Elizabeth G. Strohl

Elizabeth (Betty) Strohl died on February 6, 2023, age 102, of natural causes in Annapolis, Maryland. Born in Paterson, New Jersey, on March 3, 1920, she grew up in Hawthorne, New Jersey, the only child of George Guthrie Potterton and Ethel Frances (nee Edwards) Potterton. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wellesley College in 1940, the valedictorian of her class, majoring in English Literature and minoring in Art History. Upon graduation, she completed a course of study at the Katherine Gibbs School and secured a secretarial position in the Admissions Office at Columbia University in New York. At the outbreak of World War II, she became an admissions officer, and, like many women in the work force, had to return to a clerical position at the war’s end.

Betty met her husband, G. Ralph Strohl, Jr., in New York, where he was serving as faculty at the Columbia Midshipman Training School. They married in New York City on August 6, 1946. They moved to Annapolis, MD, in August 1947, when her husband began a 38-year career as a faculty member in the Mathematics Department of the U.S. Naval Academy. Having lost her father when she was 23, Betty and Ralph moved her widowed mother, Ethel, to Annapolis after the birth of their first child, ensuring that Ethel was always part of the family circle until her death in 1984. By the time their second child was born, in 1952, Betty and Ralph had built a home in the Wardour neighborhood of Annapolis, where they raised their family and lived until they moved to BayWoods of Annapolis in 2009.

In 1960, Betty returned to work as a member of the secretarial pool of the Office of the Governor of the State of Maryland. The majority of her working career was as a Personnel Specialist with the Anne Arundel County Board of Education, from which she retired in 1984. While working in the Board of Education, she undertook and completed a M.A. program in American Studies through the University of Maryland.

An important aspect of Betty’s life was travel – when her children were young, this involved criss-crossing the continent on summer car trips for the entire family, including visits to the Seattle World’s Fair, the Grand Canyon, Maine and the Canadian Maritime Provinces, San Francisco and New Orleans. Together, Betty and Ralph visited all fifty states. Post-retirement, she and Ralph became consummate world travelers, visiting England, much of the European continent, Japan and India.

After her retirement, Betty served for a number of years as a volunteer in the Women’s Auxiliary of the Anne Arundel County Hospital. She had a long-term involvement with the American Association of University Women and was a member of St. Martin’s Evangelical Lutheran Church for seven decades.

Betty was a voracious reader. She devoured treatises on the political history of different regions, and delved into the works of James Le Carre, William Faulkner, the mysteries of P.D. James, the English Romantic poets, and the Tudor playwrights, with equal fervor. She was a devoted member of a local book club, and she and her husband were subscribers to the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., for at least thirty years.

A lady of multiple talents, she was known as a gracious and exemplary hostess, steadfast friend, loving daughter, devoted mother, mother-in-law and grandmother. With a keen and elegant taste for color and style, Betty was an excellent seamstress, and her knitting and crochet talents were legendary. Many of her family and friends were the grateful recipients of her beautiful handwork. Betty spent her last years at BayWoods of Annapolis, where she garnered the love and admiration of the staff for her graciousness, playful ribbing, and kindness.

Mrs. Strohl is survived by her son, G. Ralph Strohl, III (Mrinalini Rao), her daughter, Rev. Jane Elizabeth Strohl, and grandchildren Rahula Rao Strohl (Claire Knežević), Katyayani Rao Strohl, and Lucy Rhome.

You are invited to share your memories of Betty. If you wish, in lieu of flowers, please support a charity of your choice in her memory.

Funeral services are private. Her memory is a blessing; may she rest in peace.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared with the family on this website.