Louise Stephens, 91, of Chestnut Hill, a former circulation manager at the Chestnut Hill Local, died Oct. 20 at Stapely in Germantown.
Mrs. Stevens, who retired in 1995, had worked at several positions at the Local before taking over as circulation manager. In a Local story on her retirement, Mrs. Stevens said she liked to think of herself “as a lighthouse, dispensing light and helpfulness wherever I go.”
Born in Reading to German parents, she and her sister we were taken back to Germany by her mother in 1933, two years after her father died. Returning to the United States in 1948, she earned a bachelor’s degree at Temple University and a master’s degree in education from what is now West Chester University.
She and her husband, the late Leo J. Stevens, moved to Chestnut Hill in 1968, where she was long active in Friends of the Wissahickon.
When a fire at the Local in February of 1981 knocked out the electrical system, making the building unusable for six months, Mrs. Stevens hooked up the paper’s still functioning Addressograph machine to the electrical line of the building next door and, wearing a winter coat, scarf and hat, ran off labels each week in an unheated Town Hall.
A member of the Second Baptist Church of Germantown, she served for a time on the church’s Mission Board. As part of her board work, she cooked once a month for a Haitian evangelical church in Germantown.
She is survived by a daughter-in-law, Randy Stevens; and five grandchildren. A son, Paul, preceded her in death.
Memorial services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 11, at the Second Baptist Church of Germantown, 6459 Germantown Ave. in Germantown. Interment will be at Whitemarsh Memorial Park at a later date. – WF
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