Eleanor C. Beers, co-owner of the old Carlin's Park and a volunteer for numerous educational and religious charities, died of cancer Saturday at her Towson home. She was 88.
Born in Baltimore and raised on Keyworth Avenue, Eleanor Carlin was a 1934 graduate of the old Mount St. Agnes High School. She earned a bachelor's degree from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland and a master's degree in nutrition from Columbia University in New York.
She was the daughter of John J. Carlin, whose Park Circle amusement park she inherited with her sister. She redeveloped the site for an A&P supermarket and a drive-in movie theater after the park's swimming pool and roller coaster were closed more than four decades ago.
For nearly half a century, Mrs. Beers headed numerous local charities, including the St. Elizabeth Guild, an auxiliary that raised funds for students with special needs at St. Elizabeth School on Argonne Drive. She served two terms as president.
"She was determined and tireless," said Christine Manlove, the school's principal. "You did not stand in Eleanor's way. If she wanted to do something, it happened. Her fund-raising events were always successful."
Friends recalled yesterday that Mrs. Beers applied the entrepreneurial skills she learned from her father's example at the park in her promotion of the school's bull roasts and charity events.
"She was a promoter in everything she did. She was a force," said Margaret Garvey Crook, a friend. "Every group she joined she either became the president or the chair. She was in her element when she entertained. She was just a natural leader."
From 1976 to 1985, she held various offices on the Peabody Institute Women's Board. She helped stage a fund-raising dinner and exhibit of Peabody collection paintings called Old Masters and Young Maestros in conjunction with the Walters Art Museum and Baltimore Museum of Art.
"She worked hard on every committee we had," said fellow board member Carol N. "Sue" Abromaitis, a Loyola College professor and friend. "She was very comfortable in her societal position. Whatever she did, she was one of those worker bees."
About 15 years ago, she began volunteering at Union Memorial Hospital and was assigned to run a cafeteria cash register.
"She liked to tell the story that she was fired from the job because she could not run the machine right," said Mrs. Crook. "She was the kind of person who could laugh at herself."
Friends said she also was an accomplished cook who entertained at her University Parkway home in Roland Park. Mrs. Beers included many of her recipes in a charity cookbook she co-authored for the St. Elizabeth School.
She was a former president of the sodalities at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen and SS. Philip and James Roman Catholic Church. She also held offices in the Notre Dame Preparatory School Parents Club and Loyola High School Mothers Club, where she founded a bridge group.
She also was active in the Maryland Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals, Three Arts Club of Homeland, English Speaking Union, Johns Hopkins Club and Towson Club.
A Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 10 a.m. today at St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church, 1008 W. 37th St., where she was a member.
Her husband of 52 years, Thomas R. Beers, a Westinghouse engineer, died in 1998.
Survivors include two sons, John C. Beers and William R. Beers, both of Towson; two daughters, Elizabeth McCormick Lombardo of Towson and Eleanor B. Loeb of Avon, Conn.; nine grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
