- Date Of Birth: March 13, 1925
- Date Of Death: August 13, 2012
- State: Wisconsin
Harriet Marie Bernhardt, 87, of Port Edwards died Monday, August 13, 2012 at Howard Young Medical Center in Woodruff.
Harriet was born March 13, 1925 in Warsaw, New York, to Carl and Bessie (Whaley) Pflaum. She grew up on her family’s dairy and apple orchard farm at Dale in Wyoming County in western New York. Her early education was in the one-room school house at Dale, followed by high school at Wyoming Central School. She started college at the Buffalo State Teachers College and then transferred to the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell University. There she majored in Home Economics, graduating in June, 1946.
Her first employment was as a Home Economist, in Fillmore, New York, for the Rochester Gas & Electric Company. She moved later to the Lever Bros. Spry Kitchen in Boston, Mass. There she worked on product and recipe development. Harriet’s first paychecks were used to pay for flying lessons. She got her Private Pilot license in 1946 and loved light plane flying. She introduced husband Art to the hobby and enjoyed it with him for many years. Art was working at Espanola, Ontario at the time of their marriage, December 29, 1948, and the newlyweds enjoyed living there until moving to Port Edwards in 1952.
Harriet’s first child, Susan, was born in Canada and the others in Port Edwards. Aside from her success as wife and mother, she pursued many hobbies: gardening, sewing, basketry, piano, reading biographies and history, and birding. Also, there was flying, sailing, fishing, listening to jazz music and foreign country travels with Art.
Harriet was truly a great giver: Of time to teach Sunday School, to serve on the Port Edwards School Board, to deliver Meals on Wheels, to participate in The League of Women Voters. She also donated gallons of blood at Riverview Hospital and at the end of life donated her body for education and research to the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison.
Harriet is survived by her beloved husband of 64 years, Arthur; children: Susan R. Dyon (Allen), Elizabeth A. Bernhardt (Tedmund Sweicki), Eric P. Bernhardt (Karen Smith), Barbara L. Bernhardt, and Barbara A. MacNaughton (widow of Arthur Charles Bernhardt); grandchildren: Andrew, Benjamin, and Alexander Dyon, Whitney and Arthur Cameron Bernhardt, and Frances Sweicki-Bernhardt. She was preceded in death by parents, brother, Charles Pflaum, and son, Arthur Charles Bernhardt.
