Mary Harbaugh Pue, beloved mother and friend to many, passed away on June 25, 2018 at Phoebe Berks Health Care Center, where she had been a resident for 11 years. She was 88.
Mary was born in September of 1929 to William and Rachel (Tyson) Harbaugh of Red Lion, PA. She and her younger sister, Ruth, began studying piano early in their childhood, then Mary discovered singing and studied voice for quite a few years. She became known as a prominent soprano soloist in the York area.
While Mary was singing in churches, she started to cross paths with a young minister-in-training who was doing his student preaching at the time. She married Rev. Calvin H. Pue in 1964, and moved to Schuylkill County, where Calvin was the minister of two churches in the area. Mary began to teach both voice and piano around this time, and continued to for many years.
In 1968, Mary and Calvin moved to Gibraltar, PA when Calvin was hired as minister at St. John’s United Church of Christ. In 1971, their daughter Marygrace Rachel was born. Mary soon took Marygrace to the piano and started her on the path to singing, followed by teaching her piano, starting when Marygrace was four years old. During this time, Mary continued to sing locally, was a member of Reading Choral Society, Music Club of Reading-Berks, and Reading Madrichor, and also became the choir director at St. John’s and remained in that post until the family moved to Pottstown in 1990, when Calvin was hired at a church in that area. Mary also served as choir director at Trinity UCC in Collegeville for several years. After Calvin passed away in 1996, she eventually made her way back to Berks County, and sang in the choir at Zion’s UCC in Reading, until a stroke caused her to move to the Phoebe Berks Health Care Center, where both she and Marygrace made a wonderful family of friends.
Mary was also predeceased by her sister, Ruth, and is survived by Marygrace, wife of David S. Goldberg, of Flying Hills. She will be incredibly missed, not only for her love of God, life, music, singing, nature and reading, but also for her warm spirit, beautiful smile and eyes, outstanding perseverance, and a surprisingly deep and sarcastic sense of humor.
A viewing will be held on Friday evening, June 29, 2018 from 7:30pm-9:30pm at the Dengler Funeral Home, Inc., 144 North Spruce Street, Birdsboro, PA 19508. The funeral service will be held on Saturday, June 30, 2018 at 10:00am, at the Chapel at Phoebe Berks Village, 1 Reading Drive, Wernersville, PA 19565. There will also be a viewing on Saturday morning from 9:00am-10:00am before the service at Phoebe.
Interment will be held following the service in St. John’s Cemetery, Gibraltar, PA.
Dengler Funeral Home, Inc., Birdsboro, is in charge of arrangements.