Alma Elizabeth Meagher, the matriarch of her family who led a Christmas gift and meal donation program, died of heart failure Jan. 28 at Brightview Senior Living in Towson. The former North Baltimore resident was 97.

Born in Baltimore and raised on East 28th Street, she was the daughter of Richard Duvall, a merchant mariner, and Gertrude Wilkinson, an administrative assistant.

She attended Blessed Sacrament School, Seton High School and Mount Agnes College, where she played field hockey and basketball. She was later named its Alumna of the Year.

She met her future husband, Francis “Franny” Meagher, at a school dance. They married on Memorial Day in 1950. The couple initially lived next to Pennsylvania Station to permit him to commute to Georgetown University School of Law School and enable her to take a streetcar to the nearby Hospital for the Women of Maryland, where she was a medical technologist.

They lived on Ailsa Avenue in Lauraville and later in Homeland, where Mrs. Meagher co-organized and ran an annual Adopt-a-Family effort to connect families with baskets of Christmas gifts and holiday meals.

“On the Adopt-a-Family collection days, the line of cars waiting to drop off boxes of gifts and meals would snake around the cathedral parking lots,” her son Brendan Meagher said. “It became a huge drive. My mother tried to personalize the gift-giving. She was proud of getting it off the ground and that she’d inspired people to volunteer. The annual event took on a life of its own.”

Mrs. Meagher also founded and coached girls soccer and basketball teams at Cathedral School and was a volunteer with its Girl Scout troop.

She prepared a weekly casserole for Our Daily Bread. She also provided child care to Vietnamese refugee parents attending English language classes and was active in the ministry of Saint Ambrose Housing Aid Center.

Mrs. Meagher and her husband supported Chimes Industries, Forward Visions and the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, organizations that had nurtured the development and mainstreaming of their daughter Mary, who had been born with Down syndrome.

“My mother was a soft-spoken matriarch of a sprawling family,” her son said. “She hosted Christmas, Easter and Labor Day feasts for her direct descendants and in-laws,” her son said. “She was inventive and could stretch a dollar. Her lasagna and crab soup were legendary.”

She remembered her family’s birthdays and wedding anniversaries with cards and gifts. She liked attending her extended family’s sports and school events.

Survivors include three sons, Francis J. Meagher Jr., of Allentown, Pennsylvania, J. Patrick Meagher, of Amherst, Massachusetts, and Brendan A. Meagher, of Baltimore; five daughters, Margaret M. Stringer, of Towson, Brigid E. Meagher, of Saint Peters, Pennsylvania, Mary Rebecca Heininger, of York, Pennsylvania, Sheila M. Gemignani, of Arroyo Grande, California, and Moira B. Kukla, of Charleston, South Carolina; 27 grandchildren; and 34 great-grandchildren.

Her husband, attorney Francis J. Meagher, died in 2022. Her daughters Mary K. Meagher and Daria E. Filippelli died in 2003 and 2019, respectively.

A memorial Mass for Mrs. Meagher will be held at 10 a.m. April 24 at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen at 5200 N. Charles St.

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