Harriet S. FauntLeRoy, former teacher
Harriet S. FauntLeRoy, a former kindergarten teacher, farmer and world traveler, died Feb. 18 of complications from Parkinson’s disease at her home in Westminster. She was 88.
The former Harriet Van Bibber Shriver, daughter of Col. John Shultz Shriver, a lawyer, and his wife, Esther Jane Parks Shriver, a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised in Roland Park and later moved to Ausenborn, a family home in Pikesville. After World War II, her family moved to Kensington Road in Guilford.
She attended Garrison Forest School, graduated in 1951 from Roland Park Country School and earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Goucher College.
As a girl, she developed a taste for outdoors life and enjoyed horseback riding at an aunt’s farm in Manchester, Carroll County. After her marriage in 1958 to Reid FauntLeRoy, a sound and vibration engineer, the couple settled on a farm near Manchester where they raised cats, dogs, chickens, ducks, guineas, pigeons, Hampshire sheep and cattle.
She used her basic veterinary skills to care for her animals, painted all outbuildings but “steadfastly refused to ever drive a tractor,” family members said.
From 1968 to 1973, she taught kindergarten at St. George’s Preschool in Manchester and later continued working with children as a volunteer with Carroll County Therapeutic Riding.
She was a longtime board member of the Pickersgill Retirement Community in West Towson and was a member of the Historical Society of Carroll Country, Union Mills Homestead, Colonial Dames of America Chapter 1, Maryland Sheep Breeders Association, Roslyn Garden Club and the Johns Hopkins Club.
Mrs. FauntLeRoy and her husband were adventurous world travelers. They took an extended camping trip on horseback through the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana, a weeklong whitewater camping trip by dory on the Colorado River that took them through the Grand Canyon, a cruise from Patagonia to Antarctica, a safari in Kenya that included a hot-air balloon trip over the Maasai Mara National Reserve, and trips to Egypt, Madagascar and Ireland.
She enjoyed attending the Maryland Hunt Cup and other steeplechase races in Maryland and Virginia, gardening, and playing tennis and bridge.
Mrs. FauntLeRoy was a longtime active communicant at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Hampstead, where a memorial service will take place at a later date.
In addition to her husband of 63 years, she is survived by two sons, John Reid FauntLeRoy of Annapolis and William Reid FauntLeRoy of Manchester; a sister, Jane Shriver Sewell of Reisterstown; and two granddaughters.