Jean E. Long, longtime Homeland resident
Jean E. Long, a homemaker and avid bridge player, died Tuesday from pneumonia at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. She was 82.
The daughter of Joseph Alban Eagers Sr., president of the Canton National Bank, and Mary Spurrier Eagers, a homemaker, the former Jean Eagers was born in Baltimore and raised near Lake Montebello and later in Guilford.
After graduating in 1951 from Mount St. Agnes High School, she enrolled at what is now Notre Dame of Maryland University. She studied economics for two years before leaving to work in the accounting department of the National Brewing Co.
During college summers, she had worked for the old State Roads Commission, and when the Chesapeake Bay Bridge opened in 1952, she “was in the first vehicle over the bridge and tossed coins to the opening day crowd from an ambulance,” said her daughter, Carol Long Mackay of Towson.
“In 2011 she was featured in a Maryland Public Television film that celebrated the 60th anniversary and history of the bridge,” said Ms. Mackay.
She left National Brewing Co. in 1956 when she married William A. Long, and the couple settled in Northwood. In 1972, they moved to Broadmoor Road in Homeland.
Mrs. Long was a former communicant of St. Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church in Govans.
She volunteered at St. Mary’s School, Govans, and was a member of the Notre Dame Council of the Women of the Knights of Columbus.
In addition to playing bridge, Mrs. Long enjoyed furniture restoration and sewing.
Her husband, who had been a Humble Oil Co. salesman and a longtime member of the Southern Lacrosse Officials Association, died in 2011.
A Mass of Christian burial for Mrs. Long will be offered at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, 5200 N. Charles St.
In addition to her daughter, she is survived by a son, Thomas Long of Blythe, Calif.; two brothers, Joseph Alban Eagers Jr. of Hilton Head, S.C., and William Harry Eagers of Canton; seven grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Two sons died before her: Michael Long in 1992; and Stephen Long in 2013.