Virginia G. Haft | Musician, poet, 83

Virginia Gilles Haft, 83, of Wynnewood, a pianist, musicologist and poet, died of strokes April 12 at home.

A native of Colorado Springs, Colo., Mrs. Haft earned a bachelor's degree in music from Colorado College. After graduating, she was a piano teacher and played piano and sang at nightspots in New York City. She earned a master's degree in musicology from Columbia University and studied in France for a year on a Fulbright scholarship.

Since 1950, she had been married to Harold Haft, a neurosurgeon and now-retired vice president of medical affairs at Delaware County Memorial Hospital. They had met on a blind date in New York and seemed to have little in common, he said. "She was Catholic, I was Jewish. She was a Republican. I was a Democrat. She was a musician and I was a scientist, but I wasn't going to let her get away."

The couple moved to Penn Valley in 1961, when he accepted a neurosurgical residency at Episcopal Hospital. After their two children were grown, she assisted him in his medical office and later gave music lessons in a studio in Drexel Hill for several years.

Mrs. Haft enjoyed gardening, home decorating and traveling. She had written poetry since childhood and recently published a volume of her verse.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by a daughter, Adele Zinovich; a son, Bruce; and a grandson.

Services were private.

Memorial donations may be made to Delaware County Memorial Hospital Cancer Center, 501 Lansdowne Ave., Drexel Hill, Pa. 19026.