Elizabeth C. ‘Betty’ Blair, homemaker, dies

Elizabeth C. “Betty” Blair, a homemaker who had been a medical secretary and construction company bookkeeper, died Saturday of cancer at a daughter’s home in Lutherville. The former Northwood resident was 90.

The former Elizabeth Angela Collins, daughter of Walter Collins, a butcher, and his wife, Catherine Collins, a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised on Lorraine Avenue in Remington.

She was a graduate of Mount St. Agnes High School in Mount Washington and earned a bachelor’s degree from the old Mount St. Agnes College, which was also in Mount Washington.

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Mrs. Blair, who was known as Betty, worked as a medical secretary for Dr. James Whedbee for eight years and in the late 1950s and into the 1960s was a bookkeeper for Redmond Construction Company.

A longtime resident of Hartsdale Road in Northwood, Mrs. Blair was an active communicant of St. Matthew Roman Catholic Church, where she was president of its Sodality and volunteered in the parish’s parochial school. She also volunteered at Good Samaritan Hospital and Stella Maris Hospice.

Interested in amateur theatricals, Mrs. Blair was a member of the Ladies of Notre Dame Knights of Columbus Council 2901 and acted for more than 40 years in shows they presented at a dinner theater with her husband, staged in the parish hall of St. Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church in Govans.

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In recent years, she was a member of the Red Hat Society and looked forward to the organization’s luncheons, family members said. She was also an avid reader and Orioles fan.

She was a resident of St. Elizabeth Hall at Stella Maris in Lutherville before moving to a daughter’s home.

Mrs. Blair was married for 59 years to Thomas J. Blair, a Sovereign Bank officer who died in 2011.

Plans for a memorial Mass to be offered at her church are incomplete because of the pandemic.

She is survived by four sons, Thomas R. Blair and Stephen M. Blair, both of Parkville, James W. Blair of Ellicott City and Martin J. Blair of Phoenix, Baltimore County; two daughters, Teresa L. Gonzales of Parkton and Kathy P. Costanza of Lutherville; 14 grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren. Another son, William E. Blair, died in 2008.