Jane Hoen Holter, who owned and operated Betty Blue Gift Shops for about 40 years, died Friday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center of a stroke that followed a fall last week at her longtime Cedarcroft home. She was 82.

Before she sold her gift-and-card stores in 1976, Mrs. Holter ran shops on Greenmount Avenue and at the Northwood and the Hillendale shopping centers.

Born in Baltimore, the former Jane Hoen was a 1934 graduate of Mount St. Agnes High School and studied for two years at Strayer Business College.

In 1936, she opened a small shop on Charles Street, said a daughter, Deborah B. Irvin of Reisterstown and Port St. Lucie, Fla.

About a year later, she bought the Betty Blue shop on Greenmount Avenue. During the 1950s, she opened a second Betty Blue shop in Northwood Shopping Center and a third when Hillendale Shopping Center was built.

"When I was born and came home from the hospital, they put me in a card drawer," said Mrs. Irvin, who later worked at her mother's stores. "They stood me on a box to reach the cash register," she said.

The Northwood store was closed after a fire on Mother's Day in 1960, and Mrs. Holter sold the other stores in 1976.

Mrs. Holter was a member of the Towson Christian Woman's Club and the Catholic League of the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, 5300 N. Charles St., where a Mass of Christian burial was to be offered at 11 a.m. today.

In addition to her daughter, she is survived by her second husband, Dr. Paul Wilson Holter, a dentist and retired Army colonel whom she married in 1974; another daughter, Pamela B. Knott of Baltimore; a son, Timothy L. Blucher of Towson; a stepdaughter, Tammie Yoshioka of Hilo, Hawaii; 13 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Pub Date: 1/25/99