Minnie Roberta Bickel Beaumont McDermott

Minnie Roberta Bickel Beaumont McDermott of Elkins Park, formerly of Philadelphia and Florida, died May 24, 2000 at Elkins Crest Health Center in Elkins Park, Pa. She was 96. Born in Philadelphia, she was the daughter of the late George W. and Roberta Creamer Bickel. She was the wife of the late Edwin P. McDermott and the late Willard Beaumont.

She was a homemaker. She had married Willard Beaumont at the age of 16. She and their three children accompanied him to Oxford, England, where his work took him in 1930. They lived there for about two years. After her first husband’s death at the age of 39, she raised her children as a single parent.

During World War II, she worked at the Robert Bruce Knitting Mill and then Nice Ball Bearing. She joined the American War Mothers Association during the Second World War in which her son, serving as a pilot in the Air Force, was wounded and held prisoner in a Rumanian prison for 13 months.

She married her second husband, Edwin McDermott, in June 1944. They ran a guest house in Wildwood NJ for several years before moving to St. Petersburg, Fla.

She volunteered her services at the Veterans Association at Bay Pines Hospital in Florida, where she received certificates of recognition for volunteering thousands of hours over the course of 13 years. The Chapel of Four Chaplains awarded her an honorary membership in recognition of her outstanding service.

They later returned to Glenside, Pa where her second husband died in 1981.

She belonged to Glenside United Methodist Church, Glenside.

She is survived by a son, Willard Beaumont of Churchville; two daughters, Helen Andrews of Philadelphia and Kay Whitby of North Hills; nine grandchildren; 13 great-grandchildren; and two great-great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held June 10 at 10 a.m. at Glenside United Methodist Church, Easton Road and Fairhill Avenue, Glenside, Pa. 19038. Interment is in White Chapel Gardens.