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Ellen R. Brown, 84, who served for 30 years as a church secretary, died June 29, 2013, of complications from dementia. She was in Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson.

In 1973 she took a job as church secretary at the old St. John's UMC on Harford Road in Hamilton, where she served six ministers during her nearly 30-year tenure.

"She was my secretary for eight or 10 years, when we were near Lauraville at Harford Road and Iona Terrace," said the Rev. Hugh R. Nash, retired from the church, which is now located in Perry Hall. In 1992, she began working as church secretary at Zion United Church of Christ, which she joined.

With her husband they cared for the historic Northeast Baltimore chapel, St. John’s UMC in Hamilton. She also served as a voluntary Sunday school teacher and superintendent and was a member of the United Methodist Women. She made crafts that were sold at church fundraisers.

Brown was also a Cub Scout leader and a Baltimore Sun newspaper distributor, which she operated from her home, overseeing dozens of newspaper carriers, including her children.

The daughter of an accountant and a homemaker, Ellen Rothgeb was born in Luray, Va., in 1927. She graduated in 1945 from Luray High School, and moved to Baltimore to attend Strayer's Business College.

She met Edwin "Bud" Brown, a Marine who later served in Japan. "They wrote to each other every day he was gone, and when he returned, he visited her in Luray every other weekend, taking a bus or hitchhiking from Baltimore," said a daughter, Barbara Panowitz of Bel Air. The couple married in 1948 and had five children.

Brown worked from 1948 to 1952 for the Social Security Administration.

In addition to her church work, Brown was a member of a volunteer group called the "Merry Gals," which sponsored several patients at the old Rosewood State Hospital in Owings Mills. She and her husband mentored a developmentally disabled couple that allowed them to live independently, her daughter said.

She was predeceased by her husband.

Survivors include Panowitz,Sharon Keeler, Steven Brown, Paul Brown and Bryan Brown; and eight grandchildren.