Proverbs 17:22 – A joyful heart is good medicine.
In late May, I began a Summer Series on notable (not always famous) Americans who made a difference in the lives of those around them. My grandfather was the first subject of this series. In June, our focus has centered on people from this area. I tried to pull from a variety of local lives who impacted Colonial America, the Civil War era and the Industrial Revolution. Our last local notable will be a woman who some in our congregation personally remember. She brought laughter to living rooms all across America, yet took the time each summer to contribute her talents to our local Totem Pole Playhouse.
Jean (Murray) Stapleton was born in 1923 to Joseph Murray, a billboard salesman, and to Marie Stapleton, an opera singer. Jean also had an only sibling named Jack who, like Stapleton herself, entered acting at a young age. Jean began her career in summer stock theater but soon moved on to several Broadway musicals and small pieces in television and film. In 1971, her breakout role became that of Edith Bunker in the television hit All in the Family, which ran from 1971 to 1979. On the show, Stapleton’s character Edith lovingly sparred with husband Archie on many social issues of the 1970s, bringing humor to hot-button topics of that day. An advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment, Stapleton championed the advancement of women in the workplace. She earned three Emmys and two Golden Globe awards over her years of performing. She beat out notable actresses Mary Tyler Moore and Marlo Thomas for “Best Actress in a Comedy” in the 1971 Primetime Emmy awards. She continued actively furthering her career in many television and film roles, with her final performance coming in 2002 at the Lincoln Center in New York.
Beyond her national notoriety, Jean Stapleton is known and loved around here for her role in seasonal plays featured at the Totem Pole Playhouse. Stapleton’s husband, William Putch, produced and directed quality plays at Caledonia State Park’s Totem Pole open theater for all of thirty years, and Stapleton faithfully performed at the playhouse, becoming known and loved locally for her many contributions. Their legacy lives on, still, through the continued productions that the Totem Pole Playhouse produces each year.
In addition to the Totem Pole Playhouse, our parishioner Sue McMurtray remembers Jean Stapleton and her husband for their ownership of the Graeffenburg Inn which was located on state lands across from the Caledonia Golf Course. The Inn was a popular site for Totem Pole actors to stay. Young newlyweds at the time, Sue and her husband were innkeepers at the Graeffenburg back in the 1970s. Sue remembers meeting many interesting theater performers during her years there. Sue also recalls the graciousness and down-to-earth qualities of Stapleton and her husband Bill, in spite of her national notoriety.
Jean Stapleton died in 2013 at the age of 90 years. A cenotaph in her memory is located at Lincoln Cemetery here in Chambersburg. … Dear Lord, we thank you for this gifted individual who knew how to make our nation laugh at a time of much division. We thank you for Jean Stapleton’s local presence in our hometown as well. How blessed many were to personally know this woman of humor, who was not afraid to speak up for women’s rights with dignity and determination.
May each and all have a wonderful 4th, as we celebrate 250 years of being the United States of America. Blessings to all!
Diana
Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Stapleton
Phone interview with Sue McMurtray of St. John’s, 6/30/26
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