Oakcrest

On December 6, 2003 MARY ELIZABETH (nee Hartmann) Betz, wife of the late Andrew Betz, aunt of Pamela Kerwin, Kathy K. Batchelor, Phyllis Velte-Jones, Charles A. Velte Jr., Michael, Mark, and Steven Velte, Myra Dubreuil, and Thomas Betz, sister of the late Philip A. Velte Jr., and Charles Velte. A Funeral Mass will be held at the Oakcrest Village Chapel on Wednesday at 2 P.M. Interment Gardens of Faith Cemetery.

On November 16, 2003, ANNA J. COOPER. Survived by Mary R. Hayes and many cousins and friends. Funeral Mass will be held on Thursday, 2 P.M. at Oakcrest Village Chapel. Visitation preceding service at 1 P.M. Arrangements made by CONNELLY FUNERAL HOME OF DUNDALK, P.A., 410-285-2900.

On Friday, October 10, 2003, ELSIE MAY SMITH, 77, at Oakcrest Care Center, formerly of Cumberland, MD, and residing in Parkville, MD. Born May 6, 1926, in Cumberland, she was the daughter of the late Russell Bowman and Bertha May (Thompson) Bowman. Retired from the Glen L. Martin Aircraft Company, Mrs. Smith was a member of the Church of the Association, Baltimore. She is survived by her husband, Owen C. Smith, Jr., a sister Phyllis M. Hovatter, Cumberland, and numerous nieces and nephews.

David R. Bert, a World War II veteran and longtime insurance manager and Lutherville resident, died Monday of heart and kidney disease at Oakcrest Village Care Center. He was 86. Born in New York City, he grew up in northern New Jersey, where he met Virginia Goossens. They married in 1944, when she took a train to meet him at his army base in Great Bend, Kan. Soon afterward, he was sent to the Pacific Theater with the 1915th Engineering Aviation Battalion and spent a year in Okinawa. The battalion was preparing to invade Japan when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war. "They were all so thankful at the time that they would not be heading for Japan," his wife said.