenton, Fla., and on Feb. 8 in Berks County.

In lieu of flowers her family requests donations to Westminster Towers, 1603 Third Ave., West, Bradenton, FL 34205; Tidewell Hospice, 5955 Rand Blvd., Sarasota, FL 34238; Atonement Lutheran Church, 1744 Lakeview Drive., Sebring, FL 33870; or the Department of Library Science and Instructional Technology, Kutztown University, P.O. Box 730, Kutztown, PA 19530. Arrangements entrusted to Lewers Funeral Home in Ruskin, Fla.