Memorial Service

Frank Martin Jr., a retired Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. supervisor and World War II veteran, died of an infection Nov. 1 at the Blakehurst Retirement Community in Towson. He was 94 and had lived in Canton. Born in Baltimore and raised in Mount Vernon, he attended the Calvert School and was captain of the cavalry at McDonogh School, where he graduated in 1936. After earning a degree in photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology, he joined the Navy and became a lieutenant in the air corps.

In the midst of one of many tributes to former state Sen. Clarence M. Mitchell III at his memorial service in an Upton church Sunday night, hundreds of family members, friends and fellow politicians broke out into an impromptu singing of the hymn "Lift Every Voice and Sing. " The message of the hymn, popularized during the civil rights movement, is one of steadfast devotion to liberty. Many who spoke during the hours-long service honoring the late legislative pioneer used their own voices to laud what they said was his same devotion.

A memorial service for former Maryland legislator Clarence M. Mitchell III, who died Thursday at age 72, will be held at 4 p.m. Sunday at Sharp Street Memorial Church, Dolphin and Etting streets. The family hour begins at 3 p.m. Mr. Mitchell, who became the nation's youngest black legislator when he was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates at age 22, helped steer a sweeping desegregation measure through the General Assembly. He was elected to the Maryland Senate in 1966 and served there through 1986.

Ethel May "Mickey" Gilliss, a retired elementary school teacher, died Sept. 18 of cancer at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson. She was 88. The daughter of a businessman and a homemaker, Ethel May "Mickey" Rankin was born in Buffalo, N.Y., and moved with her family to Salisbury in 1939, where she graduated from Wicomico High School in 1942. She was a 1944 graduate of the old St. Mary's Junior College, now St. Mary's College, and from what is now Salisbury University, where she earned her teaching certificate.

Anna G. "Ann" Reppert, a former Peck & Peck sales associate who later established a catering business, died Sept. 13 from complications of Alzheimer's disease at Oak Park Nursing Home in Auburn, Ala. The former Timonium resident was 88. Anna Lee Garton was born in Jane Lew, W.Va., and was raised in Buckhannon, W.Va., where she graduated from high school. In 1944, she married her high school sweetheart, Joseph S. Reppert, who had moved to Baltimore in 1941 when he took a job at the Calvert Distillery in Relay.

Marie S. Hall, a homemaker and former teacher's assistant, died Monday at Towson's Edenwald retirement community. She was 93. The daughter of farmers, Marie Story was born near Crumpton and was raised on her parents' farm. She was a 1935 graduate of Church Hill High School, and in 1940 she married Frederick Hall, also a farmer. She assisted him in his farming operations on their Barclay Road farm, now Hall Road. After her three children were grown in the late 1960s, Mrs. Hall worked for many years as a teacher's assistant for Queen Anne's County public schools.

Theodore "Ted" Moyer, a former Harford County Sheriff and a retired Maryland State Police major, died Monday evening at his Edgewood home. He was 83. A career law enforcement officer, who was known for his personable manner and considered a friend by many people throughout the county, Sheriff Moyer was also active for many years as a youth athletic coach in multiple sports and was an advocate for various parks and recreation programs in Harford County....

Peter Wyckoff Higgins, a landscape designer and owner of an outdoors construction firm, died Aug. 31 of complications from diabetes complications at his Reisterstown home. He was 64. Born in New York City and raised in Buck Hill Falls, Pa., and in Garden City on Long Island, he was a graduate of St. Paul's School in Garden City and earned a degree in botany from Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, N.C. Mr. Higgins moved to the Baltimore area in the late 1970s and initially worked in the advertising division of the Maryland News Co. More than 30 years ago, he founded Hemlock Landscaping, a business based in Reisterstown.

Armed with a small spade, 8-year-old Bradley Mills put all of his effort into digging up weeds outside the Children's Home in Catonsville. "Is this a weed, Mom?" he asked his mother, Michelle, as he prepared to drive the spade into the dirt on the Bloomsbury Avenue campus on Sept. 8. "Yes," she said. Down went the spade. Within a few minutes, out came the weed. On to the next one. For the third year in row, Mills and his mother weeded and planted new flowers and shrubs at the Catonsville residential care center as part of Christian Temple Christian Church's annual Respond to the Call - a day of community service dedicated to the victims of the Sept.

Charles "Chuck" Busnuk, a retired Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene grants writer, died of cancer Aug. 31 at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. He was 64 and lived in Canton. Born in Baltimore and raised in Highlandtown, he was a 1966 graduate of Archbishop Curley High School, where he played the cymbals in the school band. He earned a bachelor's degree in geography from Morgan State University. In 1970, he became a juvenile counselor for the Juvenile Services Administration.