Clarence E. Ehrhardt, 84, Harford County dairy farmer
Clarence E. Ehrhardt, a retired dairy farmer who once helped cap the White House Christmas tree, died Thursday of complications from emphysema and congestive heart failure at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 84.
Mr. Ehrhardt was born in the Hamilton area of Baltimore and lived there until 1971, when he moved to the family farm in Harford County, near Baldwin.
In Baltimore, he had worked in a family construction business.
During World War II, he worked on the bomb shelter for the White House. During that time, he was asked to lift a man in his crane to place a star atop the national Christmas tree.
Services will be held at 1 p.m. today at Leonard J. Ruck Funeral Home, 5305 Harford Road.
He is survived by his wife of 62 years, the former Eva James; a son, James E. Ehrhardt; a daughter, Shirley Hornbarger; and two sisters, Dora Meyers and Ethel E. Murray. All are of Baldwin.
Virginia Schirling Bolton, 58, retired Bell Atlantic manager
Virginia Schirling Bolton, a former telephone company manager who was active in her community, died Wednesday of cancer at home in North East. She was 58.
Mrs. Bolton was employed by the former Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. of Maryland and Bell Atlantic from 1957 to 1989, when she retired as supervisor of the business office on Pratt Street in downtown Baltimore. After that, she was employed by Chesapeake Family Practice for seven years.
The Elkton native was a member and past president of the North East Fire Company Ladies Auxiliary and was a life member-representative of the Northern Council of the Telephone Pioneers and had won its Pioneer President Award for community service. She also was active in the Maryland You Are Beautiful program and was a past secretary of the Cecil County Chapter of the American Cancer Society.
She had been secretary of Communications Workers of America Local 2100 and was a member of North East United Methodist Church.
Services are set for at 10 a.m. today at Crouch Funeral Home, 127 S. Main St. in North East.
She is survived by her husband of 10 years, William L. Bolton; her parents, John and Helen Schirling of North East; a brother, Lloyd E. Schirling of San Jose, Calif.; a stepdaughter, Faith Edwards of North East; and a stepson, Scott Bolton of Chesapeake City.
Nancy Holthaus, 65, longtime church volunteer
Nancy Holthaus, a longtime church volunteer and Roman Catholic catechism instructor who taught children in Catonsville, Severna Park and Chester, died of cancer at her Eastern Shore home Saturday. She was 65.
Born in Catonsville, the former Nancy Vaeth graduated from the Institute of Notre Dame in 1951 and married James E. Holthaus in 1953. The couple moved from Catonsville to Severna Park in 1958, and retired to Chester in Queen Anne's County in 1990.
A homemaker and mother of nine, Mrs. Holthaus was a sportswoman and member of the Prospect Bay Country Club and Southwinds Community Association in Chester. She also helped organize numerous area religious conferences.
She was a member of St. Christopher's Roman Catholic Church in Chester, where a Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
In addition to her husband, survivors include six daughters, Stephanie Kimball of Charlotte, N.C., Margaret Holthaus of Herndon, Va., Cecelia George of Baltimore, Mary Christina Lewnes of Severna Park, Camille Gallo of Ocean City and Andrea Whiteford of Annapolis; three sons, John Holthaus of Atlanta, James E. Holthaus Jr. of Stevensville and Thomas Holthaus of Dallas; two brothers, Edward Vaeth of Rocky Mount, N.C., and Jerome Vaeth of Annapolis; a sister, Helen Muth of Grasonville; and 16 grandchildren. Helen Deringer, who taught for three decades at Gibson Island Country School, died of cancer Thursday at her home in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. She was 77.
The former Helen Dawson Smith was born in Oxford on Maryland's Eastern Shore. She married Bronaugh Woodland Deringer Jr. in 1945, and the couple resided on Gibson Island in Anne Arundel County for about three decades. They moved to Florida in 1982.
Mrs. Deringer was a member of Daughters of the American Revolution and the Society of the Ark and Dove.
She is survived by her husband and two daughters, Susan Deringer Ross and Nancy Deringer, both of Tampa, Fla.; and four grandchildren. Plans for a memorial service next month in Florida were incomplete.
Stephanie Stelmachowicz, 32, Baltimore counselor
Stephanie Ann Stelmachowicz, a Baltimore counselor for the elderly, homeless, drug addicted and mentally disabled, died of breast cancer Friday at Mercy Medical Center. She was 32.
Ms. Stelmachowicz, a lifetime Baltimore resident, graduated from Baltimore School for the Arts in 1984 and what is now Towson University in 1989.
She worked and volunteered for numerous outreach centers. At her death, she was employed by Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center Inc., a Howard County-based homeless and emergency shelter.
Services will be held at 10 a.m. tomorrow at St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church, 120 N. Front St., in Baltimore.
Survivors include her husband, Fredrick Collins of Baltimore; her parents, Bonita Rohr and Francis Stelmachowicz, both of Baltimore; and two sisters, Wanda Stelmachowicz of Zurich, Switzerland, and Mary Kapur of Lake Worth, Fla.
Edward G. Berlett III, 65, owned supply company
Edward G. Berlett III, a former high school wrestling champion in Baltimore and a successful business owner in Annapolis, died Saturday of cancer at Future Care-Chesapeake in Arnold. He was 65.
The Arnold resident started his surgical supply company, USSI Inc., in Annapolis in 1982. Before then, he was a salesman and sales manager for Eaton Labs, beginning in 1957.
The Baltimore native graduated from McDonogh School in 1951, when he won the heavyweight division of the Maryland Scholastic Association Wrestling Championship. He served in the Army from 1953 to 1955 and attended the Johns Hopkins University.
Services will be held at 1 p.m. tomorrow at Barranco & Sons Funeral Home, 495 Ritchie Highway, Severna Park.
He is survived by his wife of 45 years, Nancy Costello Berlett of Arnold; two daughters, Stephanie Wilding of Crownsville and Carolyn Sylva of Millersville; three sons, Edward G. Berlett IV of Baltimore, Timothy Berlett of Mount Airy and Thomas Berlett of Elkridge; two brothers, Eugene Berlett of Melbourne, Fla., and Robert Berlett of Columbia; 15 grandchildren; and a great-grandson.
Pub Date: 11/30/98