In Memoriam: Herbert Zearfoss

IN MEMORIAM: HERBERT K. ZEARFOSS H erbert Keyser Zearfoss, of Villanova, attorney-at-law, business executive, Pennsylvania state legislator, and leader in many volunteer organizations, died on Tuesday morning, 8 April 2008. He was seventyeight years old. Just two weeks before his death, he had stepped down from the presidency of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, an office he held for thirteen years before being elected an Honorary President for life. He was born on 13 October 1929 near the small town of Montandon, on the east bank of the Susquehanna River in Northumberland County. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bucknell University in 1951 and a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from American University in 1958. He was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar and opened a law office in Lewisburg in 1959. He later joined the Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company, the Provident Indemnity Life Insurance, and Teleflex, Inc. He was a Justice of the Peace in Radnor Township, Delaware County, from 1966 to 1967 and was elected a state representative to the Pennsylvania General Assembly, serving for five terms, 1968 to 1978. He was very active in volunteer organizations throughout the Delaware Valley, including the Boy Scouts of America and the Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum of Philadelphia. His passion was for genealogy and for patriotic hereditary societies, serving as an officer in many, including the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, the Netherlands Society of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Continental Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, the Colonial Society of Pennsylvania, the General Society of the War of 1812, the Delaware State Society of the Cincinnati, the Pennsylvania Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, and the Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and was active in the Huguenot Society of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Society of Sons of the Revolution, and the Welcome Society of Pennsylvania. He was married in 1953 to Thelma Mary McCarthy, with whom he had three children, Timothy McCarthy Zearfoss, Jonathan Andrew Zearfoss, and Sarah Creighton Zearfoss. Thelma Zearfoss died in 1984. He married Suzanne Vander Veer in 1992. She and the children survive him. In his honor, a donor fund has been established to enhance and perpetuate projects brought to fruition during his tenure as president of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania. Donations may be sent to GSP. Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine Vol. 45 (2008) Draft copy 12 June, 2008 197