Betty Whelan

Mary Elizabeth "Betty" Whelan, a retired registered nurse who served in the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps during World War II and later was a religious education teacher, died on September 30 of pneumonia at Anne Arundel Medical Center following a five-month struggle with cardiopulmonary disease. She was 90. Born Mary Elizabeth Malstrom, she was one of 10 children of the late William and Jeannette Malstom raised in the Greenmount neighborhood of Baltimore City. A member of St. Ann’s Catholic parish, she graduated from the Institute of Notre Dame, earned her RN degree at Mercy Hospital School of Nursing and attended Mt. St. Agnes College in Mount Washington. In 1949 she married J. Stuart Whelan Jr. and moved to Annapolis, where she lived until her death. Following her husband’s death in 1996, she served as a teacher at St. Mary’s Parish CCD Sunday school program, and was a member of Catholic Daughters of the Americas and Bethany Bereavement. She participated in a prison outreach program directed by the School Sisters of Notre Dame. Her hobbies included baking, reading, word puzzles, movies and writing poetry. As a baker, her chocolate chip cookies were her signature product, regarded by many people as the best they ever tasted, according to her family and friends. She is survived by four daughters, Jeanne Fitzgibbon of Baltimore; Kathleen Strackbein, Donna Miles and Lisa Moore, all of Annapolis; and a son, Richard Whelan of Crownsville. She is also survived by two brothers, William J. Malstrom Jr. and Gus Malstrom; and two sisters, Kathleen Malstrom, SSND, and Dolly Preis. She is also survived by 16 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Friends and family may call at the John M. Taylor Funeral Home in Annapolis on Sunday, October 5, from 2-4 and 6-8 p.m. A Mass of Christian burial will be held at St. John Neumann Catholic Church, 620 N. Bestgate Road in Annapolis, on Monday, October 6, at 9 a.m. Interment will follow at Veterans Cemetery in Crownsville.