Christine H. Franklin, an educator and community activist who fought for the quality of life in her Hoes Heights neighborhood during a development battle over the closed Green Spring Dairy site, died Tuesday of heart failure at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore. She was 81.

She was born Christine Hall in Atlanta and raised in Baltimore. She served as president of the North Baltimore community's neighborhood association in the 1990s when controversy arose over the retail development of the site on West 41st Street. She was vocal about the detrimental effect she felt the stores would have on the area.

"She's a person who was very forward-thinking," said her sister, Mary H. Page of Pittsburgh. "She didn't let boundaries hold her. She had a vision of what could be."

A graduate of Frederick Douglass High School, Mrs. Franklin earned an undergraduate degree from Morgan State College and a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

After working jobs out of state, she returned to Baltimore in 1955, settling into educational positions that focused on dietetics -- including home economics instruction for Baltimore schools. Her last position was as a staff specialist in administration for the State Department of Education.

After she retired in the mid-1980s, she focused on her community and church. In addition to her work with the neighborhood association, she taught religious classes at Union Memorial United Methodist Church in West Baltimore and served on numerous committees there, her family said.

She also made stained-glass creations.

Mrs. Franklin was a longtime member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

Her 1950 marriage to Marion Edward Franklin ended in divorce.

Services will be held at 11 a.m. today at Union Memorial United Methodist Church at Harlem and Warwick avenues.

In addition to her sister, she is survived by a son, Edward Franklin of New York City; two other sisters, Ruth H. Smith of Lutherville and Juanita H. Davis of Milford; and numerous nieces and nephews.