Elizabeth Humber Hean Stone

Elizabeth Humber Hean Stone passed peacefully surrounded by her loving family in her home in New Cumberland, PA on October 17, 2020. She was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania, on January 30, 1927, as the only child of the late Frank Rahn Hean and Petrona Humber Hean. When the Depression wiped out the company for which Frank was house counsel in 1930 the family moved back to Harrisburg and in with two grandparents and two maiden great aunts. Elizabeth attended the Harrisburg public schools (except for third and fourth grades in Eatonton, Georgia, while her mother attended to family affairs there) and graduated from William Penn High School in 1944. Then came Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, as the fourth generation of her mother's family to attend, and to receive a degree, with honors, in 1948, and eventually the Distinguished Alumna award.

After college Elizabeth taught for a time at the Harrisburg Academy. Then the love of her life, Charles H. Stone, turned up at a party on September 10, 1949. All of the other suitors were summarily dismissed. They were married at Market Square Presbyterian Church on February 16, 1952. From that point on, she insisted on always being referred to as Mrs. Charles Stone. Her doting husband survives her.

This was a busy woman. She started the Red Cross Learn to Swim program at New Cumberland. She was a Girl Scout troop leader. In her husband's law school days she became president of the Harvard Law Wives. She served for forty years on the Board of Managers of Homeland, and as President, and as a trustee of Homeland. She served on the 1968 Pennsylvania State Governor's Mansion Decoration Committee, and for decades was a docent at the mansion. At various times she served on the boards of Fort Hunter, Citizens for the Arts in Pennsylvania, Friends of the State Museum, Radio Station WMSP, WITF, Harrisburg Community Theatre, Harrisburg YWCA, and the Harrisburg Symphony. She was President of the New Cumberland Public Library Board and the Cumberland County Library Board. She found time to read hundreds of murder mysteries and Regency romances and solved many a NY Times crossword puzzle.

She liked to travel. And so from arranging trips for the Friends of the Symphony came Sights and Sounds, Inc. and then Travels with Liz, Inc. She and Charlie with so many friends took trips to 97 countries. She was awarded an honorary membership in the Princeton Class of 1949 for taking them to so many places. Those who traveled with her remember her leading the charge down some alley to a favorite restaurant or bookstore. She insisted that every year the family take a two-week summer vacation to Stone Harbor. She said that out of all the beaches in the world that they had visited, Jersey had the best ones.

In 1982 she took over the family paper box business, NU-Box Corporation, and managed it successfully until it was sold in 1987.

She valued her memberships. There were The Women's Club of New Cumberland and Highland, The Junior League of Harrisburg, The College Club of Harrisburg, The Civic Club of Harrisburg, the National Society of the Colonial Dames in America, the Cymry Chapter of the Daughters of the American Colonists. And for the Daughters of the American Revolution she produced a reception for the new citizens in Dauphin County Naturalization Court every year for a half century, continuing a tradition begun by her mother in 1950.

She was a member of the Baughman United Methodist Church in New Cumberland.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by her children and their spouses, Charles G. Stone, II and wife, Kimberly, of Seattle and Tucson, David H. Stone and wife, Lisa, of New Cumberland, and Elizabeth B. Stone and husband, Christopher McPartland, of New Cumberland. She was Meemaw to her grandchildren and step grandchildren, all of whom survive her, Annie, Sophie, Peter, Meryl, Lucy, Christopher, Zachary, Jennifer, and Sarah, as well as five great grandchildren.

Because of the ongoing pandemic private services took place at the family's church.

Contributions in Elizabeth's memory may be made to Homeland Hospice, 2300 Vartan Way #270, Harrisburg, PA 17110 and to the New Cumberland Public Library, One Benjamin Place, New Cumberland, PA 17070.