Pauline Harris
October 14, 1924 — March 31, 2009
Pauline (Polly) Bingenheimer Harris, 84, formerly of Paducah, Ky., departed this earth on Tuesday, March 31, 2009, in Lexington, S.C.
Mrs. Harris was born October 14, 1924, in Angola, N.Y. The eldest of five children, she was a daughter of the late Philip Bingenheimer and Erna Zempel Bingenheimer. She retired after 43 years of teaching art in New York State and Kentucky public schools, including Brazelton, Paducah Middle and Tilghman High.
Mrs. Harris received a BS degree in 1947 at New York State Teachers College at Buffalo and an MA in art education in 1953 from Columbia University, N.Y. While attending college, she also worked as a Rosie the Riveter during World War II. She and her husband, Price, owned and operated various businesses in the Paducah area over the last 40 years. Mrs. Harris was an enthusiastic supporter of all forms of artistic expression, including theatre, dance, literature, music, sculpture, photography and painting. She was named as a Duchess of Paducah upon her 80th birthday in 2004. Mrs. Harris poem Live Today! was published in the National Library of Poetrys anthology Beneath the Harvest Moon in 1996. She was a member of Alpha Delta Kappa.
Mrs. Harris is survived by her sisters, Lillian Wolfensparger of Irvine, Calif., and Frieda Bingenheimer-Rendahl of Tucson, Ariz.; one brother, Alton O. (Virginia F.) Bingenheimer of West Columbia, S.C.; nephews and nieces, Philip, Virginia, Tamara, Kevin, Jeff, Mark and Thomas; great-niece and great-nephew, Reagan and Nathan; and other relatives. She was the wife of the late Maurice Price Harris; the mother of the late infant son Earl Price Harris, and sister of the late Philip O. Bingenheimer. Her cat, Samantha, will miss her.
Services are scheduled for 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 18, 2009, at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 211 S. 21st St., Paducah. Interment will follow at Maplelawn Park Cemetery, 1335 N. 13th Street, Paducah.
Family will receive visitors from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at Lindsey Funeral Home, 226 N. 4th St., Paducah.
Memorials may be made to the McCracken County Humane Society, 4000 Coleman Road, Paducah, KY 42001; or to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation at www.cff.org.