Minerals Collector Assisted Smithsonian

Lillian Turner, 91, whose volunteer work for the Smithsonian Institution and other organizations included efforts to issue postage stamps and to promote awareness of minerals and gems, died Sept. 27 of heart disease at Suburban Hospital. She lived in Bethesda.

Mrs. Turner, a lifelong collector of minerals, was tireless in her work for the Smithsonian's National Gem Collection. She donated many items to the collection, housed at the National Museum of Natural History, and helped arrange many other bequests to the museum, including the acquisition of a rare red diamond. In 1984, she chaired a committee that organized the 100th anniversary observance of the collection.

Mrs. Turner also spent years working behind the scenes with the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies to help secure the issuance of four U.S. postage stamps commemorating the nation's mineral heritage in 1974. The diamond-shaped 10-cent stamps included images of purple amethyst, pink rhodochrosite, pink and green tourmaline and petrified wood.

She led a second effort to have four 29-cent first-class stamps honoring U.S. minerals and gemstones issued in 1992. In the 1960s, she helped plan the crafting of a brooch to honor first ladies that contained minerals from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

In 1992, Smithsonian magazine described Mrs. Turner as "an enormously enthusiastic friend of the Institution" and noted that she had donated so many items to the Smithsonian's museums that "the Smithsonian is like an extension of my living room."

"I'm a natural promoter," she told the magazine, "and I want to publicize the new Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals -- so important for children to see."

In 1981, Mrs. Turner received the Founder's Medal of the James Smithson Society for her volunteer work for the Smithsonian. At the time of her death, she was working on a project to issue a stamp series commemorating birthstones.

Lillian Scheffres was born Oct. 14, 1917, in Brooklyn, N.Y., and came to Washington in the 1930s. She was a switchboard operator in the 1940s and later managed an apartment building in Silver Spring.

In 1951, Mrs. Turner began volunteer fundraising efforts for Children's National Medical Center and organized luncheons that contributed funds for a renal laboratory.

She also volunteered at the Kennedy Center, National Gallery of Art, Audubon Naturalist Society and the Supreme Court Historical Society, where she served on the acquisitions committee.

She and her husband also donated artwork to the Smithsonian and other museums.

Mrs. Turner lived in Silver Spring from 1940 to 1971, when she moved to Bethesda. She was a member of B'nai Israel Congregation in Rockville and was an organizer and past president of a Silver Spring chapter of Hadassah, a Jewish women's organization.

Her husband of 40 years, Milton Turner, died in 1981.

Survivors include a son, Stephen R. Turner of Winston-Salem, N.C.