Evelyn Ward Warren, club officer and artist

Evelyn Ward Warren, 93, president of the Women's Club of Huntingdon Valley from 1969 to 1971 and a member of its executive board for 15 years, died Thursday, July 25, at The Shores at Wesley Manor, a retirement care community in Ocean City, after a stroke.

She moved from Montgomery County to Avalon in 1976 and had lived in Cape May Court House since 1997.

Age appeared not to have slowed her efforts as a self-taught artist.

On June 5, her acrylic paintings won two awards in the 39th annual Senior Art Contest at the Cape May County Administration Building, in competition with 72 other county residents.

In Avalon, Mrs. Warren was a member of the mayor's advisory committee and the borough ethics committee, daughter Patricia Moses said.

She was president of the Avalon Book Club, a member of the Avalon Garden Club, and, in the 1970s, a cochair of its annual flower shows.

A financial committee member for the First United Methodist Church of Avalon, she was for a time its trustee secretary as well as secretary for the Avalon Performing Arts Council, for which she wrote grant applications, her daughter said.

A volunteer at the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor - until about three years ago, according to her daughter - Mrs. Warren arranged for the Philadelphia Watercolor Club to show its members' works at the Institute's Wings 'n' Water Festival at the Avalon Community Hall.

In Cape May Court House, she was a volunteer in charge of the art gallery at Burdette Tomlin Memorial Hospital.

Decades earlier in Huntingdon Valley, Mrs. Warren headed the Women's Club's parliamentary procedure committee and began a community program to screen children for the disorder known as lazy eye, her daughter said.

She was chairwoman of personnel from 1967 to 1969 for the Huntingdon Valley Library Board and was a member of its executive committee.

For the Mothers Club of Huntingdon Valley, she was vice president, newspaper editor, and hospitality chairwoman. At Lower Moreland High School, she was a member of the PTA executive board in the early 1970s.

Born in New York City, she was the daughter of Perley Ward, president of Farm Journal when its headquarters was on Washington Square in Philadelphia.

A 1937 graduate of Cheltenham High School and of Thompson's Business School in 1939, she began with her father's publication in the mail room and became secretary to the food editor.

After marrying in 1943, she began working at Brown Instrument Co. in the Wayne Junction neighborhood, writing reports on equipment such as an atmospheric-measurement device attached to a balloon.

Though her working career ended with the return of her husband from World War II, Mrs. Warren not only began her volunteer career but in 1959 the Library of Congress certified her as a braille transcriber of mathematics books for the Volunteer Service for the Blind.

Besides her daughter Patricia, Mrs. Warren is survived by sons John and Richard, daughter Suzanne Walterick, eight grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Her husband, John H. Jr., died in 2001.

A funeral was set for 11 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 22, at the First United Methodist Church, 3344 Dune Dr., Avalon, with interment in Cape May County Veterans Cemetery.

Donations may be made to the charity of the donor's choice.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.radzieta.com.