Beatrice (Chambers) Powers

Bea was born in Lake Placid on Dec. 28, 1925. The eldest daughter of Philip and Hazel (Fuller) Chambers, she grew up in Placid attending the Adirondack Community Church. She graduated from Lake Placid High School in 1944 and went on to Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, earning a master’s degree in Library Science. Bea began her career as a children’s librarian at the New York Public Library. After moving to California in the mid-1960s, she worked for the San Diego Public Library, starting as a children’s librarian and ending her career as the head reference librarian. She was married to Raymond Powers on Sept. 22, 1973.

Bea had a lifelong passion for books and reading, particularly nonfiction and children’s literature, with a fondness for Beatrix Potter and “Peter Rabbit.” She instilled the love of reading in her nieces, their families, and the many children and adults whose lives she touched in her library career.

Bea was preceded in death by her parents, her husband Raymond Powers, and sisters Phyllis (the late Robert) Pendleton and Nellie (the late James) Bitzer.

She is survived by four nieces: Susan (Pendleton) Rizzo (Leo) of Elk Grove Village, Illinois, Carol (Pendleton) Warshaw (Marvin) of New Haven, Connecticut, Katherine (Bitzer) Cameron-Conrad (the late Kurt) of London, Kentucky, and Karen (Bitzer) Craig (Terry) of West Plains, Missouri; 14 grandnieces and grandnephews; 27 great-grandnieces and great-grandnephews; and many friends and acquaintances. Special thanks extended to Jean and the staff at Redwood Terrace in San Diego, California, for their support and kindness.

A private memorial service will take place at the graveside at North Elba Cemetery in Lake Placid.

Donations in Bea’s memory may be made to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library or Reading is Fundamental.