Farewell

From the line at Zeke's Coffee beneath the Jones Falls Expressway Sunday morning, Misty Letz was doling out hugs and Christmas tidings. "Saddest day of the year," she said before reaching across the counter to embrace a barista. Letz had risen early to cram in a final trip to the Baltimore Farmers' Market before it closed its 36th season and left her and more than 5,000 other patrons without their weekly fix of fresh produce, treats and community. "You get to know these people," said Letz, 50. "I'll miss them.

Hearing that Baltimore's Edgar Allan Poe House was about to shut its doors, Connecticut graduate student Brooke Duffy jumped on a bus and headed south Friday morning. "It just really surprised me that the city would have cut off funding for something that was so well-known," Duffy, 27, said after snapping pictures outside the North Amity Street rowhouse that Poe called home in the 1830s. "I had been mapping out the places of Poe's life and trying to visit as many as possible. Coming to Baltimore was always one of the prime things on the list.

Even as relatives and friends held a funeral Monday to mourn a young mother killed by a stray bullet, Baltimore police pushed to solve a spate of killings that has left 10 dead in the past 10 days. Dozens of mourners passed the open casket of LaRelle Ashlyn Amos, the former high school honor student who was killed after a family party in the early morning hours of Sept. 2. Geron Mills, the man Amos had called "the love of my life," placed his hand on his own chest, then on hers. "I took my heart out and put it in there with her," Mills, the father of Amos' 1-year-old son, Geron II, said as he addressed more than 700 people at St. Stephens AME Church in Essex.

You can take Michael Phelps out of Baltimore. You can send him to his fourth Olympics. But what does he do during his downtime? "I've just been watching 'The Wire,'" Phelps said Wednesday, referring to the HBO show that is perhaps as famous a Baltimore export as he is. "I know, I never felt the need to watch it before because it was five minutes from where I live. " He'll be watching more TV on Friday night, but it will be the opening ceremonies for his final Games. Despite being the veritable face of the Olympics after his last two Games, he's never marched with the other athletes to open the quadrennial competition because the swimming events begin the following morning.

Saturday marked the end of the road to London for Katie Hoff, the former Towson-based swimmer who failed to match her dominating performance in the 2008 U.S. Olympic trials. After failing to qualify in the 200- and 400-meter freestyle races earlier in the week, she entered the 800-free knowing she likely would not advance, which she didn't. "I'm proud of myself for doing it," said Hoff, who said her coach Paul Yetter left it up to her whether to swim the event. "Obviously I wanted to be better.

The Greater Towson Committee's annual meeting, held Thursday, June 28, served as an appropriate end to the tenure of outgoing Executive Director Cindy Bledsoe. The meeting, which served as a farewell to Bledsoe after seven years of leading the Towson development group, was held inside Towson City Center, which towers over downtown Towson and will soon play host to offices, Towson University's College of Health Professions, and a white-table cloth restaurant. "I think it's very fitting tonight that we're in this place," she said.

Lesley Brown, who was the first mother to have a child via in vitro fertilization, has died, according to the Telegraph. The birth of her daughter Louise made history in 1978. Lesley died at age 64 after a brief illness. Sad news indeed -- she went through the procedures after nine years of trying to get pregnant on her own, according to MSNBC . As the mother of a 4-year-old son conceived through IVF, I'm so thankful for the bravery of the family and for the pioneering researchers, as well.

August 2009: Our second journey through Burleigh Manor Middle School began with our second daughter. Like most sixth graders, she was making a smooth and exciting transition, enjoying her new found independence, making new friends and most importantly by pre-teen standards, she was "under the radar. " December 2009: A day came which completely changed the course of our daughter's life. She fainted in school, the first of several episodes to come for the next three years. She was diagnosed with POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardic Syndrome)

Havre de Grace bid adieu to one of its best loved residents this week, as John Eugene "Jack" McLhinney was laid to rest Monday in Mt. Erin Cemetery. Mr. McLhinney died May 29 at age 85. He was the son of a former city mayor, the late Walter McLhinney, and a partner in the family's McLhinney's News Depot. He was active in civic and fraternal organizations, in particular the Susquehanna Hose Company where he was the oldest living member at the time of his death. He served 63 years with the volunteer fire company, finally going inactive in 2011.

Faith Child Development Center's pre-kindergarten class celebrated its graduation ceremony May 16. Colorful graduation hats decorated the bulletin board and graduation streamers hung from the ceiling. But the mood was far from cheerful after the event, as the staff of the school shut its doors to students and their families for the last time. On May 11, Faith Lutheran Church announced that Faith Child Development Center, which has offered classes for ages 2 through pre-k for 12 years, would not reopen next school year.