Queen Victoria

Eurith E. Roop, a homemaker who as a young woman was personal secretary to the president of what is now Towson University, died Wednesday at the Roland Park Place retirement community. She was 99.Born and raised in Baltimore, the former Eurith Rose graduated from Eastern High School in 1917 and attended secretarial school.She was personal secretary to Lida Lee Tall, president of the Maryland State Normal School at Towson, for several years before her marriage at age 29 to Richard Roop, who worked in a family fertilizer business.

Queen Victoria is in a funk, and Britain is not amused.The year is 1864. Victoria's been queen for 26 years, but of more pressing import, she's been a widow for three. Ever since Prince Albert Saxe-Coburg-Gotha died of typhoid, Victoria's been holed in Windsor Castle, not seeing anyone, not governing, barely living. Britain is slipping into a constitutional crisis, support is growing for an end to the monarchy, and still Victoria fails to respond.Something needs to be done. And the man to do it is John Brown, a Scotsman who tended the Royal Family's horses when Albert was alive, befriending both him and his wife, the Queen.

Queen Victoria probably would not have been amused.Passing around one's corset for inspection by strangers simply was not done in the latter half of the 19th century.But 10 women, being introduced to Carroll County Farm Museum and its volunteer opportunities while enjoying a lesson in Victorian social graces and customs, were quite curious as 14-year-old Nicole Schott handed over a corset she was modeling for a closer look.Nicole, a member of three 4-H clubs, was demonstrating how women of the 1800s dressed "from the inside out," starting with the chemise, adding drawers, the hoop and petticoat, the corset, undersleeves and finally, the skirt and bodice.

When she took the throne of England in 1837 at the age of 18, Queen Victoria gave birth to an era -- a style of architecture named for her because of the elaborate and ornate structures which were built during her reign.It is an architectural style of great detail, from the intricate gingerbread woodwork on wraparound porches to the magnificent iron finials perched atop witches' hat turrets, Victoriana is a genre with many enthusiasts."Victorian architecture" is a bit of a catch-all term used to describe several different styles, and tends to include buildings constructed between 1865 and the very early 1900s.

Queen Victoria Jones began working as a domestic when she was a teen-ager and rarely missed a day of work.After she retired at 85, she took in laundry to keep busy."

Shop owner finds charm in impostor jewelryMolly Golden has a penchant for collecting the old, the beautiful and the unique. This passion led to her opening American Pie, an antiques store in Fells Point, and stocking it with, among other things, vintage costume jewelry.With no cheap trinkets, her eclectic collection of antique and nostalgic costume jewelry is well known among Baltimore-area collectors, and includes anything from mounted rhinestones to Victorian mourning jewelry -- black jewelry worn to show support for the widowed Queen Victoria -- to Italian mosaic pins made of painted crystal.

A view of the palaceA new pedestrian viewing area was completed last month outside Buckingham Palace in London. The $3.8 million project involved the rerouting of traffic to create a triangular haven for tourists between the palace and the Queen Victoria Memorial. New traffic lights and more pedestrian crossings have also been installed.The changes were prompted by a report last year by the Royal Parks Review Group, which highlighted the conflict between traffic and pedestrians. It described the chaos around the palace as a "national disgrace."

God love him. Dr. Benjamin M. Spock, the pediatrician whose book "Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care" sold 40 million copies in 39 languages, is still reflecting, teaching and writing at age 91. His latest work, "A Better World for Our Children," decries America's moral and spiritual deterioration and offers ideas -- some very specific and practical -- to reverse the trend.As many remember, Dr. Spock is more than just a world-famous pediatrician. He worked for the nuclear test ban treaty in 1962, spoke out against our action in Vietnam and was arrested, tried and convicted for conspiring to counsel, aid and abet resistance to the draft.

LONDON -- "They're cheering in Baltimore," said Christie's specialist when the auctioneer knocked down Queen Victoria's personal dental tools to Baltimore's National Museum of Dentistry for 14,000 pounds.They sure were. The dental museum in Baltimore had long coveted these royal picks, mirrors, scrapers and scalers."They rank in importance with George Washington's teeth," museum director Ben Z. Swanson said in Baltimore, where he and others participated in the bidding by telephone.The dental museum already owns a pair of the first president's fake choppers.

WE ARE not amused," said Queen Victoria. She only said it to send Prince Albert right up the wall. "You know I can't stand it when you lay that royal we on me," said Prince Albert."It is not our fault, dear Albert, that we are a royal we whilst you, being a mere prince consort, are but an I," observed Queen Victoria.Poor vexed Albert knew what un-amused her. It was baseball. Prince Albert's passion for baseball was a royal scandal. It had shocked drawing rooms from Belgravia to Cowes, where the regatta was held, as Queen Victoria had to remind Prince Albert every time she said, "You and we must rise and go to Cowes now."