Harriet Courtney Sumner

Sumner, Harriet Courtney, 92, retired Tennessee Valley Authority engineer, formerly of Chattanooga, Tennessee, died July 19th at Viva Christi Hope. She lived with her daughter and son-in-law the previous 8 years. Her second husband, Walter Thomas Sumner, a retired secondary school teacher died Christmas day, 2003 in Wichita, Kansas. Before coming to Wichita in 1991, the Sumners had a farm near Mentone, Alabama after each retired from jobs in Chattanooga. Harriet was the first female electrical engineer in the TVA system. Harriet and Walter were amateur and professional actors. They performed in many plays at the Frye Theater and Little Theater in Chattanooga, the Crown Uptown in Wichita and various Holiwood movies. Both were SAG members. In Mentone, the couple established a community theater in Ft. Payne, Alabama's old Ft. Payne Opera House producing, directing and acting in plays. Harriet may be remembered by her part in the Long Walk Home, the story of the Montgomery bus boycott in which she played with Woopie Goldberg the star of that movie. Harriet's talents were not limited to acting, directing or engineering, she also was a painter, sculpture, writer, and photographer. Harriet had two children by her first marriage to Joseph Darwin Lewis of Chattanooga, Tennessee, who died in 1972. The two children were Courtney L. Ruthven, Ph.D. of Wichita, a psychologist and business woman and Joseph Lewis, Jr., a successful Chattanooga businessman and property owner who died in 2008. Harriet was the oldest child of James D. Courtney of Mt. Vernon, IL and Elna Ruth Russell Courtney of Anniston, AL. Don Courtney, her youngest brother, was president of a Chicago Advertising Agency. He and her other brother James David Courtney both predeceased her. Harriet and Walter Sumner, continued their professional print modeling and TV commercials after moving to Wichita. Harriet has three living grandchildren, Beth Snyder and Laura Moore of Wichita and Les Darwin Ruthven of Houston, Texas, and six great grandchildren: Dylan and Colin Snyder, and Chelsea Moore f Wichita and Megan, Mary and Rachael Ruthven of Houston, Texas. A memorial service will be held at the First Unitarian Church of Wichita at 7202 E. 21st street at 2 p.m., Saturday, August 7, 2010. The Harriet C. Sumner Memorial for WSU Theater Students, 1845 Fairmount, PO Box 2, Wichita, KS 67206, has been established and contribution to this memorial are preferred to flowers. Condolences may be sent to: smithfamilymortuaries.com.