Harriet Elise Gilbert Treadwell Unfug

Unfug—Harriet Elise Gilbert Treadwell Unfug, 90, on January 26, 2025, in Decatur, Ga. Harriet was born on December 24, 1934, the second of four daughters of Harriet (Felton) and Vernon Rountree Gilbert, in Ventura, Calif. She grew up in Ventura practicing the Episcopal faith with her mother, and especially enjoyed singing in the choir.

Harriet married Perry Edward Treadwell in 1952 and was a devoted mother of four children. The family moved to Atlanta, Ga., in 1962 when Perry took a faculty position at Emory University. Harriet earned an associate degree from Emory while running their household.

In 1968, during a year of Perry’s sabbatical in La Jolla, Calif., they attended their first Quaker meeting. They continued to attend the meeting, joining protests against the Vietnam War. Back in Atlanta, they became active in Atlanta Meeting. Harriet joined other Friends in November 1969 for a national antiwar demonstration in Washington, D.C. She became a member of Atlanta Meeting in 1974.

In the 1970s, they were one of several families in the meeting who, inspired by simple living principles and the needs of the neighborhood, moved to the Candler Park neighborhood near the meetinghouse. Harriet and two Friends started a women’s monthly lunch group that continues to this day. Harriet worked to address the needs of the area in a variety of ways, including at the Chrysalis, a drug rehabilitation center for teenagers, and she helped create and run the Patch Inc., a community center in Cabbagetown for children of low-income millworkers, as well as the Paideia School. With Friends, she successfully protested a proposed freeway that would have disrupted neighborhoods.

In 1977, Harriet and Perry along with Friends from Atlanta Meeting played a key role in the revitalization of the Little Five Points neighborhood as part owners of the Little Five Points Community Pub, which became known as the “Quaker Pub.” The pub had been a site for drug trade and violence. Creating a safe space for community gatherings with good food led to a series of other positive changes in the area. Harriet began a long career at the BOND Community Federal Credit Union in 1988.

After her divorce from Perry, Harriet married Douglas Unfug, proposing to him in 1996. They had many happy years together until his death in 2017.

When Harriet offered her spiritual journey to Atlanta Meeting in 2010, she spoke of feeling love for the simplicity and silence of her first meeting. She recalled silently singing chants from morning prayers to help her settle in worship. She was guided by the belief that there is that of God in everyone and the teachings of Jesus for how to live.

Harriet was a vivacious, kind, and loving person living life fully, from teenage drugstore soda jerk to community builder to the matriarch of her family. Friends remember her generosity and ability to always find a way to help. Even though diminished by dementia, she never forgot her children’s names.

Harriet was predeceased by her husband, Douglas Unfug.

She is survived by four children, Gilbert Treadwell, Gail Holland (Clay), Sally Treadwell, and Susan Treadwell (Linda); and three grandchildren.