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Frances G. King, a retired professional interior decorator and volunteer, died Thursday of pneumonia at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. She was 90.
The daughter of the founder and president of Barton Gillet Co. and a homemaker, the former Frances Palmer Barton was born in Baltimore and raised in Ruxton.
After she graduated from St. Catherine's School in Richmond, Va., in 1941, she earned a degree in 1943 from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and then worked for several years as an artist at The Baltimore Sun until marrying.
She was married In 1947 to Edmund N. Gorman, a stockbroker with Middendorf, Colgate, and settled in the Green Spring Valley.
Mrs. King had worked as an interior decorator for Ann Lickel Interior Design in Riderwood, where her sister, Sally B. Willse, had been treasurer, after the death of her husband in 1970. She later established her own interior decorating business.
The Morning Sun
As first vice president of the board of the old Hospital for Women of Maryland in Bolton Hill, Mrs. King helped merge the hospital into what became Greater Baltimore Medical Center in 1965. She also played a major role in its interior design and furnishing.
In 1984, she married Alfred F. King Jr., a businessman, who had been a Princeton University friend of her late husband's. The couple divided their time between homes in Baltimore, Hobe Sound, Fla., and Dorset, Vt. He died in 1994.
An accomplished watercolorist, Mrs. King donated many of her paintings to charity sales. She was also an active member of garden clubs in Baltimore and Hobe Sound. She liked to read, play bridge and golf.
Mrs. King was a member of the Elkridge Club, Jupiter Island Club in Hobe Sound, and the Ekwanok Club in Manchester, Vt.
She was a communicant of St. Stephen's Traditional Episcopal Church, 11856 Mays Chapel Road, where a memorial service will be held at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Mrs. King is survived by two sons, Dr. Randolph Gorman, of Reisterstown, and Ned Gorman, of Sausalito, Calif.; a daughter, Frances Gorman, of San Francisco; two stepsons, Alfred F. King III, of Westport, Conn., and David N. King, of Aiken, S.C.; two stepdaughters, Nancy "Kenny" King Howe, of Greenwich, Conn., and Susan King Stickney, of Vero Beach, Fla.; a brother, David Barton Jr., of Baltimore; seven grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.