Ruth Natalie Chacker, bookkeeper, mother, lifelong learner, dies at 90
Mrs. Chacker was patient and welcoming. From time to time, she would come home and find dogs or other pets that her family had acquired. Instead of getting rid of the animals, she cared for them.
Ruth Natalie Chacker, 90, of Center City, a bookkeeper, mother, and lifelong learner, died Saturday, May 2, of a heart attack as she slept at home.
“I’m happy that she died peacefully,” said Rabbi Lynnda Targan, her friend and adult education teacher. “In Hebrew we call it neshikat mita, literally ‘the kiss on the bed,’ a kiss of death with no suffering.”
Mrs. Chacker and Targan were acquainted through the Women’s Midrash Institute, in which Jewish women from the Philadelphia area deepen their religious knowledge.
“She was amazing,” Targan said. “She had a glass-half-full attitude. She was very optimistic. She knew things and spoke wisdom. When she did, people listened to her.”
Born and raised in Wynnefield, Mrs. Chacker graduated from Overbrook High School and was the first in her family to attend college, earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Temple University in 1951.
She met Frederic M. Chacker in French class at Temple. They married in 1951. He became a periodontist in Center City.
Mrs. Chacker worked as a sales clerk at Gimbel Bros. early in the marriage, and stayed home in Northeast Philadelphia and then Merion to raise the couple’s four children. She cared for her own mother, Eva Bett, and helped keep the books for her husband’s practice and later for that of her periodontist son.
Mrs. Chacker was patient and welcoming. From time to time, she would come home and find dogs or other pets that her family had acquired. Instead of getting rid of the animals, she cared for them. There was always room at her table for family and friends at holidays and other gatherings.
Mrs. Chacker found ways to become involved in community service and never stopped learning. She was a member of Hadassah, a Zionist women’s advocacy and fundraising group, and Har Zion Temple in Penn Valley, where she served as treasurer and as sisterhood president.
She took classes on film and the Bible at Temple University’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
“Mom was an eager lifelong learner until her last breath,” said son Larry in an email. “She certainly loved people and valued her acquaintances and friendships, as an art collector values their fine paintings.”
Until six months ago, she delivered challah, a braided bread, to patients at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. She had done so for a decade.
At 90, she still traveled the city on foot or by SEPTA, going to movies, museums, and the theater, or meeting friends. She always had a knitting project going.
“She had many old friends and continued to make new friends — in the park, in her building, on the bus, at the synagogue,” her family said in a statement.
She traveled the world with her husband. He died in 2006. Later, she resumed traveling with her companion, Samuel Firestone.
When the coronavirus pandemic struck earlier this year, Mrs. Chacker switched from in-person meetings to Zoom and FaceTime to stay in touch with family and friends.
Besides her son and her companion, she is survived by daughters Hilarie, Stephanie, and Stacey; and three grandchildren.
Services were Wednesday, May 6.
Donations may be made to Hadassah Greater Philadelphia, 1518 Walnut St., Suite 402, Philadelphia, Pa. 19102, or Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Temple University, Box 827651, Philadelphia, Pa. 19182.