Vincent Frank Bova, a retired printer and longtime Cheverly resident, died Dec. 9 of congestive heart failure at a nursing home in Pensacola, Fla. He was 97.

Mr. Bova was born and raised in South Baltimore, one of 11 children of Sicilian immigrants. He attended city public schools.

As a very young man, he went to work at Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point shipyard, building and repairing the hulls of vessels.

He later became a printer and worked for many years for National Geographic magazine in Washington before retiring in the late 1960s.

Mr. Bova was a resident of Cheverly for 40 years before moving to Pensacola in 1996 to live with a daughter.

He enjoyed model railroading and had constructed a large HO-gauge layout in the basement of his home, a grandson said.

His wife of more than 60 years, the former Matilda Agnes Hammerschmidt, died in 1994.

There are no services.

Surviving are a daughter, Leslie White of Pensacola; a sister, Vera Gauss of Baltimore; nine grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. His son, Vincent F. Bova Jr., died in the early 1970s.