Beatrice Hazel Powers

Services were held for Beatrice Hazel “Bea” Powers (Chambers) on May 16, 2023 in her hometown of Lake Placid New York. She passed away on April 21, 2023 at Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, CA. She was 97.

Bea was born in New York, NY on December 28, 1925. The eldest daughter of Philip and Hazel (Fuller) Chambers, she was raised in Lake Placid, New York, attending the Adirondak Community Church. She graduated from Lake Placid High School in 1944, Taylor University in 1949, and earned her Master’s Degree in Library Science from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York in 1952. Bea began her career as a children’s librarian at the New York Public Library continuing as children’s librarian for Mineola (New York) Memorial Library in 1957. She moved to California in 1963 taking a job as Reference Librarian with the San Diego County Library, becoming Head Reference Librarian in 1968. She married Raymond Powers on September 22, 1973. Bea retired from her profession in July, 1984.

Bea had a life-long passion for books and reading, particularly non-fiction 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 4 nieces: Susan (Pendleton) Rizzo (Leo) of Elk Grove Village, Il; Carol (Pendleton) Warshaw (Marvin)) of New Haven, CT; Katherine (Bitzer) Cameron-Conrad (the late Kurt), of London, KY; Karen (Bitzer) Craig (Terry) of West Plains, MO; 14 grand nieces and nephews, 27 great-grand nieces and nephews, and many friends and acquaintances in Lake Placid and San Diego. Special thanks extended to Jean and the staff at Redwood Terrace in Escondido, CA for their support and kindness.

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