Gertrude Gaither Bruce, a devout mother of six who worked full time while raising her family, died Friday of congestive heart failure at Brightwood Genesis Eldercare in Brooklandville. She was 71.

Born Gertrude Yancey in Baltimore, she graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in 1949 - the year she married Odell Bruce.

Over the years she held jobs that included work as a receptionist, clerk and, finally, claims worker for the state unemployment office - before stopping in the late 1980s to care for an aunt who had helped raise her. The aunt, Louise D. Robinson, died in 1992.

Mrs. Bruce sang in the choir at New Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Baltimore, where she also taught Sunday school and worked as a missionary, said her daughter Jane Davis of Rosedale.

She was "faith-filled," her daughter said. "She loved the people in her church, just like she loved her family."

She also was a talker - Mrs. Bruce's grandmother once said that "she could talk the legs off of an iron pot," Mrs. Davis said. But she was also a good listener, her daughter said.

In her spare time, she enjoyed music and reading devotional works, Mrs. Davis said.

Services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Friday at New Mount Carmel, 1907 Poplar Grove St.

In addition to her husband and daughter, Mrs. Bruce is survived by two sons, Kevin Bruce of Winston-Salem, N.C., and David Bruce of Pikesville; two other daughters, Eloise Brown of Detroit and Leslie Bedford of Woodlawn; 15 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. A daughter, Ingrid Thomas, died in 1995.