Sarah Hart

Sarah Hart died of heart failure at her home in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday 13 October 2026. She was 90. She was survived by her children Lauren, Sharon and Brian, five grandchildren, two sisters and other relatives; a sister and three brothers died before her. Private services were to be held later, and the family asked that donations be made to the Gene Hart Scholarship Fund at Temple University.

Her family said she was known above all for her warmheartedness and egalitarian spirit. Her daughter Lauren said she was a free spirit who did a little bit of everything, and that she was kind and always working in the service of others.

Sarah Gregg Detwiler was born on 2 August 1936 in Chester, Pennsylvania. She grew up on and around the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and went to schools in Pleasantville. As a girl she enjoyed dancing, nature and animals, flew small airplanes out of the Atlantic City airport, and as a teenager worked at the boardwalk carnival games. For years she told the story of beating the future Hall of Fame basketball player Wilt Chamberlain at the old shoot the basketball game.

Her family moved to Apopka, Florida, about 20 miles north west of Orlando, before her senior year of high school, and she graduated from high school there. She studied premedical subjects for two years at the University of Florida, where she also performed with synchronized swimming teams, before returning to South Jersey.

A skilled diver and college swimmer, she knew the horse diving grand finale of the Steel Pier water circus well. In the summer of 1957, aged 21, she outperformed about 100 other applicants to become one of its riders. Several times a day she rode Gamal and the other horses off a platform about 40 feet high into a pool of water 10 feet deep, and she continued until 1962. Gamal, she said, would leap without a second thought, while other horses would take five minutes before they jumped. She also swam with the synchronized swimming team at the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels, met performers such as the Flying Wallendas and Tony Bennett at Steel Pier, and in the 1960s swam with dolphins at the Aquarama Aquarium Theater of the Sea in South Philadelphia.

She later earned a bachelor's degree in English with honours at what is now Rowan University. For decades she taught English as a second language at schools in the Lenape Regional High School District, and later worked as a general substitute teacher. A former colleague called her a great advocate for students and their needs.

She was also active in civic life. She ran unsuccessfully for Cherry Hill Township Council in 1981, served with the Cherry Hill Environmental Board and the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, and was a longtime election worker at polling stations in South Jersey.

She met Gene Hart at Steel Pier, where he was a comic diver and announcer for the water circus; his mother had ridden the diving horses in the 1930s. They married in 1963 and had two daughters, Lauren and Sharon, and a son, Brian. Gene Hart became the voice of the Philadelphia Flyers and was later inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, and Lauren Hart became a singer known for performing the national anthem at Flyers games.

The family moved to Tampa Avenue in Cherry Hill in 1971, where she landscaped the whole property, including an in ground pool, and for a time stabled her own horse nearby. She especially loved roses. She and her husband travelled the world together, sharing fine art, classical music, opera and theatre, and for years Monday night was date night at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. She was a lifelong Flyers fan. Gene Hart died in 1999, and she moved to Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sarah Hart is remembered in Atlantic City as one of the last generation of riders of the Steel Pier diving horses, one of the best known attractions of the boardwalk's golden age. In South Jersey she is remembered as a devoted teacher of students learning English, an advocate for the Pinelands and the local environment, and a generous friend; one friend wrote that there was no sweeter, more considerate or kinder soul.