Muriel F. "Mert" Bauer, a former aerospace industry mathematical engineer, died Saturdayfrom complications of a stroke at Ruxton Health and Rehabilitation of Pikesville. The longtime Randallstown resident was 85.

Muriel Frances Switzer was born and raised in Niagara Falls, N.Y. After graduating from LaSalle High School in Niagara Falls in 1942, she earned a bachelor's degree in 1946 in mathematics from Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio.

She began her career in the 1940s with Bell Aircraft Corp. in Buffalo, N.Y., which built the fabled Bell X-1, the first supersonic aircraft.

In the late 1940s, Mrs. Bauer moved to Baltimore to work on aerospace projects at the old Glenn L. Martin Co. plant in Middle River. She left the company in the 1950s to raise her two children.

In 1950 she married Charles Henry Bauer Jr., a news photographer for the News American, who died in 1997.

She was a communicant of Ascension Prince of Peace Episcopal Church in Rockdale.

Visiting hours will be held from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. today at the Sterling-Ashton-Schwab-Witzke Funeral Home of Catonsville, 1630 Edmondson Ave.

Surviving are a son, Charles Edward Bauer of Baltimore; a daughter, Tricia Bauer of West Redding, Conn.; and two granddaughters.

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