Sandra J. Caplan, a former businesswoman who owned and operated a Mount Washington florist and clothing store and later became a founding member of New Directions for Women Inc., died Friday of pneumonia at Sinai Hospital.
The Cross Keys resident was 75.
Sandra Joan Axe was born in Philadelphia and raised in Lower Merion Township, Pa. After graduating in 1951 from Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, Pa., she attended Pennsylvania State University for a year.
In 1953, she married Martin Caplan, a Baltimore businessman, who later owned A-1 Cleaning Service, a home cleaning business. He died in 1999.
They settled in the Ranchleigh neighborhood of Northwest Baltimore, where they lived until the early 1970s, when they moved to a Bolton Hill townhouse that they had purchased and restored on W. Lanvale St.
Since 1999, she had lived at Cross Keys.
"She was known for her style and creativity and had an eye for design and a passion for creating beauty all around her. Her various homes became showcases for her talents," said Nancy Hooper Caplan, her daughter-in-law, of Owings Mills.
"After taking interior design, art and upholstering classes, she used her home as her canvas, repainting and redecorating as she learned new techniques," she said.
During the 1960s and into the early 1970s, Mrs. Caplan owned and operated two Falls Road businesses, House of Flowers, a florist, and the Lemon Tree, an "eclectic clothing store for young women," family members said.
When Mrs. Caplan was in her 40s, she returned to college and earned a bachelor's degree in sociology in 1974 from Antioch College.
After closing her businesses, she spent nearly the next three decades working as a community organizer and for several nonprofit agencies.
In the 1970s, Mrs. Caplan began volunteering at South East Community Organization, where she established Silver Threads, a senior women's craft organization.
"The sum of what she did at SECO was working with seniors. There were no senior day programs. They had no place to go and were stuck in their homes," said Ricki Baker, a cousin who lives in Homeland.
"Sandy was really ahead of her time. She had an idea and started a needlecraft program co-op, which brought senior women together. She took what they had knitted - sweaters, socks or caps - and sold them from carts at Harborplace," Ms. Baker said. "It helped give them an additional income."
