Leo Fitzsimmons Sr.
Longtime C&P; official
Leo W. Fitzsimmons Sr., a retired telephone company official and a real estate agent, died Sunday of leukemia at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was 74 and lived in Catonsville.
He retired in 1985 as government and community relations manager for Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co., where he had worked 44 years.
He then began working as a real estate agent for C. C. Rittenhouse, Inc. Century 21 and was working for Century 21 Forty West Inc. when he became ill four months ago.
He was a former commander of the Arbutus post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and a former president of the Maryland Chapter of the Telephone Pioneers of America, the Optimist Club of Catonsville and the Catonsville Business Association.
He was an Eagle Scout and had been an adult leader of the Boy Scouts in the Arbutus area. He was a member of the Patapsco Council of the Knights of Columbus and a charter member of the Salisbury Council of the Knights.
The native of Irvington, who also lived in Halethorpe in his youth, was a graduate of Polytechnic Institute, where he played soccer. He also attended the Johns Hopkins University and Loyola College.
During World War II, he served in the Army Signal Corps in England.
A Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 9 a.m. today at St. Mark's Roman Catholic Church, 30 Melvin Ave., Catonsville.
Mr. Fitzsimmons is survived by his wife of 47 years, the former Muriel Carolan; a son, Leo W. Fitzsimmons Jr. of Raleigh, N.C.; a daughter, Erin Marie Fitzsimmons of Columbia; four brothers, James Fitzsimmons of Arbutus, Charles Fitzsimmons of Queenstown, Francis Fitzsimmons of Riva and John Fitzsimmons of Ellicott City; and five sisters, Gertrude Fitzsimmons of Arbutus, Sister Marie Victoria Fitzsimmons, S.C.N., of Louisville, Ky., Agnes Eakle of Marriottsville, Margaret Bradley of Pasadena and Elizabeth Hamby of State Road, N.C.
Sister Jeanette
Teacher, administrator
Sister Jeanette Militano, O.S.B., a teacher and later an administrator at the Benedictine Sisters' Emmanuel Monastery in Brooklandville, died there Sunday of cancer. She was 73.
Sister Jeanette was assistant treasurer and procurator, a post in which she managed the household and cooked, from 1981 until 1993.
In 1971, she came to the Baltimore area from New Jersey, where she had taught in elementary schools, as a founding member of the Benedictine Sisters of Baltimore. Until 1981, she taught mathematics to the upper grades at St. Philip Neri School in Linthicum.
A native of Maplewood, N.J., she entered the St. Walburga Monastery in Elizabeth, N.J., in 1942 and earned a bachelor's degree from Seton Hall University.
Her order consists of a group of semi-independent monasteries, and the Baltimore group is an offshoot of the monastery in Elizabeth.
A Mass of the Resurrection was to be offered at 11 a.m. today at the Roman Catholic Church of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 1800 Vista Lane, Timonium.
Her survivors include a sister, Anna Rankin; and a brother, Frank Militano, both of Newton, N.J.; and many nieces and nephews.
Wilhelm K. Manke
Doughnut maker
Wilhelm K. Manke, a baker in Baltimore for many years, died Monday of heart and kidney failure at the Meridian Nursing Center-Severna Park. He was 90 and lived in Arnold.
He retired in 1966 from Koester's Bakery, where he made doughnuts.
Born in Germany, he came to Maryland at 18 and worked for a time as an apprentice in a bakery shop in Laurel. He later lived in Baltimore and Halethorpe.
He was a member of Jehovah's Witnesses in Pasadena.
Services were to be held at 10 a.m. today at the Barranco and Sons Funeral Home, Ritchie Highway and Robinson Road, Severna Park.
His first wife, the former Margaret Martha Zeiss, died in 1964.
He is survived by his wife, the former Anna Hurst; three sons, Herbert Manke of Kirbyville, Texas, Robert Manke of Baltimore and Karl Manke of Millersville; a stepson, Herbert Hurst of Baltimore; a stepdaughter, Barbara Smith of Pasadena; four grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
Melba H. Childs, 75, a former Columbia resident, died Feb. 16 of cancer at a hospital in Eustis, Fla. She had lived in Grand Island, Fla., since 1985.
The former Melba Huth was a native of Baltimore and a 1936 graduate of Eastern High School. She was an executive secretary for McCormick & Co. and for Commercial Credit Corp.
A memorial service was to be held today in Mount Dora, Fla. She is survived by her husband, George N. Childs; and two daughters, Catherine M. Childs of Grand Island and Melanie A. Childs of Minneola, Fla.