Services for J. Russell Gilbert, a retired personnel administrator for the Western Electric Co. Inc. who was an official of parent-teacher organizations and a volunteer worker in programs for those with impaired hearing, will be held at 11 a.m. today at St. Stephen Lutheran Church, Wilkens Avenue and Courtney Road.
Mr. Gilbert, who was 83 and lived in Arbutus, died Sunday of cancer at a nursing home in Gettysburg, Pa.
He continued to work part time after his retirement in 1972 after 40 years of service at Western Electric's Point Breeze plant.
A member since 1954 of the Telephone Pioneers of America, which has a program for the deaf, he became active as a volunteer for the Infant Hearing Assessment Program at the University of Maryland's medical school. He twice served as president of the Pioneers' Point Breeze Life Members Club, which established a fund in his honor in 1987 to help those with hearing problems. He also was a volunteer with the Hearing and Speech Agency.
The Baltimore native was a graduate of the Catonsville High School. He had been president of parent-teacher associations in Arbutus and Catonsville and of the Baltimore County Council of Parent-Teacher Associations. He had been a district vice president of the Maryland Congress of Parents and Teachers.
Mr. Gilbert was also a former president of the Church Council at St. Stephen Lutheran Church.
He is survived by two sons, Nelson D. Gilbert of New Windsor and Ronald D. Gilbert of Gettysburg, Pa.; two sisters, Edna Ryan of Baltimore and Marian Craft of Newburg; a brother, Clark Gilbert of Catonsville; six grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
The family suggested that memorial contributions be made to the Union Memorial Hospice.