Lafayette Hill

WOMEN ROWING competitively? Forget it. Back in the late '30s, you didn't see women competing on the Schuylkill in racing sculls. It was a male preserve, like so much in American society in those years. But Ruth Adams wouldn't hear of it. She bucked tradition by advertising in a local newspaper for women who would be interested in forming a rowing club to compete in races. Nearly 100 women responded, and the Philadelphia Girls' Rowing Club was formed. Headquartered on Boathouse Row, it is one of the nation's oldest women's competitive rowing clubs.

When Hurricane Sandy knocked Lisa Kasmen's electricity out at 5:30 Monday evening, she was cool about it. She had food. She filled her tub with water. She was going to make it through the storm. Then the Lafayette Hill mom realized her cellphone battery was dead. And that her husband's was close to dying. Even her iPad was giving warning signs. "I got up at 7 a.m. and, still in my pajamas, I took every charger we owned - my two phones, my iPad, and my daughter's iPod Touch - to my salon and prayed all the way there we had electricity," said Kasmen, who owns Heaven & Earth Salon, also in Lafayette Hill.

Whitemarsh Township police have released composite drawings of two people sought in the shooting of a man during an apparent ambush in Lafayette Hill on Aug. 21. According to police, the 32-year-old victim met a woman in the Germantown section of Philadelphia and took her to his home on the 4100 block of Joshua Road. After getting out of the car around 9:30 p.m., the man was shot twice when he was confronted by two men during an apparent robbery attempt, police said. The woman who was with the victim then fled with two assailants in a car, police said.

William A. Geppert Jr., 88, of Lafayette Hill, a decorated World War II veteran and former chairman of the board of Geppert Bros., a demolition firm in Colmar, died Friday, June 29, of cancer at his daughter's home in Wyndmoor. Mr. Geppert's father, William Sr., established the demolition firm in 1925. After he died in 1953, the business was operated by Mr. Geppert and his three younger brothers. Geppert Bros.' major projects included Connie Mack Stadium, Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry, Philadelphia Naval Hospital, and the Spectrum.

Amy Austin Lukens, 94, formerly of Lafayette Hill, a World War II veteran and volunteer, died Saturday, June 9, at Cathedral Village, a retirement community in Roxborough. Mrs. Lukens graduated from Germantown Friends School and was pleased that two of her granddaughters were fourth-generation students there. In 1939, she earned a bachelor's degree in art history from Smith College. She then worked at Princeton University in the president's office and remembered seeing visiting professor Albert Einstein strolling the campus, her daughter Margo said.

WHEN WAS the last time you ate in Chestnut Hill? With six, count 'em, six new eateries opening along Germantown Avenue in the past year, there's no denying that tasty change is afoot in this leafy Philadelphia neighborhood. The opening of Weaver's Way Food Co-op, the presence of two regular farmers markets, and the plans for Fresh Market in the former Magarity Ford car dealership are more signs that the 11-block stretch between 7600 and 8700 Germantown Avenue is expanding its gastronomic horizons.

Don't be surprised if you are itchy by the time you finish reading this column. Or you can't shake the unnerving sensation that something is crawling around your scalp. Just mentioning lice has that effect on people. Experiencing an actual infestation of the wingless, parasitic insects is even more of a nightmare. Not so anymore, however, for Ilene Steinberg and Michele Barrack, two mothers who know the horror of discovering unwelcome guests upon their children's heads and are now profiting - literally - from it. They have turned the experience into a rapidly expanding franchise business where lice-laden noggins are enthusiastically received, not cause for shrieks and stampedes to the exits.

Hurricane Irene's death toll increased by two Wednesday after Maine officials released the names of an elderly Lafayette Hill couple who died of apparent carbon monoxide poisoning from an emergency generator at their summer home at Sebago Lake. Lewis S. Somers III, 85, and his wife, Elizabeth, 84, of Foxhound Drive, were discovered Tuesday inside their house in Raymond, where a propane generator in the basement was running because the storm that roared through Maine on Sunday knocked out electricity for more than 48 hours on their lakeside cove.

Louis S. Henderson Jr., 89, of Lafayette Hill, a retired vice president of Pringle Electric Inc., died of pneumonia Sunday, March 6, at Chestnut Hill Hospital. Mr. Henderson grew up in Mount Airy. He graduated from Germantown High School, where he met his future wife, Muriel Grubmeyer, and then studied engineering at what is now Drexel University. During World War II, he was a bombardier on B-24s. He flew 24 missions in the Pacific and received an Air Medal with three oak-leaf clusters.