Betty Louise Harms, Pleasant Hill, Calif.
1924 - 2007
Former Emporia resident Betty Lou Childers Cook-Harms of Pleasant Hill, Calif., died Thursday, Sept. 27, 2007, in Oakland, Calif. She was 83.
Mrs. Harms lived in Homestead, Fla., while her husband was stationed in Florida during World War II. While there, she was south Florida’s first woman driving mail carrier, a treasure diver for Art McKee’s Museum of Sunken Treasure and a radio personality on WSDB. She moved to San Francisco in 1962 and founded ABBA Insta-Print and the Resume Bureau, which she ran for 35 years. She later was a trustee of the Mechanics Institute of San Francisco. She also was a counselor.
The daughter of Kenneth Cook and Florence Childers Cook, she was born June 25, 1924, at St. Joseph, Mo. She grew up in Emporia and Lawrence, where she attended the University of Kansas. She married W. L. Harms, who died earlier. She married retired Col. George E. Swett of San Mateo, Calif., and he also preceded her in death.
Mrs. Harms is survived by three sons, Kenneth W. Harms of Yorba Linda, Calif., Michael G. A. Harms of Mountain View, Calif., and Byran David Harms of Bell, Fla.; one daughter, Valerie L. Harms-Kuban of Boston; nine grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.
The funeral will be at 11 a.m. on Monday at the First Christian Church in Pleasant Hill. Burial will be in San Joaquin National Cemetery.