Edgewood Arsenal

William H. Shearin Sr., a World War II veteran who had been financial manager and comptroller at Edgewood Arsenal for many years and was a founder of the Arc of Baltimore, died Jan. 22 of pneumonia at St. Joseph Medical Center. The longtime Towson resident was 89. Mr. Shearin, the son of a coal mine superintendent and a homemaker, was born in Uniontown, Pa. He was raised in Point Marion, Pa., where his father headed the Davidson Connellsville Coal & Coke Co. mine. Beginning in high school, Mr. Shearin worked as a grocery store janitor and laborer in the coal mines, where he was paid 621/2 cents a ton for the coal he loaded into mine cars.

Raymond Kenneth Hebden, a retired aircraft inspector and foreman of mechanics at Westinghouse Electric Corp. and a World War II veteran, died Dec. 13 of complications from colon cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The longtime Roland Park resident was 88. Mr. Hebden was born in Baltimore and spent his early years in Cedarcroft. He later was raised in Elkridge, where his father was superintendent of Parkwood Cemetery and Meadowridge Cemetery. He graduated from City College in 1939, and enlisted in the Army Air Corps the next year.

Solomon "Sol" Love, former research director of Edgewood Arsenal's Detection Division of the Army Chemical Center and longtime Maryland Science Center volunteer who entertained the young and old alike, died of cancer Sept. 25 at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The longtime Northwest Baltimore resident was 93. The son of Russian immigrant parents, Dr. Love was born and raised on H Street in Washington. He was 15 when he graduated from Eastern High School. He earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1935 and his doctorate from the University of Maryland, College Park.

The need for an expanded ordnance proving ground gave Congress the authorization to take over and acquire for the United States war effort large tracts of land along the shoreline of Harford County. President Woodrow Wilson's first proclamation claiming the land was dated Oct. 16, 1917, but was amended on Dec. 14, 1917. Owners of land were given until Jan. 1, 1918, to vacate their properties. Some went willingly; others went grudgingly. John Cadwalader, owner of a mansion on Maxwell Point, was not happy, but delayed vacating his property while he tried to find other homes for his tenant farmers.

Edwin B. Lehnert, the retired owner of the truck equipment and repair firm his family founded as a carriage manufacturer in 1850, died in his sleep of a suspected heart ailment Nov. 6 at his Havre de Grace home. He was 82. The Baltimore native grew up on Frisby Street and in Stoneleigh and was an Eagle Scout. He was a 1941 Polytechnic Institute graduate whose studies at the Johns Hopkins University were interrupted by World War II. Drafted in late 1943, he attended Officer Candidate School at Edgewood Arsenal and was commissioned a second lieutenant a year later.

Joseph Epstein, a research chemist and former chief of defense research at Edgewood Arsenal, died of kidney failure Saturday at Northwest Hospital Center. He was 87. Born and raised in Philadelphia, the son of Polish immigrants, he earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1938 from Temple University in Philadelphia, his master's from the University of Pennsylvania in 1940, and a doctorate in 1966 from the University of Delaware. Dr. Epstein began his civilian career at the Army's Edgewood Arsenal in 1940, and during a 40-year career there became an acknowledged expert in chemical warfare, detoxification, treatment of contaminated water supplies and safe disposal of chemical weapons.

James E. Sutherland, a retired physical scientist and longtime Pylesville resident, died of cancer Monday at Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel Air. He was 79. Mr. Sutherland was born and raised in Miami, where he graduated in 1944 from Miami-Edison High School. He enlisted in the Navy in 1944 and served for the next two years in the North Atlantic as a sonarman aboard the destroyer USS Biddle. After the war, he attended Duke University for a year before enrolling at the University of Miami, where he earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1950.

July 1, 1971 could be seen as the official birthday of Aberdeen Proving Ground - the date on which the Edgewood Arsenal, the Army's former Chemical Center and the current chemical research and engineering center were merged into what's now known as APG, according to the U.S. Army Installation Management Agency's history of APG. "Although the mission functions remained separate entities, the real estate and base operations functions were joined together and...

On Sunday, July 3, 2005, in Salem, VA, THOMAS MICHAEL GUNTHER, JR., a retired Physical Science Administrator at Edgewood Arsenal. Mr. Gunther, whose great-grandfather, Michael, arrived in Baltimore from Bavaria before the Civil War, was born in the city in 1918. He was a graduate of Loyola High School and of Loyola College (Class of 1939). During the Second World War, he worked for the Naval Hydrographic Office in Washington, D.C. and served in the Pacific. In May 1946, National Geographic published an illustrated article on his ship's servicing of Arctic airbases.