Herbert E. Hoy

Retired truck driver

Herbert E. Hoy, a retired truck driver for the Anne Arundel County Department of Public Works who was offshore on a Liberty ship during the Normandy invasion in World War II, died Friday of cancer at the veterans hospital at Fort Howard. He was 73.

He retired in 1987 after 27 years in the Northern District of the county public works agency. Before that, he held several construction and truck driving jobs.

His family moved from Baltimore to Ferndale when he was 3, and he attended Anne Arundel public schools.

From 1942 to 1946, he served in the Navy Armed Guards on gun crews aboard merchant freighters, both Liberty and Victory ships, in convoys to England, in the Mediterranean and in the Pacific.

He also served aboard two aircraft carriers, the USS Ranger and the USS Philippine Sea, and ashore at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station.

On D-Day, he was aboard the George W. Woodward, which housed a landing craft repair crew.

He was a member of the Ferndale Post of the American Legion, the United States Navy Armed Guard World War II Veterans and the Anne Arundel County Historical Society.

Services were to be held at 11 a.m. today at Kirkley-Ruddick Funeral Home, 421 Crain Highway S., Glen Burnie.

His survivors include a brother, John M. Hoy of Ferndale; and several cousins.

Joseph A. Peters

State employee on Shore

Joseph A. Peters, a retired Maryland state employee, died May 8 of cancer at his home in Salisbury. He was 68 and had moved there from Northeast Baltimore in 1971.

He retired in 1984 as a supervisor in the Department of Human Resources office in Salisbury. He had worked for the state for many years.

A native of Baltimore and a graduate of City College, he served in the Navy during World War II and was a crew member on the destroyer USS Ault while it was anchored in Tokyo Bay at the time the Japanese surrender was being accepted aboard the USS Missouri.

He is survived by his wife, the former Faye Adkins; a stepdaughter, Sheila Travis of Salisbury; a sister, Edna M. Khalil of University Park; two brothers, Albert C. Peters of Lake Wales, Fla., and Henry L. Peters of Baltimore; six nieces; a nephew; a grandniece; and a grandnephew.

Services were held May 10.

Merle M. Deardorff

Baltimore native

Merle M. Deardorff, a native of Baltimore who lived for many years in the Philadelphia area, died April 4 of pneumonia at a hospital in Lancaster, Pa.

She was 86 and had lived in Willow Street, Pa., since 1986.

She had been a volunteer at the Bryn Mawr Hospital and was a member of St. Asaph's Episcopal Church in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., where a memorial service was held Sunday.

The former Merle Mooney was born in Baltimore but reared in Philadelphia. Her husband, Dr. Charles L. Deardorff, died in 1965.

She is survived by a daughter, Diane D. Fischer of Towson; a son, Dr. Charles L. Deardorff of Millersville, Pa.; a sister, Jackie Tryon of Lighthouse Point, Fla.; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

L. Ralph Hilgartner

Mechanic

L. Ralph Hilgartner, a blacksmith who helped found the Jacksonville Volunteer Fire Department, died Wednesday of a stroke at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The lifelong Jacksonville resident was 94.

He was a blacksmith until he joined Jarman Motors in 1915 as a mechanic. He retired in 1964.

During World War I, he was an Army blacksmith in charge of mule teams that were used to pull supply wagons.

"When he started as a blacksmith, cars were called machines," said Scott Over, a nephew-in-law who lives in Pylesville.

After he retired from Jarman, he operated Hilgartner's Garage on Jarrettsville Pike for a number of years.

He was a member for 60 years of American Legion Post No. 22 in Towson.

Born in 1899 and reared in Jacksonville, he was a founder of the Jacksonville Volunteer Fire Department, which he visited daily. He drove the department's brush truck until he was 85, Mr. Over said.

He was married for many years to the former Anna Fendlay, who died in 1976

He is also survived by a daughter, Jeannie Trapp of New York City; five grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

He was a lifelong member of St. John's Lutheran Church in Long Green, where services were held Saturday .

Memorial donations may be made to St. John's, 13300 Manor Road, Long Green 21092; or to the Jacksonville Volunteer Department, 3500 Sweet Air Road, Jacksonville 21131.

Brother Daniel

University president

Brother Daniel Bernian, F.S.C., a native of Baltimore who was the 24th president of La Salle University in Philadelphia, died Saturday of kidney failure at the Christian Brothers nursing home in Lincroft, N.J., where he had lived for six years. He was 77 and had been a member of the Brothers of Christian Schools for 58 years.

During Brother Daniel's tenure, from 1958 to 1969, La Salle's campus changed considerably. The Roland Holroyd Science Center, a student union and three residence halls were built, and ground was broken for Hayman Hall, the university's athletic facilities building.

In addition, two laymen were appointed vice presidents of the university for the first time, in 1959. Previously, only members of the Brothers of the Christian Schools served as top-level administrators.

Brother Daniel, who was a member of the honorary board of the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company, also started the La Salle Musical Theatre, which produced musical comedies on the campus from 1962 until 1989. He also established La Salle's first Faculty Senate in 1966.

The former Daniel Kelly was born in Baltimore and was a graduate of Blessed Sacrament School. He went to high school at St. John's College in Washington and then earned a bachelor's degree in liberal arts in 1938 at Catholic University.

He earned master's degrees in French and Spanish at the University of Pennsylvania in 1943 and a doctorate in French from Laval University in Quebec in 1952. He also did graduate work at the University of Denver and in Rome.

Brother Daniel taught at Philadelphia's West Catholic High School from 1938 to 1940 and again from 1941 to 1947. He also taught at College St. Patrice in Quebec from 1940 to 1941, La Salle College High School in Philadelphia from 1947 to 1949 and at Catholic University from 1949 to 1951.

In 1951, he joined La Salle University's faculty as a French professor. Two years later he became the school's first director of housing and dean of men. From 1954 to 1958, he was dean of students and vice president of the board of managers.

He held a variety of civic and cultural posts, including chairman of the Mayor's Commission on Higher Education in Philadelphia. He was a former regional president of the National Catholic Educational Association.

A Mass of Christian burial for Brother Daniel was to be offered at 8 p.m. tomorrow in the chapel at La Salle. He will be buried at noon Thursday in the Christian Brothers Cemetery in Ammendale, Prince George's County.

He is survived by two sisters, Margaret Bagwell and Catherine Tyson; and two brothers, John and Paul Kelly. All are of Baltimore.