Doris Alcarese, a Canadian farm girl who became a Baltimore man's bride with the help of an Army mix-up, died of pancreatic cancer Saturday at Gilchrist Hospice Center in Towson. Mrs. Alcarese, a retired property manager and a resident of Parkville, was 77.

Born Doris Duggan outside Edmonton, Alberta, she spent her early years on a farm without electricity and indoor plumbing. She received her early education in a one-room schoolhouse.

She was attending business college in Edmonton when she met Andrew A. Alcarese, an Army Air Corps traffic engineer who was stranded in the city - then a way station for U.S. servicemen heading for duty in Alaska - because the Army lost his papers, according to their son William F. Alcarese of Carney.

The couple kept in touch, and after the war Mr. Alcarese returned to Edmonton to see her. They married in Baltimore in 1946.

The couple settled in Waverly and raised three children. In 1964, Mrs. Alcarese took a job as a property manager for Hamilton Building Co. Her son recalled that in the late 1970s, when one of the partners moved to Maine, Mrs. Alcarese was pressed into service overseeing a multimillion-dollar construction project at the Cardiff Hall East apartments in Towson.

Mrs. Alcarese, who remained a Canadian citizen, retired in 1992.

Services will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Johnson Funeral Home, 8521 Loch Raven Blvd. in Towson.

In addition to her husband and son, Mrs. Alcarese is survived by a daughter, Barbara J. Rupp of Abingdon; another son, Andrew A. Alcarese of Towson; five grandchildren; and a great-grandson.