Ruth Walsh, an actress who appeared on local stages but was instantly recognized for her voice on the “More Parks Sausages, Mom” commercial she recorded decades ago, died of a respiratory condition Dec. 12 at Roland Park Place. She was 99.

The voice-over ad helped Parks Sausage become the first African American-owned firm listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It aired on radio stations from Boston to Virginia.

She almost never made the ad. She was in a recording studio when a child actor was slated to record the four-word Parks sausage commercial. He failed to do the voice work correctly, and someone asked if Walsh could do a child’s voice.

She stepped in and her tape was approved. The original line was “More Parks sausages, Mom,” spoken by a brash kid.

She added the word “please” after listeners complained that the ill-mannered kid was obnoxious.

Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, she was the daughter of Alma Myers, a nursing supervisor, and Raymond Lawson. She was an Ohio University honors graduate and yearbook editor.

She joined the staff of radio station WJIM in Lansing, Michigan. She read children’s stories and did family features on the air before moving to Clarksburg, West Virginia, where she married Robert V. Walsh. They both worked in AM radio and helped form a local community theater.

After coming to Baltimore in 1949, she worked in radio. She once interviewed future president Ronald Reagan during his General Electric Theater years.

A Democrat, she also accompanied first lady Eleanor Roosevelt at a meeting of Baltimore’s United Nations Association.

She joined a group of theater lovers who became the founders of Center Stage. She also performed widely and appeared as Reno Sweeney in a local summertime production of “Anything Goes” at the old Straw Hat Theater.

She had a role in “The Chrome Tree,” a topical comedy revue that made fun of short sketches on Nixon, the Vietnam War, environmental and racial issues, calling cops “pigs,” nuclear peril, the Baltimore “O” and Block strippers.

“Ruth was our leading lady in a company of eight,” said the revue’s writer and director, Stanley Heuisler. “We played at the Corner Theater on Howard Street.”

Theater director F. Scott Black recalled directing the Walshes in “The Magnificent Yankee,” a play about Oliver Wendell Holmes and his wife at the Vagabond Players in Fells Point.

“On stage and off, they were a delightful pair,” Black said, recalling how they helped the stage manager, a financially strapped college student. They set up an account for her at Jimmy’s restaurant on South Broadway so she could eat dinner each night before the show.

She and her husband became associated with Theatre Hopkins, where they acted together and separately in plays on the Homewood campus. He performed in “Queen After Death,” “Charley’s Aunt,” “The Cocktail Hour” and “The Seagull.”

Survivors include her sons, Dr. Eric Walsh, of Portland, Oregon, and Mark Walsh, of Chevy Chase; four grandchildren; and ten great-grandchildren. Her husband, a VanSant Dugdale executive, died in 2010.

A memorial service is being planned.

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