Leone A. LaMotte, a retired Baltimore County teacher who spent 43 years in several schools, died Wednesday of respiratory arrest at the Highlands retirement community in Wyomissing, Pa. The former Hampstead resident was 96.

A teacher at Franklin Elementary School in Reisterstown, she taught grades one through seven at the old Trenton School, a one-room schoolhouse, where she also taught chorus.

After graduating from the former Towson Normal School, now Towson University, in 1926 with a teaching certificate, Ms. LaMotte began teaching grades three and four. Before retiring in 1971, she trained new teachers to teach reading.

Although a veteran teacher, Ms. LaMotte spent many summers attending classes at the University of Maryland, where she received her bachelor's degree in elementary education in 1957. At Maryland, Ms. LaMotte was president of Delta Kappa Gamma, an education sorority.

Ms. LaMotte also was president of Lincoln Park Women's Club from 1984 to 1986, and was a past president of the Women's Club of Hampstead. She enjoyed traveling, playing bridge and sewing lace.

Services will be held at 11 a.m. today at Atonement Lutheran Church, which she attended regularly, at Penn and Wyomissing avenues in Wyomissing.

Ms. LaMotte is survived by a daughter, June Gwyn of Wyomissing; three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.