Nell Gilmore Stanley

Nell was born at 3079 Scarborough Rd. Cleveland Heights, OH and attended Roxboro Elementary and graduated Hathaway Brown in 1961. As a teenager she co-founded a day camp for her neighbors' children. She was also part of group called The Cookie Club, comprised mainly of boys and she was the only girl. This club was what it sounded: it was all about eating Nell's mother's cookies and having fun rough-housing.

Nell went to Vassar on a $3,000 tuition and graduated in 1965 with Masters in French and English. She had to take a break for a year at Vassar and deal with the death of her father, William Kirkpatrick Gilmore aged 55 who died of heart disease from smoking. She went back to Vassar, and for her Masters in French, she spent a year abroad at University of Paris Sorbonne. When she stayed in France, she stayed with a French family that did not allow her to speak ANY English. Nell realized that this was not only the best way to learn a language, but also to learn the culture. Every time she traveled to Europe, she always stayed with a host family. It was her love of language that she would use that skill to later learn Russian in order to adopt her daughter. She then went to Columbia Theology Seminary and got another degree in Theology...for fun. While studying abroad and later on, she traveled Europe. She learned Italian so she could spend a year there and later in her life return back to it and stay with her Italian family.

She also tried for a year at Columbia Law School. At some point, she got her real estate license but did not pursue that career. Because she had a father for a banker, he often told her to never have debt in your life, so she worked hard during the summers at hospitals as a secretary to pay off her $3,000 tuition. She then went to University of Maryland School of Social Work to get a degree in Social Work. She was a social worker for a few years for Child Welfare in Baltimore City. While she worked for Baltimore City, she also volunteered to work for Baltimore's Public Housing Project where she organized tours for the public to visit ongoing renovation projects.

She pursued her English degree by teaching high school at Beumont School in Cleveland till job opportunities in Baltimore made her move there where she continued to teach English at St. Paul’s School for Girls, Mercy High School, and lastly Maryvale Preparatory School. During her years teaching at Mercy, she and her former husband in 1994 went to Russia to adopt a nine-year-old girl in Moscow named Svetlana, a pride and joy in her life. Nell wanted Svetlana to go to Friends, a Quaker school where she could learn Nell's ancestral Quaker values. Because Friends was too advanced for Svetlana, Nell thought it'd be best for her daughter to go to Dumbarton, where she could take English as a Second Language, but Svetlana by that point had caught up to her class. When Svetlana (Sveta) was 10, Nell wanted her daughter to meet people and learn math by having a neighborhood business where she could walk dogs and house sit while neighbors were away. Every year, till Sveta was in her late teens, she and Nell would make a business flyer and called it Sveta's At Your Service, and walked many blocks together to put this in peoples' mailboxes.

Nell quit Mercy, and continued at Maryvale for a year until she retired in 1999 to continue to help her daughter with her English and school. 1999 was also the year her mother Elizabeth Williams died at age 90 of cardiac arrest in her sleep. Like her mother, Nell had a lot of energy and could never stop doing things. She and Sveta and her former husband at the time lived on a 3- acre plot of land, where Nell spent a lot of her time gardening.

In 2002, Nell was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. Her loving daughter was by her side at all times from taking her to have her surgery to taking her back and giving her care while she recovered. When she recovered, she got right back on her feet and went right back to her 3-acre lot to garden. She even built a blue stone terrace right after finishing chemo and radiation. In addition, she also was part of Mount Vernon Club. She was involved in marketing for the Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage. She also for five years or so, volunteered at her church to teach elementary school kids at Roland Park Elementary how to read and write. She adored that job.

In 2006 she divorced and she and her daughter moved out of the 3-acre house in Ruxton to a Colonial townhouse community in North Homeland. Nell at this point was dealing with orthopedic issues, which she found out later was due to a parasitic infection. It was this infection that led her to be bed and room ridden for several years while she tried to recover from it. Her devoted daughter was always there by her side to make her feel better and comfortable. What Sveta believed was that Nell was a wonderful mother and teacher to her, that Sveta wanted to give that respect and kindness in return and be her devoted daughter just as Nell was to her as a mother.

At the end of her life, she and Sveta were ecstatic that she was almost there and healthy from her infection. Unfortunately, her genetic heart disease was always there and that ultimately what caused her death. Her wonderful daughter was with her as Nell passed away in her house. While she was ill, she never stopped thinking of others in how she could be helpful, even if those people lived across the country. Caring is all she thought she could do and it was her big heart (literally) that failed her.

A Celebration of Nell's life will be held in the LEMMON FUNERAL HOME OF DULANEY VALLEY INC., 10 W. Padonia Road (at York Road) Timonium, MD 21093 on Saturday, January 9 at 3pm.

View the service online at:

https://www.facebook.com/160118960675658/videos/458924438432797

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in Nell's name to the Maryland SPCA, 3300 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD 21211 and/or the Baltimore Humane Society, 1601 Nicodemus Road, Reisterstown, MD 21136.