Beatrice K. Franza, who overcame staggering adversity to become an exemplar of uncommon virtue to her family and friends, died Friday of cardiac arrest at Liberty Medical Center. The self-taught musician and lifelong Quaker was 67.
Born into a family of prominent Pennsylvania artists, she was reared in Chicago and Milwaukee, where she graduated from high school in 1950. From there, her life traced a downward arc for the next decade.
"At 18, her father told her she would have to do on her own -- to learn self-reliance, discipline and all of that," said her daughter, Elizabeth Kreager of Baltimore. "So he drove her down to the station and put her on a train for the Army."
Within the year, Ms. Franza was in an accident at a Virginia military base that left her with a broken back and a shortened enlistment. Discharged in 1951, she returned to Chicago and took a job as a newspaper clerk while attending night school at various colleges.
A brief marriage followed. When it ended, she was pregnant, broke, alone and suffering from the early stages of a serious mental illness. It was 1959, and Ms. Franza had nowhere to turn.
"That's what brought her to Baltimore," her daughter said. "She checked into the Perry Point VA hospital in Cecil County, had me and recovered well enough to get back on her feet and get a job at Johns Hopkins Hospital. It was very hard on her. We lived in a [public] housing project for quite a few years."
At Hopkins, Ms. Franza flourished, becoming editorial secretary to Dr. John K. Frost -- shepherding into print his prodigious output of books, journal articles and essays on cytopathology and lung cancer. Later, she worked for a few years as a secretary at the University of Pennsylvania hospital before retiring in 1995 and returning to Baltimore.
In time, her job with Dr. Frost allowed her to buy a modest house in Hampden that became a meeting place for other women facing similar problems.
"She had a lot of friends, especially women friends, some with very strong opinions," Ms. Kreager said. "But she was a birthright Quaker. She acted like a Quaker. She believed as a Quaker. So she kept her opinions to herself. And she swallowed her pride over and over again in her life to provide for others.
"She was way ahead of her time, a feminist parable in many ways. She was a hero to a lot of people."
Ms. Franza was a member of several Quaker congregations, including the Homewood Quaker Meeting on Charles Street, and played piano in various choirs since she was a young woman. An avid reader, she was also accomplished at embroidery.
At her death, she resided at Alice Manor Nursing Home in Baltimore.
Services will be held at 10 a.m. tomorrow at Burgee-Henss Funeral Home, 3631 Falls Road.
Ms. Franza is also survived by two brothers, Edward Kirkbride of Downingtown, Pa., and Jon Kirkbride of Schwenksville, Pa.; her mother, Beatrice Kirkbride of Germantown, Pa.; a granddaughter; three nieces; and two nephews.
Pub Date: 3/16/99