Harriette H. Coleman

Harriette H. Coleman was born in Montgomery County, Maryland on July 15, 1918. She was the third oldest of fourteen children and was the oldest girl. Harriette was the great-granddaughter of George Enoch Howard, a former slave who amassed some 500 acres of Montgomery County, MD, farmland between 1862 and 1869 in the Howard Chapel area. Harriette grew up in Howard Chapel, IMD, and attended schools in Rockville, MD until moving to Englewood, NJ, where she graduated from Dwight Marrow High School in 1936. After High School she met George M. Coleman of Leonia. She had five children, all of whom graduated from Leonia High School. They -were married for nearly sixty years until he predeceased her on May 26, 1997.

Harriette was a member of the Bethany Presbyterian Church in Englewood and also was very active at the Presbyterian Church in Leonia. She was a longstanding member of the Church Women United and was presented with the Valiant Woman Award in 2008 for her extensive volunteerism. She was a member of the Women's Club of Leonia and the VFW Ladies Auxiliary. She was a former Girl Scout leader and Boy Scout Den leader. 

Since her marriage, she lived in the Coleman family house for nearly sevenfy five years, until it burned to the ground on Jaruary 30, 2014. She and her son, Howard, escaped the fire, but tragically her daughter Harriette, and granddaughter, Ruth Ellen Townsend, perished.