Virginia M. Ashenfelter (nee Morton), a longtime resident of Flourtown and a native of Lower Gwynedd, passed away peacefully on April 22, 2025. She was 94.

Ashenfelter owned and operated the now-closed specialty gift shop Happy Butterfly for many years in Chestnut Hill, retiring in 2015, and served a public speaker and lecturer for Weight Watchers in Chestnut Hill and Glenside.

“She became a well-known fixture of the Chestnut Hill community and had served as past president of the Chestnut Hill business Association,” her obituary said.

From Chestnut Hill Local’s obituary:

The Happy Butterfly was known for its huge, varied selection of gifts for infants, toddlers, and young children, plus a few goodies for grownups. The leading lights in this collection were the hard-to-find hand-smocked dresses for little girls. The late Local new business columnist Pat Stokes once wrote, “Sweet and adorable are the only suitable adjectives for those. Next, handmade little sweaters that make grandmas positively drool; they’re so cute, just right to tuck into a suitcase when visiting a young family in Florida or California.

When you talk to people who knew Ginny, they invariably mention how beloved she was. Chris and Kristen Marsceill, who narrowly escaped death during Hurricane Katrina, and who now live in Chestnut Hill, told us in a previous interview, “We would like to thank Ginny and Lew. They have been so good to us. They are two of the nicest people we’ve ever met.”

Relatives and friends are invited to greet the family on Thursday, May 1, 2025 from 10:30 AM until her Funeral Service at 11:00 AM at Church of the Messiah, 1101 Dekalb Pike, Lower Gwynedd, PA 19002. Her interment will follow in Rose Hill Cemetery, Ambler.