Beatrice K. Tracey, a retired registered nurse who enjoyed attending yard sales, died of pancreatic cancer Thursday at her Rodgers Forge home.
She was 77.
Beatrice Mary Kijewski, the daughter of a milkman and a homemaker, was born in Philadelphia and raised near Fairmount Park.
She was a 1949 graduate of Hallahan Catholic Girls High School and earned her nursing degree in 1952 from St. Joseph's Hospital School of Nursing in Philadelphia.
Mrs. Tracey worked as a nurse at the Philadelphia Children's Youth Study Center, which cared for troubled, abused and abandoned children.
She was married in 1956 to Francis Xavier Tracey, a salesman, and after living in Ohio, Georgia and New Jersey, settled on Hopkins Road in Rodgers Forge in 1975.
From 1987 until retiring in 1997, Mrs. Tracey was a nurse at the Baltimore County Detention Center on Kenilworth Avenue in Towson.
Mrs. Tracey volunteered at the weekly flea market held at St. David's Episcopal Church on Roland Avenue.
"She was an inveterate collector and yard sale prowler," her husband said.
She was particularly interested in antiques, paintings and books, her husband said.
She was a communicant of St. Pius X Roman Catholic Church in Rodgers Forge. Because her church is currently undergoing restoration, a memorial Mass will be offered at 10 a.m. Oct. 24 at Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church, Baltimore and Ware avenues, Towson.
Also surviving are two sons, Mark Tracey and Patrick Tracey, both of Baltimore; three daughters, Grace Anne Ridgeway of Chesapeake Beach, Mary Elizabeth Tracey of Parkton and Barbara Ayd of Bel Air; three brothers, Julian Kijewski of Charlotte, N.C., Joseph Kijewski of Denver and Stanley Kijewski of West Chester, Pa.; two sisters, Lillian Grill of Crownsville and Mary Luscko of Smyrna, Del.; and seven grandchildren.
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