Helen C. Brown, who taught music in Baltimore public schools for more than 30 years and later at the Renaissance Institute, died Wednesday at Stella Maris Hospice of gall bladder disease. She was 93.
The daughter of William Joseph Manley Sr., controller for the John O'White Roofing Co., and Helen Cecelia Ward, a Hutzler's and Stewart's department stores sales associate, Helen Cecelia "Nellie" Manley was born in Baltimore and was raised on Fernhill Avenue in West Arlington.
After graduating in 1939 from the Institute of Notre Dame, she majored in piano and music education at what is now Notre Dame of Maryland University, where she earned her bachelor's degree in 1943.
Mrs. Brown was born into a musical family. Her maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Sarah Cunningham Ward, owned and operated the Ward Opera House in Midland, Allegany County, while her mother played piano accompaniment to silent movies that were shown at the opera house.
When she was 15, she began giving piano lessons in her home on Saturday afternoons and also at the home of an aunt who lived in Hyattsville.
She was 15 years old when she met her future husband, Charles Hugh Brown Jr., after her mother sent her to give piano lessons to the daughter of a friend. Her mother had given her an incorrect house number.
The couple married in 1946 and moved into a home on Elderon Avenue in Northwest Baltimore. They moved in 1962 to Woodbine Avenue in West Towson, where they lived until moving to Mays Chapel in 1985.
They moved to Mercy Ridge in 2001.
Mrs. Brown began teaching at Gwynns Falls Junior High School in 1943. Three years later, she joined the faculty of Southern Junior-Senior High School where she taught until 1957.
From 1957 to 1970, she continued teaching at Southern Junior High School and the school's annex, General Henry Lee Junior High School at Hanover and Lee streets.
In 1970, she began teaching at Northern Parkway Junior High School and became music department head.
Mrs. Brown never stopped teaching, and after retiring in 1977 continued holding lessons at the Jemicy School and the Montessori School. She also worked with the Baltimore County Public Library's music collection.
One of her former students, Bill Day, of Timonium, recalled when Mrs. Brown proposed that a group of junior high school athletes sing "I Enjoy Being A Girl" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Flower Drum Song."
"She was a great teacher, and it's a tough situation getting adolescent boys to sing, and those of us at Southern Junior High School in South Baltimore — we were in the ninth grade — were very reluctant to do that," said Mr. Day, who works in education sales.
"When she suggested we sing 'I Enjoy Being A Girl,' we just looked at one another. But she convinced us to open up and sing, and she also got us to dress up like girls," said Mr. Day, who is a singer and president of the Chorus of the Chesapeake. "When we performed it, she was laughing, everyone was laughing. She had such a great sense of humor."
Some of her students at Southern were baseball Hall of Famer Al Kaline — whom she described "as a good kid," family members said — and Anna Apicella, founder of the Anna Apicella School of Dance in Towson.
In 1989, she was one of the founding faculty members at the Renaissance Institute at what is now Notre Dame of Maryland University, where she once estimated she had taught about 35 courses.
In a 2012 article in the Catholic Review, Mrs. Brown said that her courses at the institute ranged from wartime music to opera.
After asking her students to sing from George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess," and because their performance impressed her, she established a chorus at the institute in 2009 that gave twice-yearly concerts.
Mr. Day said he reconnected with his music teacher after seeing an interview on an evening newscast on WBAL-TV in 2012.
"She'd come to our open house at Christmas," said Mr. Day.
From 2001 to this year, Mrs. Brown played piano for Mass at Mercy Ridge and for any other music-related activities at the Timonium retirement community, from residents' musical productions to holiday music.
Mrs. Brown told WBAL-TV, "My daughter says, 'Don't ever give it up. It's keeping you young! Keep going, Mom!' So anyway, I keep going."
Her husband, a banker, died in 2006.
A Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 11 a.m. Tuesday in the chapel at Stella Maris, 2300 Dulaney Valley Road, Timonium.
Mrs. Brown is survived by four sons, Charles Hugh Brown III of Towson, William J. Brown and Robert F. Brown, both of Parkville, and Michael E. Brown Sr. of Timonium; a daughter, Catherine Anne Abel of Winchester, Va.; two brothers, William J. Manley Jr. of Fallston and Harry A. Manley of Laurel; 10 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.