Fort Holabird

Services for Gertrude Neale, a retired procurement official at old Fort Holabird in Southeast Baltimore, will begin with a noon family hour Saturday at Union Memorial United Methodist Church, 2500 Harlem Ave., where she had been a member for more than five decades. Mrs. Neale, 89, died of Alzheimer's disease Dec. 30 at the home of a son in Baltimore. She had lived in the Ashburton neighborhood for many years. Born Gertrude Mattie Louise Bagwell in Spartanburg, S.C., she was a graduate of North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro.

Grizell T. Parsons, a retired civilian employee of the Army Intelligence Command and a neighborhood activist, died Sept. 4 of a cerebral hemorrhage at her West Baltimore home. She was 88. The former Grizell Haynie was born and raised in Heathsville, Va., where she attended Northumberland County, Va., public schools. After graduating from Julius Rosenwald High School, she attended Virginia Union College. She moved to Baltimore in the 1940s and went to work at the old Glenn L. Martin Co. in Middle River, and later at Western Electric Corp.

In the days since the Oklahoma City bombing, employees of the Defense Investigative Service at Fort Holabird have been filling a plastic pretzel jar with money to send to the families of five agency workers lost in the explosion.So far, they've collected $1,100, plus $1,200 from the sale of ribbons of remembrance -- clusters of yellow, white, blue and purple strands similar to those worn by President and Mrs. Clinton at last Sunday's memorial service in Oklahoma City.When the idea of selling the ribbons was proposed, William A. Hughes, the DIS chief in Baltimore, thought it was great, according to Susan Marshall, a project manager at the Baltimore center.

Mary Charlotte Sneeringer, a retired Army intelligence worker, died of respiratory failure May 20 at her Mayfield home. She was 95. Born Mary Charlotte Nash in Baltimore, she attended the old St. Katherine's Commercial School in East Baltimore. She did modeling for the Hecht Co. as a young woman. After raising a family, she became an Army civilian employee. She worked at the Intelligence Command at Fort Holabird and was trained as an adjudicator for security clearances. She rose to the GS-12 level and received numerous performance awards.

A Baltimore County church's plan to open a drug and alcohol treatment center for homeless men at the former Fort Holabird was dealt a setback yesterday when the U.S. Senate approved a bill giving opponents a greater say in the dismantled base's fate.Joann Tepper, who has organized neighborhood opposition to the treatment center, was "ecstatic" about the legislation. She said it increases area residents' chances of blocking the plan submitted by Nehemiah House Inc., a nonprofit corporation controlled by Towson's Rock Church.

Defense Investigative Services, a Department of Defense agency forced to pull more than 450 jobs out of the city because of the Fort Holabird military base closing, will debut its new quarters today near Baltimore/Washington International Airport.The DIS shift to two buildings in the Airport Square office complex in Linthicum marks one of the largest office moves in the Baltimore area this year."One of the things that made the buildings so attractive to us were the defense-oriented improvements and security measures already in place," said DIS spokesman Dale Hartig, regarding the former National Security Agency offices.

Mary Charlotte Sneeringer, a retired Army intelligence worker, died of respiratory failure May 20 at her Mayfield home. She was 95. Born Mary Charlotte Nash in Baltimore, she attended the old St. Katherine's Commercial School in East Baltimore. She did modeling for the Hecht Co. as a young woman. After raising a family, she became an Army civilian employee. She worked at the Intelligence Command at Fort Holabird and was trained as an adjudicator for security clearances. She rose to the GS-12 level and received numerous performance awards.

Doris C. Margulis, a Baltimore actress who during the 1960s and early 1970s trained Special Forces troops in interrogation at the Army's old Fort Holabird in Dundalk, died Nov. 27 of cancer at the North Oaks retirement community in Pikesville. The former Mount Washington resident was 95. The daughter of a cigar maker and a homemaker who later owned a grocery store, Doris Crane was born in Baltimore and raised on Smallwood Street. After graduating from Western High School in 1932, she went to work as a stenographer and typist for Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. and later for several lawyers.

A raging fire that destroyed two empty warehouses at Fort Holabird in Southeast Baltimore yesterday was "very, very suspicious" in origin and may have been set, said Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres. Investigators were still trying late yesterday to determine the cause of the five-alarm fire that burned down buildings once used as centers to train U.S. spies. Nobody was hurt in the fire, which began at 11:20 p.m. Thursday and ended about 2 a.m. yesterday. The windowless buildings, which had many uses over the years, stood next to former Army barracks and an intake center.

