Harriet F. Wenger

Harriet F. Wenger passed away peacefully on June 12th, 2009. She was born the second of three children to Carl and Jessica Fisher in Chittenango, NY, and grew up on the family dairy farm. She graduated from Juniata College in Huntington, PA and completed graduate studies in library science at Syracuse University. She married James Q. (Jim) Wenger in 1939. She and Jim moved several times as he completed graduate studies in Dentistry and then entered the Army. She and Jim had two sons during this time, Eric and James. After Jim returned from WW 2, they settled in Rochester, NY for several years and then moved to Chapel Hill, NC where Jim taught in the Dental School. Her years in Chapel Hill gave her a lifelong love for Carolina Basketball, and she enjoyed cheering the Tar Heels to the National Championship this April. She and Jim returned to upstate NY in 1957, where she was an elementary school librarian for many years. She loved to tell stories. One of her favorites was how she and her brother would take the horse drawn sled to school in the snow. Another involved one of her former students who came to visit her after entering college. This student recounted how she had taught the other incoming freshman at Vassar College how to use the Dewey Decimal System. After the death of her husband in 2003, she moved to Taos, where she lived at the Plaza de Retiro. She is survived by sons, Eric (Patricia) of Boca Raton, FL and James (Lynda) of Taos, a sister Rosemund of Chittenango, NY, grandchildren, Joshua, Christina, Nicholas and James, as well as many nieces and nephews. She enjoyed her time in Taos; the people, the weather, the mountains, and lunch on the deck of the Bavarian. Services are pending.