Louise C. Kehl, a former private-duty nurse who had been an active churchwoman, died Sunday of renal failure at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The longtime Annapolis resident was 98.
Louise Apperson was born in Mine Run, Orange County, Va., and graduated in 1929 from Orange High School.
After completing nurse's training at Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville, Va., in the early 1930s, she worked as a private-duty nurse.
In 1933, she married Robert Edgar Coleman, and the couple moved to Washington, where he managed a Safeway grocery store and worked for the old Woodward & Lothrop department store.
They moved to Annapolis in 1935 when her husband opened and managed the first supermarket in Annapolis for the Safeway stores.
While they were residents of the Weems Creek neighborhood, Mrs. Kehl was an active member for more than 40 years of Trinity United Methodist Church, where she held leadership positions in the United Methodist Women, both locally and on the district level.
"She was the first layperson to give a sermon at that church," said a daughter, Barbara C. White of Bolton Hill. "She took part in Bible study groups throughout her life in her various residences."
After her husband's death in 1974, Mrs. Kehl lived in Eastport for a decade, before moving in 1983 to the Charlestown retirement community in Catonsville.
She married Walter Christian Kehl in 1985. He died in 1998.
An accomplished cook who enjoyed entertaining family and friends, Mrs. Kehl also liked gardening, crocheting and quilting. "She also canned and preserved lots of fruits and vegetables that she and her husband had raised," Mrs. White said.
For the last decade, Mrs. Kehl had lived at Springwell, a Mount Washington senior living community that had formerly been the Wesley Home.
Services will be held at 1 p.m. Monday at Springwell, 2211 W. Rogers Ave.
Also surviving are a son, Robert D. Coleman of Federalsburg; another daughter, Elaine C. Tickner of Columbia; a sister, Bernice A. Brodkin of College Park; five grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.