Troy E. McMillion
AIDS activist
Services for Troy E. McMillion, who had headed a group of recovering drug addicts that worked to slow the spread of AIDS, are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. today at Gillis Memorial Christian Community Church, 4016 Park Heights Ave.
Mr. McMillion was found dead Aug. 10 in a house in the 500 block of Gold St. in West Baltimore. The cause of death has not been determined. He was 35 and lived in Northwest Baltimore.
In 1992, he headed All of Us Helping Us, an organization of recovering addicts who had tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus. The group volunteered to combine neighborhood meetings about the program and about acquired immune deficiency syndrome with periodic efforts to collect and dispose of used syringes and needles to slow the spread of the disease.
"There were times when I needed a syringe or something. There was always a place where I would find a used syringe," he said in a 1992 interview, adding that he had tested positive for HIV in 1987 after years of drug abuse. "If there was no clean syringe available, I'd do whatever I needed to do to get drugs in me."
The program lasted for more than a year until funding ran out, according to Brenda Pridgen, the Baltimore Health Department's AIDS coordinator. She described the program as a predecessor of current efforts to discourage the use of used syringes.
Born in Baltimore, Mr. McMillion was a 1978 graduate of Northwestern High School, where he was a member of the track and wrestling teams. He attended the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
He had worked as a telephone clerk in the Baltimore office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and for a credit card verification service.
He is survived by a son, Troy McMillion Jr. of Baltimore; a daughter, Angela McMillion of Baltimore; his parents, Barbara and Elijah McMillion of Baltimore; a sister, Deborah McMillion of Catonsville; two brothers, Brian McMillion of Baltimore and Darnell McMillion of Severna Park; and a friend, Stephanie McCoy.
Grace Knauss
DAR officer
Grace Knauss, who had been a state and chapter officer of the Daughters of the American Revolution, died Sunday at Union Memorial Hospital after a heart attack at her Waverly home. She was 76.
Mrs. Knauss most recently had served as recording secretary of the Baltimore Chapter of the DAR, of which she had been regent from 1988 to 1991. In 1986 and 1987, she was second vice regent of the state organization of the DAR, in charge of caring for its chapter house and arranging card parties and meetings there. She also arranged bus trips for members.
She was a collector of old glass and gave lectures on the subject, and she was an expert genealogist.
She was a member of Gatch Memorial United Methodist Church. Born in Baltimore, the former Grace May Crumbacker Hubley was a graduate of Eastern High School. She worked as a salesclerk in the cosmetics department of the Hochschild Kohn store at Howard and Lexington streets before her marriage in 1938 to Walter Knauss.
Services were to be held at 11 a.m. today at Mitchell-Wiedefeld Funeral Home, 6500 York Road.
In addition to her husband, survivors include a brother, Nevin Crumbacker of Glen Burnie; and many nieces and nephews.
Thomas C. Crane
Owned construction firm
Thomas C . Crane, owner of Valley Construction Co., died Sunday of coronary artery disease at his Riderwood home. He was 84.
Mr. Crane had owned the home improvement company since the early 1960s.
He left the Air Force as a major in 1959. He was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers in 1933 after he graduated with a degree in civil engineering from the Johns Hopkins University. He was called to active duty with the Army Air Forces in 1941 during World War II and helped to build airfields in the Pacific.
Before the war, he worked for Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. of Maryland.
A native of Washington, he was raised in Hagerstown and Baltimore. He graduated from Forest Park High School.
His wife, the former Anne Campbell, died in 1993.
Services will be held at noon tomorrow at Ruck Towson Funeral Home, 1050 York Road.
He is survived by two sons, Robert N. Crane of Orange, Calif., and Stephen D. Crane of Carney; a brother, John Crane of Dunedin, Fla.; a sister, Doris Naylor of Daphne, Ala.; eight grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.
Cecelia Coolahan
Teacher
Cecelia de Chantal Coolahan, a retired language teacher at girls' high schools, died Friday of heart failure at Stella Maris Hospice. She was 88.
Miss Coolahan had lived in Rodgers Forge before moving to Stella Maris about six years ago. She retired in the mid-1960s after 30 years as a French teacher at Mount de Sales Academy and a brief period as a teacher of languages at Seton High School.
The Baltimore native was a 1925 graduate of Mount de Sales and a 1929 graduate of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland.
She was a member of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites.
A Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 10 a.m. tomorrow at Stella Maris Hospice, 2300 Dulaney Valley Road.
She is survived by two sisters, Mildred Doyle of Connecticut and Loretta Googin of Cazenovia, N.Y.
