Henry S. Wells Jr., a founding member of the Baltimore Streetcar Museum whose love of streetcars and trains defined his life, died in his sleep Saturday at his nephew's home in Manassas, Va. He was 95.
Mr. Wells was born in Baltimore and, before moving to his nephew's home in 2003, spent his entire life in a rowhouse in the 1900 block of Mount Royal Terrace, on Reservoir Hill, which gave him a front-row seat as a child watching No. 13 streetcars as they coursed up and down North Avenue.
His home was also within earshot of the freight and passenger trains of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad and the Western Maryland Railway, which made their own brand of industrial music as they whistled and chugged into and out of the Jones Falls Valley.
He became interested in streetcars at an early age, thanks to his father, Henry S. Wells Sr., an avid streetcar fan who enjoyed arranging off-beat rides for father and son, such as the No. 31 Garrison Boulevard car to the Belvedere car house, and then the No. 25 through Mount Washington to North Avenue.
"You could only do that on Sundays," the younger Mr. Wells told The Baltimore Sun in a 2001 interview.
For all of his rail-oriented interests, Mr. Wells never worked for a railroad or the Baltimore Transit Co.
After graduating from Polytechnic Institute in 1933, he earned a bachelor's degree in 1937 in mechanical engineering from the Johns Hopkins University, and during World War II, he served with the Army's Chemical Warfare Service in the Pacific.
Mr. Wells returned to Baltimore after the war ended and went to work for the Frieze Instrument Co., later the Environmental and Process Instrument Division of the Bendix Corp.
He retired in 1979.
When the streetcar museum was established in 1966, Mr. Wells became a charter member - membership badge No. 9 - with a gift of $500, and remained a trustee for nearly the next 40 years.
He then set about establishing and operating the museum's gift shop, which he operated on Sunday afternoons selling railroad and streetcar memorabilia for the next 33 years until stepping down in 2001.
"Henry was 'Mr. Gift Shop,' " said longtime museum member, author and friend, Bob Janssen. "He was a very quiet and an unassuming man who was a friend to everybody."
The first several winters at the museum, Mr. Wells' gift shop was nothing more than several tables placed outside the car house. Heat was provided by scrap wood burning in a 55-gallon oil drum.
"Henry froze in the winter and sweated in the summer heat of the Jones Falls Valley," said James A. Genthner, a museum member who lives in Timonium. "When the visitors center opened in the mid-1970s, Henry was finally brought inside and he was able to enjoy warmth in the winter and air conditioning in summer."
Quite often, it was Mr. Wells, a slight man with a toothy smile and a shock of hair that refused to stay in place, whom visitors encountered when entering the museum.
"He was an institution when he I joined in the 1980s. He was a steadying influence and a warm, ubiquitous presence at the museum," said Andrew S. Blumberg, a museum trustee and director of public relations.
"He had a smile for everyone and was as comfortable with people as the old sweaters he wore," Mr. Blumberg said. "He was a person who naturally made you feel welcome and at home," he said.
Mr. Wells enjoyed children and took the same amount of painstaking time answering questions or helping children select the right gift-shop items that met their budget as he did with adults.
Charles Plantholt, a museum member for 38 years and a member of the Baltimore chapter of the National Railway Historical Society, said, "Henry was one gracious gentleman and a fixture in the Baltimore rail-fan scene for decades. He rode excursion trains for years and was a 70-year member of the Baltimore chapter of the National Railway Historical Society."
In 2001, on his 87th birthday, Mr. Wells was feted at the museum with a buffet luncheon and a birthday cake.
He celebrated his day with a ride on his favorite streetcar, No. 1164, a United Railways Electric Co. summer car that had been built in 1902 by the J. G. Brill Co. of Philadelphia.
Standing next to the streetcar's motorman and the Oriole Bird, who made a surprise visit that afternoon, Mr. Wells entered his 88th year with the bell clanging as the car clacked over switches and swayed down the line.
"He was a kind-hearted soul and even though slowed in recent years, he still liked reading railroad books," said his nephew and only survivor, Russell N. Wells.
Mr. Wells was a longtime member and treasurer of Grace United Methodist Church.
Services are private.