Home Economics

When DeWitt Doss moved to Maryland in 2006 to accept his first teaching position with Baltimore City public schools, the Niagara Falls, N.Y., native wasn't looking to buy a home. His chief concern was educating young people. "I love helping the kids," says Doss, 26, who teaches physical education and health and coaches at Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts in West Baltimore. As his attachment to the students and the city grew, Doss - who'd been renting an apartment in Randallstown - began searching for a home of his own in Baltimore.

Like many couples, Patricia Ellinger and Antwon Hinkson had trouble agreeing on a name for their unborn child. He liked Marie, she wanted Alyssa. They argued and discussed for two days until deciding on Alyssa Marie. It seemed like the perfect compromise, Patricia said, and it was the first of many issues they would face. But, unlike most couples, their "baby" would be a 5-pound sack of flour. Patricia, a junior, and Antwon, a senior, aren't really a couple but are high school classmates who took part in a monthlong marriage-simulation project in their elective psychology class at Oakland Mills High School in Howard County.

Patricia B. Page, who retired in 1971 after 44 years as a home economics teacher at Douglass High School, died Thursday at Union Memorial Hospital of complications from Alzheimer's disease.Services for Mrs. Page, who was 87, were being held today at Union Baptist Church, 1219 Druid Hill Ave.Her husband, Dr. George C. Page Sr., died in 1961.She is survived by a daughter, Marguerite P. Peterson of Baltimore; two sons, Dr. George C. Page Jr. of Washington and Hugh R. Page Sr. of Baltimore; a brother, Ages L. Bryant of New York; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

In an era before many modern conveniences took hold in Howard County's agricultural households, homemakers clubs offered rural woman what amounted to home economics tips on time management and kitchen technique. One event took place through Aug. 20, 1928, a contest in which "home management agents" advised housewives on how to better arrange kitchens to eliminate wasted time in the preparation of meals. A vintage photograph shows a "rest and beauty corner" in one such kitchen - an indoor sink and stool, taking the place of bare table and water bucket.

Margie J. Harvey, a retired teacher of home economics and the Christian faith, died Tuesday in her sleep at the Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital. The West Baltimore resident was 75. Margie Jubilee was born in Accomack County, Va., in 1928 and was raised there until she moved to Turners Station as a teen-ager. She graduated from Sparrows Point High School in 1945. Mrs. Harvey earned her bachelor's degree in 1949 from then-Morgan State College and a master's degree in education from Loyola College.

Sister Georgia Mahon, a retired dietitian at the old St. Joseph's College, died Sunday of a stroke at Villa St. Michael, her order's retirement home in Emmitsburg. She was 85. The Baltimore native was born Loretta Geraldine Mahon on North Rose Street. She attended Seton High School in Charles Village and St. Joseph's High School in Emmitsburg before entering the Daughters of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious order, in 1934. She was given the name Sister Georgia. She earned a bachelor's degree in home economics from St. Joseph's College, where she was dietitian from 1959 until 1968.

Evelyn Motes Smith, a former home economics teacher in Baltimore schools and employee of Stewart's department store, died in her sleep Feb. 14 at Heron Point retirement community in Chestertown. She was 88. Mrs. Smith was born in Alabama and graduated from the University of Montevallo in Montevallo, Ala. She met her husband, Donald Willard Smith, at a USO party in Alabama. The couple settled in Baltimore, where Mr. Smith was raised. Mrs. Smith taught home economics at Woodburn Junior High School and later worked in the china department at Stewart's in Timonium.

Otyce Brown Froe, 80, a teacher and administrator with Baltimore schools, died Monday at Union Memorial Hospital of respiratory illness.Funeral services will be held at noon tomorrow in the Morgan Christian Center at Morgan State University.Mrs. Froe, a resident of Ivy Avenue in Morgan Park, was born in St. Matthews, S.C., and grew up in Washington. She graduated from Dunbar High School there and earned bachelor's and master's degrees in home economics from Howard University.zTC Mrs. Froe taught home economics and did administrative work in the Chicago, Ill., school system; Bluefield State College in Bluefield, W.Va.

Time was when home economics classes embraced the pursuit of the perfectly stitched apron and the crisp-but-not-burnt sugar cookie. But women like Betty Crocker don't teach home economics anymore. Deborah Sparks does. And now the class is called "Family and Consumer Sciences" in Anne Arundel County, "Family Studies" in Baltimore County, "Human Ecology" at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. Sparks, a teacher at Magothy River Middle School in Arnold, began her career when only girls took the class devoted to cooking and sewing and making a home.