- Date Of Birth: January 18, 1924
- Date Of Death: November 14, 2019
- State: Maine
Woolwich, Maine – Natalie Faith Pierce Kent Kempner was born on Jan. 18, 1924 to Gertrude Lindahl and George Kyle Pierce in Binghamton, New York. She grew up a happy child “oblivious to the Depression that required me to sleep in the living room so my mother could take in roomers”.
During her years at Smith College, which coincided with World War II, her view of the world widened and she became a committed Pacifist and as she discovered the Society of Friends, she joined the Northampton Friends Meeting.
Natalie married Fritz Kempner in 1971 and moved to Philadelphia where she focused on Environmental Education, founding and directing the Norris Square Neighborhood Project, a non-profit bi-lingual learning center. By 1981 she was a very active participant in Philadelphia’s Sanctuary Movement, giving shelter to Central American refugees at the Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting House. The Sanctuary work and the Norris Square project were very significant passions for her and many of the people she met during those years have kept in close touch with her.
“Since retirement my delights have been the natural world, the poets, and my eight grandchildren who range in age from 12 – 42. The world by the Kennebec River is breathtakingly beautiful. It is hard, from here, to grasp the news of the day.“
