Ann W. Harting | Senior center leader, 85

Ann Weaver Harting, 85, retired executive director of the Philadelphia Senior Center, died Thursday of heart failure at Meadowood, a retirement community in Worcester.

Miss Harting headed the Philadelphia Center for Older People, now the Senior Center, for 11 years. Under her leadership, the staff grew to 80, serving 5,000 people a year. She established a program to deliver meals to the homebound and developed an endowment fund. Two years after her arrival, the mortgage on the center's headquarters on South Broad Street was paid off. She retired in 1990.

Miss Harting grew up in Germantown and Upper Dublin. She earned a bachelor's degree from Ursinus College and a master's degree in social work from Bryn Mawr College.

While working for the American Red Cross, she assisted servicemen in military hospitals in occupied Europe during World War II, and during the Korean War she assisted wounded soldiers in MASH units in Korea.

She was an administrator for the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania; worked for nonprofits in Rhode Island and West Virginia; and was a consultant for the Health and Welfare Council of Philadelphia.

Miss Harting was a golfer, bridge player, and world traveler, said her niece Suzanne Allen. She was very close to her two nieces and four nephews, who were the children of her sister, Peggy Frith. "She was involved in our lives and would go to all of our children's sporting events and parties," Allen said.

Miss Harting is survived by her nieces and nephews.

The funeral will be at 10:30 a.m. today at Ivy Hill Cemetery Chapel, 1201 Easton Rd. Burial will be in Ivy Hill Cemetery.