Edith Mosley
May 17, 1932 — May 8, 2026
Edith Mosley, 93, of Sterling Glen, Pennsylvania, passed peacefully on the morning of May 8, 2026, at her home on Linden Avenue, surrounded by her three children. She lived in Sterling Glen all her ninety-three years, in three houses, never more than four blocks from the schoolhouse where she taught for thirty-six.
She was born May 17, 1932, the daughter of Walter and Anna (Schuyler) Hartzell, both of Sterling Glen. She graduated from Sterling Glen High School in 1950 and from Lock Haven State Teachers College in 1954. She taught third grade at Sterling Glen Elementary School from 1956 until her retirement in 1992 — thirty-six years in the same classroom, three doors down from where she'd sat as a third-grader herself in 1940. By a count her family stopped making in the late 1990s, she taught more than a thousand Sterling Glen children to read.
She married John Mosley on June 11, 1955, at First Methodist Church on the corner of Maple and Pine. John, a tool-and-die maker at the bearing plant in Bellefonte, predeceased her in 2014 after fifty-nine years of marriage. The two of them lived in the small white clapboard house on Linden Avenue from the year they were married until the year John passed.
Edith was a lifelong member of First Methodist, where she sang in the choir for fifty-two years, taught Sunday School for thirty, and served as a deaconess. She volunteered at the Sterling Glen Public Library every Saturday morning from 1986 through 2008, where she ran the children's story-time for twenty-two years; the library named the story-time room after her in 2009. She loved her grandchildren. She loved the diner on Pine, where she had coffee at the second booth from the back every weekday morning at 7:00 for the better part of three decades. The diner has the booth marked, this week, with a small framed photograph and a single white daisy.
Survivors
Edith is survived by her three children: Mary (David) Brennan of Sterling Glen, Thomas (Linda) Mosley of State College, and James Mosley of Pittsburgh; nine grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; one sister, Helen Hartzell of Bellefonte; and a great many former students who still call her "Mrs. Mosley" when they see her at the diner.
She was preceded in death by her husband John (2014); her parents, Walter (1968) and Anna (1976) Hartzell; and her brother Charles Hartzell (1998).
Service information
Visitation will be held at Caldwell Funeral Home, 417 Maple Street, on Friday, May 15, from 4 to 7 PM. A memorial service will follow at Caldwell Chapel on Saturday, May 16, at 1:00 PM, with Pastor Daniel Yoder officiating. Burial will be immediately after at Pleasant Hill Cemetery off Route 322. A meal at First Methodist will follow the burial; all are welcome.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorial donations be made to the Sterling Glen Public Library, where Edith spent so many Saturday mornings.
Pleasant Hill Cemetery · off Route 322 · about ten minutes east of the chapel
Ninety-three years, a few photographs.
From those whose lives Edith touched.
Mrs. Mosley was my third-grade teacher in 1972. I was a shy kid and she sat me up front and never made me feel small for it. I learned to read at her desk. I'm sixty-two now and I still hear her voice when I read out loud to my grandchildren. She mattered.
Saturday mornings at the library wouldn't have been the same without her. My daughter learned to love books on that rug, listening to Edith read Goodnight Moon for what must have been the thousandth time. The patience of that woman.
To the Mosley family, with our deepest sympathy. Edith and John sat in the pew behind us at First Methodist for forty-six years. The choir won't be the same without her alto. Praying for you all.
She made the best apple cake I have ever had in my life, and that includes my own grandmother's. I asked her once for the recipe and she said it was the same recipe everyone in Sterling Glen uses; she just spent more time on it. I think about that a lot.