Guidance Counselor

Esther "Penny" Love, a Baltimore public school guidance counselor for nearly 40 years who was an outspoken advocate for emotionally challenged and dyslexic students, died Monday of lung cancer at Sinai Hospital. She was 89. Esther Shulman, whose parents owned a dry-goods store in the 2900 block of O'Donnell St., was born and raised in Canton. She graduated from Patterson High School in 1941. The summer after graduating from high school, she took a job washing test tubes in the detection laboratory at Edgewood Arsenal, under the direction of Solomon "Sol" Love, and earned his ire when she dipped the wrong end of a pipette in bleach.

Ruth M. Land, a retired Baltimore public schools guidance counselor, died April 26 of complications from dementia at Union Memorial Hospital. She was 93. The daughter of farmers, Ruth Margaret Williams was born and raised in Ocala, Fla. After graduating in 1935 from Howard Academy in Ocala, she attended Florida A&M University and earned a bachelor's degree in 1939 from West Virginia State University. In 1940, she entered Howard University to study for a master's degree in education, but withdrew on the eve of World War II to take a job as a residence hall director at what is now Hampton University.

Tonight's Ceremonial First Pitch will be thrown by Perry Hall guidance counselor Jesse Wasmer, who will be accompanied by Perry Hall student Daniel Borowy. On Aug. 27, after Borowy was shot in the back by another student in the school cafeteria, Wasmer responded quickly and bravely to tackle the gunman, preventing further injury to anyone else.

Helen B. Wolfe, an outspoken advocate of women's rights who also had been a member of the faculty of McDaniel College for more than a decade, died March 5 from cancer at Carroll Hospice Center's Dove House in Westminster. She was 79. With a head of thick white hair, flashing porcelain-blue eyes and an outsized personality, Dr. Wolfe made an instant and lasting impression on those she met, friends said. "When she came to the college, she had already had a distinguished career and in that sense showed a lot of the younger women the variety of roles she had undertaken," said Joan Develin Coley, who retired as president of McDaniel College in 2010.

Maria Lee Garitee, a retired guidance counselor whose work with handicapped children went far beyond her school duties, died Friday at her home in Towson after a five-year battle with cancer. She was 64.An educator in Baltimore County for 33 years, Mrs. Garitee committed her life to helping others, said her daughter Meridith Muehleib of Fairfax Station, Va."She wasn't satisfied to just get her handicapped students through school, she also worked hard to prepare them for the community and job market after graduating," Mrs. Muehleib said.

Robert J. Hewes, 64, teacher, guidance counselor Robert J. Hewes, who worked for 30 years in Anne Arundel County schools as a high school history teacher, then a guidance counselor, died of pancreatic cancer Friday at his Pasadena home. He was 64. Born in Baltimore and raised in Linthicum Heights, Mr. Hewes was a 1955 Brooklyn Park High School graduate. He earned a bachelor's degree from what is now Towson University and a master's degree in counseling from the Johns Hopkins University.

Grayce E. Sadofsky, a retired school guidance counselor and former registered nurse, died Tuesday of pulmonary disease at her Cape St. John home, near Annapolis. She was 81. Miss Sadofsky was born in Baltimore, the daughter of German immigrant parents, and graduated in 1938 from Western High School. She was a graduate of the old South Baltimore General Hospital School of Nursing, then earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland School of Nursing in the early 1940s. Miss Sadofsky taught practical nursing at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School (Mervo)

Anna Baginski, who served in the Navy as a nurse at the end of World War II and later worked as a school guidance counselor in Baltimore County for 20 years, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease Oct. 30 at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. She was 87. Anna Spock was born in Kulpmont, Pa., to parents who had emigrated from Ukraine. She attended public schools in the town and, upon graduating from high school, went to the Geisinger School of Nursing in Danville, Pa. She graduated in 1942 and taught at the school for a few years before joining the Navy Nurse Corps in early 1945.

Sidney Mossovitz, a Carroll Community College administrator and former Baltimore County public schools educator, died Wednesday night at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center after he and a friend were struck by a car in Pikesville. He would have been 56 yesterday.The Chambersburg, Pa., native moved his family to Maryland to become a teacher.He taught history and social studies at Baltimore County schools before becoming a guidance counselor at Old Court Junior High School.He became vice principal at Randallstown High School in 1977, and held the same position at Pikesville High from 1991 to 1994.

Hazel H. Parks, a retired guidance counselor who was active in her sorority, died Thursday of a hemorrhagic stroke at her West Baltimore home. She was 82. Born Hazel Harrell in Timmonsville, S.C., she moved to Baltimore as a child and graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in 1944. She earned a bachelor's degree in education at Morgan State University and had a master's degree at the University of Rhode Island. She taught at the old Public School No. 1 on Greene Street and Calverton Middle School, and was later assigned to public school headquarters.

