Marie L. Lerch, a homemaker who was an active member for three decades of the Maryland Colonial Society, died Sunday of a stroke at her North Homeland residence. She was 90.
The daughter of Joseph A. Logan II, a civil engineer, and Marie Doolan Logan, a homemaker, the former Marie Therese Logan was born and raised in Savannah, Ga.
She attended Savannah High School, and during her senior year moved to Atlanta. She graduated in 1943 from Sacred Heart School. Mrs. Lerch earned a bachelor's degree in 1947 in speech and drama from what is now Notre Dame of Maryland University.
In 1950, she married Richard Heaphy Lerch, an attorney, who died in 2005.
From 1970 through the early 2000s, Mrs. Lerch served as president, historian and an officer of the Maryland Colonial Society, now part of the Maryland Historical Society.
As president, she spoke and presided over the wreath-laying on Maryland Day in May 1984 on the 350th anniversary of the founding of the state.
"Even though she was a Southern belle and loved Savannah, she became a champion for Baltimore and Maryland," said a daughter, Marie Louise Lerch of Kensington. "She was a very genteel but strong woman."
The longtime Meadowood Road resident was an avid gardener.
Mrs. Lerch was a communicant and volunteer for 53 years at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Mary Our Queen.
A Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 10 a.m. Friday in the Villa Assumpta Chapel, 6401 N. Charles St.
Mrs. Lerch is survived by two other daughters, Elizabeth Lerch Visconage of Ellicott City and Ellen Lerch Thomsen of Salem, Va.; two brothers, William Gerard Logan of Bal Harbour, Fla., and James Robert Logan of Savannah; seven grandchildren; and a great-grandson. Her son, Richard H. Lerch Jr., died in 1953.