HARRIET KEEFER RESTIFO (1911-2012)

Last week I fell five months short in my attempt to identify a 100-year-old numismatist. The one mentioned this week made the century mark with seven months to spare.

Harriet Miller was born in Somerset, Pennsylvania, on July 26, 1911, the daughter of Aden Kent Miller (1883-1948) and Elsie Statler Miller (1889-1982). Alden was the manager of a farm supply store.

She graduated from Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.

She was married in Somerset, Pennsylvania, on April 21, 1935, to Floyd Penn Keefer (1903-1970). Floyd was a banker. They had no children.

Mrs. Keefer was active as a leader in her church and was frequently honored for her activities with a notice in the local paper. On January 24, 1953, Harriet began to contribute a religious column, "Life is for Living" to the Somerset Daily American. This ran more than 32 years through October 12, 1985. In 1977 she published a collection of articles as a book with the same title, Life is For Living. She also wrote 50 Year History of the Somerset County Sunday School Association.

As a free-lance writer, she branched out to promote coin collecting. On June 10. 1966, her first "Coin Corner" appeared in the paper. This continued under the byline of Harriet Keefer through February 29, 1972. Her articles mentioned new coin issues and new medal issues. She did not generally write about historical events in numismatics.

The two columns marked her as a celebrity for her paper. The Daily American frequently ran her photo and published an article for accomplishments that most numismatists might consider trivial. In 1971 she began contributing "The Other Side of the Coin" to the Daytona Beach Sunday News-Journal (not available on newspapers.com).

In 1971 her newspaper printed her photo and reported that she was given an Honorary Charter Membership in the Franklin Mint Collectors Society. With that membership came a 24-karat gold on sterling medal. This honor would probably not be worthy of mention in any other paper.

In March of 1971, the Franklin Mint Collectors Society closed the charter membership period with more than 82,000 members. The Society and Mrs. Keefer were both good at self-promotion.

Her first husband died in February of 1970 at age 66. She was remarried on December 20, 1971, to Philip Restifo (1899-1990). They relocated to Daytona Beach, Florida, and enjoyed travel. In 1973 they took a tour of Europe. The following year, they took a Caribbean cruise. In 1975 they visited Hawaii.

Harriet was frequently mentioned in her paper. In 1972, the paper ran her photo and reported that she received an American Numismatic Association Educational award for a presentation made to the Greater Daytona Beach Coin Club. Any ANA member club can request such an award for any guest speaker. I did not find any record that Harriet was an ANA member under any of her names.

The article also mentioned that she was a charter member of the Somerset County Coin Club and had been collecting coins for 35 years.

Her "Coin Corner" carried the new byline of Harriet Restifo on March 7, 1972, and continued through August 31, 1978.

Mrs. Restifo joined the Numismatic Literary Guild in 1973. In the issue of Jun 13, 1974, the Daily American announced that she was an entrant in competition for an award from the Numismatic Literary Guild. Note: she was an entrant in the competition, not a winner. The article stated, "Her column. Coin Corner has the longest publication record of any such column in the country,"

An article in the November 1, 1977, issue of the Daily American stated,

The paper may have believed she had the publication record. However, a column by Ted Hammer had been running since 1953 and continued for 23 years, Jim Buck's column began in 1954 and ran for 25 years, Leon Lindheim, had been writing since 1960 and his column ran for 34 years, Jim Packard's column ran 1963 to 1979, Lee Stegemeyer had a column from 1965 to 1985, and Morris Rothblum had a column from 1966 to 1991.

Harriet did not have the longest running column. However, with two columns a week for about 634 weeks, she would be near the top for number of columns. Jim Buck produced about 1300 weekly columns over more than 25 years. Leon Lindheim's column ran for 34 years but he missed some weeks. I will let someone else count his columns.

Harriet died at home in Ormond Beach, Florida, on February 16, 2012, and is buried in Volusia Memorial Park in Ormond Beach. The Somerset American did not mention her one-hundredth birthday or publish an obituary at the time of her death.

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web