Alfarata Stamets was born March 3, 1913 in Harrisburg, PA, where father, the Rev. Amos M. Stamets (D.D. 1919), was pastor of Augsburg Lutheran Church. She graduated from William Penn High School in Harrisburg before enroling at Susquehanna University in the fall of 1931. During her four years at Susquehanna she was a member of the Y.W.C.A., the French Club, and Pi Gamma Mu sorority. Her junior year she served as assistant editor of The Lanthorn and was elected to Kappa Delta Phi, the national education honor society.

Upon graduation with an A.B. in 1935, Alfarata was hired as an English teacher by Central Dauphin High School, and later taught at Central Dauphin East and Lower Paxton High Schools. When she retired after 35 years in the Harrisburg school system, she took a job at J.E. Caldwell Jewelers in the East Mall, where she worked for the next ten years. She served as secretary of the Harrisburg Susquehanna Alumni club from shortly after her graduation until the mid-1940s, as class reporter in the 200s, and was president of the Luther League of the Central Pennsylvania Synod.

Called "Alfey" by her friends all her life, Alfarata's profile in The Lanthorn noted that she loved both dogs and pranks. Later in life she made a study of Pennsylvania Dutch designs, particularly the 'hex' symbols. At the time of her death she was a member of Christ Lutheran Church in Linglestown, PA, where she is interred.