Hettie Francessor Simmons was born Oct. 29, 1922. She was senior valedictorian at Boylan-Haven boarding school and earned a bachelor’s degree in math at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., in 1943. She went to Penn for her master’s degree because her mother had friends in Philadelphia.
“When I had an opportunity to go to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, I jumped at the chance.”She and Love married in 1948, and had son George H. Jr. and daughter Karen. They lived in West Philadelphia until her husband became Pennsylvania’s assistant commissioner for basic education, and they moved to Harrisburg in 1971. He died in 2014.
She helped form the Harrisburg chapter of the Links service organization, was on the board of the local YWCA, and served in the Retired Seniors Volunteer Program. Shein the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority in 2016, and her sorority colleagues said she enhanced “the lives of all whom she touched throughout her purpose-driven lifetime.”
“We had a house full of books and a dictionary 6 inches thick,” her son said. “She always said: ‘Go look it up.’ With her, there were no shortcuts.”