The trade mourns the passing of Lillian Dolores Horn Boyd, a respected antiques dealer, who with her husband Irvin curated her love of the antiques they collected over the years into a business known as Meetinghouse Antiques. Known as Dolores, she died on July 4 after a long illness. She was 79.
She was the daughter of William and Lillian Horn and the wife for 60 years of Irvin Basil Boyd Sr.
She was born in Queens, N.Y., and moved to Philadelphia with her family in 1941. Throughout the 1940s, she worked for the Tyler Fogg Agency of Philadelphia, where she was a fashion and photographic model for clients such as Strawbridge & Clothier and Bell Telephone. She attended Germantown High School, where she met her future husband, and graduated in 1947.
Dolores and Irvin founded and built two successful businesses. In 1952, they founded Fyfe & Boyd Funeral Home at 7047 Germantown Avenue in Mount Airy. While living there, she was an active member of the Mount Airy Presbyterian Church, where she was involved with youth ministry. They remained in business there until 1968, when they sold their interest and concentrated their love of colonial American antique furniture and accessories into the formation of the successful Meetinghouse Antiques in Fort Washington.
It was on this property, the former Whitemarsh Friends Meeting House, which they had purchased in 1959 and restored over the years, that they raised their four children and built their business. During those years, Dolores was an active member of the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill.
Dolores and Irvin loved the antiques they collected over the years and loved to read and travel. In the early years of their antiques business, they concentrated on developing their shop inventory and clientele, and renovating the buildings on the property. They first started to participate in antiques shows in the mid-1960s and ran the business until 1987, when their son, Jonathan Horn Boyd, and daughter, Priscilla Boyd Angelos, took it over.
A longtime friend, Tom Brown, remembered her, saying, “Dolores was a lady of knowledge and great dignity. She shared in her life and also in her passing. I first met Dolores at the national shows of the Fifefield and Carrell era. We will miss her great humor, be it painting the town at night in New York or Philadelphia, or one of her memorable dinners at her home. She had a passion for the culinary arts and sharing her presence was a true gift. She had a great love for her family and made everyone feel welcome and at ease. She didn’t get older, she just got better. Dolores, ‘I hope you had the time of your life.'”
In addition to her husband, she is survived by three children, Irvin Basil Boyd Jr of Fort Washington, Knickerbocker Stephen Boyd of Goshen, Ind., and Priscilla Boyd Angelos of Ambler; a sister, Marilyn White of Philadelphia, and nine grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her son Jonathan in 2002.
A private family memorial service and interment will occur at later date.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, 8855 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia PA 19118.