Brother Patrick Ellis, a member of the Christian Brothers who served as president of La Salle University and Catholic University of America, died Feb. 21 of leukemia at a Christian Brothers nursing home in Lincroft, N.J. The Baltimore native was 84. Born and raised Harry James Ellis Jr. in Baltimore, he was a graduate of Calvert Hall College High School. When he was 17, he worked in the library of The Baltimore Sun as a research clerk and won praise from H.L. Mencken, who was writing an obituary for the American novelist Theodore Dreiser in 1945.

Nelda K. Biasi, a retired Baltimore public school physical education teacher and counselor, died Jan. 25 from heart failure at Heartlands Nursing Home in Severna Park. She was 96. The daughter of farmers, the former Nelda Kalar was born in Kerens, W.Va., and later moved with her family to a Carroll County farm. After graduating from Carroll County High School in 1934, she earned a nursing degree in 1938 from the University of Maryland School of Nursing. "She worked her way through Western Maryland College while working as a nurse at the college, where she earned her bachelor's degree in education in 1941," said a niece, Barbara K. Jett of Sherwood Forest.

Tonight's Ceremonial First Pitch will be thrown by Perry Hall guidance counselor Jesse Wasmer, who will be accompanied by Perry Hall student Daniel Borowy. On Aug. 27, after Borowy was shot in the back by another student in the school cafeteria, Wasmer responded quickly and bravely to tackle the gunman, preventing further injury to anyone else.

Esther "Penny" Love, a Baltimore public school guidance counselor for nearly 40 years who was an outspoken advocate for emotionally challenged and dyslexic students, died Monday of lung cancer at Sinai Hospital. She was 89. Esther Shulman, whose parents owned a dry-goods store in the 2900 block of O'Donnell St., was born and raised in Canton. She graduated from Patterson High School in 1941. The summer after graduating from high school, she took a job washing test tubes in the detection laboratory at Edgewood Arsenal, under the direction of Solomon "Sol" Love, and earned his ire when she dipped the wrong end of a pipette in bleach.

The father of a Perry Hall High School student shot on the first day of school in Baltimore County told parishioners at his church on Sunday that his son is "pretty darn close to the road to recovery," and implored parents and children to watch for warning signs among teens to help prevent future incidents. "We as parents, it is our responsibility to know what our kids are doing. You don't have to be intrusive or anything like that, but we should know what our kids are doing," said Daniel Borowy's father Milton Borowy, who spoke to the fellow parishioners at the Perry Hall Family Worship Center.

Robert F. Fanto, a retired longtime Baltimore County public schools guidance counselor, died of cancer Wednesday at his Timonium home. He was 80. The son of a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad machinist and a homemaker, Mr. Fanto was born in Cumberland and raised in Piedmont, W.Va., and Keyser, W.Va. After graduation in 1949 from Keyser High School, he enlisted in the Navy. He served as a radioman to the commander of the 2nd Fleet in the Atlantic until being discharged in 1953.

Steve Leonard Morris, a high school guidance counselor, collapsed and died Friday of a heart attack at Howard County's Long Reach High School. The Ellicott City resident was 48. "He was the epitome of the solid guidance counselor and a very important part of our learning environment. There's not a person, either faculty or student, who did not like Steve," said Long Reach Principal Ed Evans. "He was a fatherly figure who always made you feel like you were the most important person around, that your well-being was more important than his own. He was a truly nice and loving man."

Warren Allison Ledford, a retired Baltimore public schools guidance counselor and teacher, died of complications related to prostate cancer Monday at his Perry Hall home. He was 84. Born in Baltimore, he was a 1939 graduate of Gaithersburg High School. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1943 from what was then Western Maryland College and a master's degree in education in 1952 from the Johns Hopkins University. Before beginning his teaching career, Mr. Ledford was an occupational counselor for the Army and a metallurgist at Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point plant.

The Rev. Thomas Walsh, a Franciscan friar and pastor of a Rosedale congregation who had been the longest-serving Archbishop Curley High School religious faculty member, died of a heart attack Saturday at Union Memorial Hospital. He was 60. The pastor of the Roman Catholic Church of the Annunciation, he had spent more than 25 years as a teacher and guidance counselor at the Northeast Baltimore boys school, which will be closed Friday to honor his life and to allow students to attend his funeral.

Wearing just their T-shirts and underwear, Christina Means and her family escaped from a house fire that struck in the middle of the night. They watched the Rosedale house burn in the cold December air and waited for the firetrucks, wrapped in the one blanket Means had grabbed when the smoke detectors had sounded and her boyfriend had shouted that he saw flames out the window. "We were so scared, we just ran out," Means said. "No shoes, no socks. " In the next 48 hours one thing became clear: All their possessions were burned or water-damaged, and a lapsed renters' insurance policy meant they were going to have to start over.