Amy A. Lukens, community volunteer

Posted 6/26/12

Amy Austin Lukens, 94, formerly of Lafayette Hill, a longtime community volunteer, died June 9 at Cathedral Village in Andorra.

For many years, Mrs. Lukens read books and newspapers aloud to be …

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Amy A. Lukens, community volunteer

Posted

Amy Austin Lukens, 94, formerly of Lafayette Hill, a longtime community volunteer, died June 9 at Cathedral Village in Andorra.

For many years, Mrs. Lukens read books and newspapers aloud to be taped for the blind at the Pennsylvania Association for the Blind in Philadelphia. She also was an active member of the Colonial Dames of America, hosting celebrations in and contributing to the maintenance of Lemon Hill, a historic mansion in Fairmount Park.

A member of the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in Chestnut Hill, she was a volunteer in the Altar Guild and the Women’s Auxiliary. She opened her home to American and foreign student interns from the Morris Arboretum and hosted participants in the Pavarotti Competition of the Philadelphia Opera Company.

Mrs. Lukens was a graduate of Germantown Friends School and Smith College, where she studied art history. After graduation she worked for a time in the office of the president of Princeton University, where she remembered seeing Albert Einstein strolling across campus.

During World War II she served in the SPARS, the U.S. Coast Guard Women’s Reserve, in Memphis, Tenn., and Seattle.

An accomplished watercolorist, she learned to play piano in her later years.

She is survived by daughters Margaret Austin Lukens, of Orono, Maine, and Elizabeth Brockie Lukens, of Mt. Airy, and four grandchildren. Mrs. Lukens’ husband, John Brockie Lukens died in 1994, and a twin sister, Helen, died in early childhood.

A service of remembrance and committal was held June 25 at the Church of St. Martin-in-the Fields. Memorial donations may be made to the Wissahickon Hospice, with checks and money orders made payable to the “Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania,” with “Wissahickon Hospice” on the memo line, and mailed to Penn Home Care & Hospice Service – Development, 3535 Market St., Ste. 750, Philadelphia, PA 19104. – WF

 

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