Nell W. Stanley, private school educator

Nell W. Stanley, a retired private school educator who taught at several area private girls schools, died of cardiovascular disease Dec.

11 at Good Samaritan Hospital. The Bellona-Gittings resident was 77.

The former Nell Williams Gilmore, daughter of William Kirkpatrick Gilmore, a banker, and his wife, Elizabeth Williams Gilmore, was born and raised in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and was a 1961 graduate of the Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

Ms. Stanley was a 1965 graduate of Vassar College with a degree in English. She returned to the college and earned a master’s degree in French. In the mid-1960s, she enrolled at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and earned a degree in theology. She enrolled at the University of Maryland School of Social Work and earned a degree in social work. For several years she was a social worker for the City of Baltimore, focused on child welfare.

Ms. Stanley first taught English at the Beaumont School, a girls high school, in Cleveland Heights. In the 1980s she joined the faculty of St. Paul’s School for Girls as an English teacher. She subsequently taught at Mercy High School and Maryvale Preparatory School, from which she retired in 1999.

For about five years, she volunteered at Roland Park Elementary School, teaching reading. She also managed marketing for the Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage and was a member of the Mount Vernon Club.

The former Ruxton resident was an avid gardener and enjoyed working in her 3-acre garden plot.

She was a communicant of the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer.

A celebration-of-life service was held Jan. 9 at the Lemmon Funeral Home in Timonium.

She is survived by her daughter, Svetlana M. “Sveta” Stanley of Bellona-Gittings. Her marriage ended in divorce.