Thomas Townsend "Townie" Hoen, who was the last president of the noted Baltimore lithographic firm of A. Hoen & Co. and inventor of the Plimpton Ball, died Saturday of lung cancer at his Owings Mills home. He was 76. The son of a neurosurgeon and a homemaker, Mr. Hoen was born in Montreal, Quebec, and raised in Cedarhurst, N.Y. After graduating in 1952 from Kent School in Kent, Conn., he attended Le Rosey in Rolle, Switzerland, for a year. He was a 1957 graduate of Middlebury College and served in Army intelligence at Fort Holabird and in Rochester, N.Y. He settled in Baltimore in 1960 and went to work for A. Hoen & Co., which had been founded in Baltimore in 1835, becoming its president six years later.

Doris C. Margulis, a Baltimore actress who during the 1960s and early 1970s trained Special Forces troops in interrogation at the Army's old Fort Holabird in Dundalk, died Nov. 27 of cancer at the North Oaks retirement community in Pikesville. The former Mount Washington resident was 95. The daughter of a cigar maker and a homemaker who later owned a grocery store, Doris Crane was born in Baltimore and raised on Smallwood Street. After graduating from Western High School in 1932, she went to work as a stenographer and typist for Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. and later for several lawyers.

Thomas Townsend "Townie" Hoen, who was the last president of the noted Baltimore lithographic firm of A. Hoen & Co. and inventor of the Plimpton Ball, died Saturday of lung cancer at his Owings Mills home. He was 76. The son of a neurosurgeon and a homemaker, Mr. Hoen was born in Montreal, Quebec, and raised in Cedarhurst, N.Y. After graduating in 1952 from Kent School in Kent, Conn., he attended Le Rosey in Rolle, Switzerland, for a year. He was a 1957 graduate of Middlebury College and served in Army intelligence at Fort Holabird and in Rochester, N.Y. He settled in Baltimore in 1960 and went to work for A. Hoen & Co., which had been founded in Baltimore in 1835, becoming its president six years later.

Theodore M. "Ted" Abrams, a retired advertising executive, died April 7 of pneumonia at St. Joseph Medical Center. The Timonium resident was 78. The son of a vaudeville actor and a homemaker, Mr. Abrams was born and raised in New York City, where he was a 1950 graduate of Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx. He enlisted in the Army Intelligence Corps and served as a clerk/typist at the old Fort Holabird in Baltimore. After being discharged in 1954, he remained in Baltimore and went to work the next year as a beer salesman for the old American Brewery.

There are no cobwebs in the grand attic of Maryland history housed at the Central Enoch Pratt Free Library. Jeff Korman, its manager, has the answers to obscure points of local fact based upon a well-organized, rich and deep inventory of newspaper clips, old photos and printed materials. He has created an informal talk, "Life in Maryland during World War II," which he'll be giving next week at the Village Learning Place in Charles Village. He is bringing some portable treasures from his collections, wartime food ration books and photos of Liberty ships at Fairfield.

The makers of "The Men Who Stare At Goats" have planted this epigraph before the movie: "More of this is true than you would believe." But I heard one young man emerging from a preview saying, "I don't think any of this is true." After all, who in their right mind would buy a story about a visionary Army officer embracing Eastern martial arts and West Coast encounter sessions, then recruiting new American fighting men who would "fall in love with everyone," "sense plant auras," "attain the power to pass through objects such as walls," "have out-of-body experiences" and "be able to hear and see other people's thoughts"?

There are no cobwebs in the grand attic of Maryland history housed at the Central Enoch Pratt Free Library. Jeff Korman, its manager, has the answers to obscure points of local fact based upon a well-organized, rich and deep inventory of newspaper clips, old photos and printed materials. He has created an informal talk, "Life in Maryland during World War II," which he'll be giving next week at the Village Learning Place in Charles Village. He is bringing some portable treasures from his collections, wartime food ration books and photos of Liberty ships at Fairfield.

I had a fortunate war. I got as far as Dundalk Avenue, where the fighting wasn't too rough, and rode the bus into Fort Holabird where they lined up thousands of us in our underwear and grabbed everybody who didn't have a suitable excuse not to be grabbed.It was the meanest winter in memory. In Vietnam, there was a blood bath known as the Tet Offensive. On television every night, the generals talked about light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel kept getting blown up. At Fort Holabird, they threw a few hundred of us draftees into a big room and told us to shut up.Some wise guys ignored the command.