Annette Agnes Antoun, editor and publisher of The Paxton Herald, passed away June 16, 2021, after an arduous battle against injustice. She was 94. Nan, Annette, or “Mrs. A” was born March 7, 1927, to Adrien Adelman and Charlotte (McMullen) Adelman, in Franklin, Pennsylvania. She spent her early years wherever her attorney father’s work took the family: Franklin, New York, Princeton, Washington D.C., and Chevy Chase, MD, but hard times and ill health befell her father, and she grew to adulthood on a remote farm in Mercer County, struggling with her mother and younger siblings to get by. The experience left her with the ability to make something out of nothing and interact with anyone. She graduated from Cochranton High School and worked as a machine operator at Talon Zipper Company during World War II. After the war, she enrolled at Allegheny College where she met her husband, Frederic G. Antoun Sr. In 1955, not long after the death of their fourth child, Fred took a job as a Deputy Attorney General and they moved to Harrisburg with their three boys. While in the hospital to deliver child number 6 in June of 1960, she and Fred edited the first issue of The Paxton Herald newspaper. She published the paper from the attic of her home until the last of her eight children started school. For almost 60 years, The Paxton Herald exhorted readers to “Insist on justice for your fellow man…YOU may be next!” and entertained readers with the ironic innuendo of her popular column, “Hortense and Matilda.” She served on the boards of many organizations, including Catholic Charities, the American Lung Association, and the NAACP. She worked energetically behind the scenes to bring political adversaries together, brokering agreements between people of divergent ideologies and circumstances who came through the doors of The Paxton Herald. Annette was preceded in death by Frederic Antoun Sr.; sons Mark and Lawrence; daughter-in-law DeEtta; brother George Adelman (Marian); and sisters Mary Ann Prather and Margaret Adelman. She will be remembered by her children, Frederic Antoun Jr., Gregory Antoun (Christie), Laureace McCarthy (Ed), Scott Antoun (Carole), Jonathan Antoun (Maryleigh), and Lisa Mulholland; her brother, Adrien Adelman Jr. (Letha); 13 grandchildren; 21 great grandchildren; and countless others she “adopted” over the years. Visitation will be held Wednesday, June 23, at Neill Funeral Home, 3501 Derry Street, Harrisburg, from 11 am - 1 pm. Memorial contributions can be made to St. Jude Children's Hospital www.stjude.org or the NAACP Legal Defense fund www.naacpldf.org
