Marilyn J. Pelham, a retired educator and world traveler, died March 9 at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson of complications of Alzheimer's disease. She was 86.
The former Marilyn June Neeley was born in Glendale, Calif., and raised in Los Angeles. After graduating from high school, she earned a bachelor's degree in 1949 from the University of California at Los Angeles, and later earned master's degrees in education from Columbia University and special education from Loyola University Maryland.
In 1952, she married Dr. William F. Pelham, and three years later moved to Baltimore when her husband joined the physics department at what was then Towson State Teachers College. He died in 2004.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Mrs. Pelham was a teacher at the Florence Crittenton Home for Girls, and from 1980 until retiring in 1990, taught disadvantaged youth at Baltimore County's Deep Creek Middle School.
Mrs. Pelham also volunteered with an adult literacy program in downtown Baltimore.
"She always wanted to help people," said her daughter, Celia A. Pelham of Maplewood, N.J.
The former longtime Homeland resident who later moved to University Parkway, and finally to Blakehurst in 2004, enjoyed traveling with her husband. She also was interested in the arts.
Mrs. Pelham donated her body to the Maryland Anatomy Board. Plans for a celebration of her life to be held later this year are incomplete.
In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Pelham is survived by two sons, Christopher J. Pelham of Santa Monica, Calif., and Anthony J. Pelham of Orlando, Fla.; and four grandchildren.