Dorothy Corn, bank executive, volunteer

Posted 2/10/11

by Walter Fox Dorothy Corn, 94, of Chestnut Hill, a retired bank executive and a longtime community volunteer, died Jan. 25 at Chestnut Hill Hospital. When she retired in 1982, Ms. Corn was a vice …

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Dorothy Corn, bank executive, volunteer

Posted

by Walter Fox

Dorothy Corn, 94, of Chestnut Hill, a retired bank executive and a longtime community volunteer, died Jan. 25 at Chestnut Hill Hospital.

When she retired in 1982, Ms. Corn was a vice president at what was then Fidelity Bank and was the first woman to hold that position at a Philadelphia bank.

For her service to the community that spanned several decades, she was awarded the Chestnut Hill Community Association’s Benefactor Award in 1996.

At Fidelity Bank – now Wachovia – she had overseen the absorption of Farmers’ National Bank in Bristol and the acquisition of Abington National Bank, and had served as a branch operations manager for the bank’s Bristol, Chester and Lansdowne offices.

She had also been involved in the selection of hardware and software during Fidelity’s conversion to computerized record keeping.

Ms. Corn began her banking career as a bookkeeper for the Germantown Trust Co. after graduating from Germantown High School. In 1955 she became assistant manager of bookkeeping operations at the National Bank of Germantown and later that year moved to Fidelity Bank as manager of its bookkeeping and transit operations in Chester.

In Chestnut Hill, she had been a volunteer with Town Watch and Meals on Wheels, and for 22 years had served as treasurer and informal historian of Chestnut Hill’s Senior Center (now the Center for Enrichment). When she retired from the center in 2005, its board elected her as its only emeritus member.

A lifetime resident of Chestnut Hill, Ms. Corn was born in the original Chestnut Hill Hospital facility on West Gravers Lane and had lived in the same house on that street for 91 years. She attended the J.C. Gilbert Elementary School on West Highland Avenue for the first two grades and entered third grade in the newly constructed J.S. Jenks Elementary School.

She was a member of Our Mother of Consolation Church and had volunteered in the parish office, served on its Finance Committee and sung in the choir for 40 years.

Ms. Corn is survived by many nieces and nephews.

A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated Jan. 31 at Our Mother of Consolation Church with interment in Ivy Hill Cemetery.

Memorial donations may be made to the Chestnut Hill Center for Enrichment, 8431 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19118.

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