2K.  Elizabeth Gertrude Linz was born in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A., on Tuesday, December 15, 1931. Walter John Gilbert was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, U.S.A., on Tuesday, April 26, 1938. They were married in Rockland United Methodist Church, Ellicott City, Maryland, on Saturday, March 19, 1977. She took the name Elizabeth Gertrude Gilbert. She took the married name of Betty Linz Gilbert. She is the daughter of Conrad Julius and Anna Mary (Telljohann) Linz. He is the son of Truman Judson and Dorothy Aileen (Galbreath) Gilbert. They had no children.


Walter and Betty Gilbert
September, 2000
As a child born into a family with already ten older brothers and sisters, and three more that followed immediately, Betty has a generous supply of childhood memories. More than once she recalls being discovered next door in Grandma Linz's cupboard, her face smeared with home-made jam. And Grandma Linz urging her down from the outside steps to the second floor of the house: "Betty, Betty, you fall de steps down" in her residual German accent. And sampling her father's maturing wine, assisted by a long straw and the seclusion of the closet under the stairs where it was kept. And sleeping in a room with seven other sisters, four per bed: two at the top and two at the bottom. And begging her younger sisters to tickle her feet, a sensation she found pleasurable and relaxing into adulthood.

Betty's December birthday was close to the date which determined which year she could start kindergarten; she would have to wait a year. However, one fall day while walking past the school to the candy store, the kindergarten teacher, Sister Panphelia, called out her window that she had an empty seat and that Betty should come to school. Betty ran home and told her mother. Freshly combed and polished, she started school that day, taking advantage of the generous quantity discount in tuition offered by the Church. She graduated from the eighth grade and two years later graduated from St. Michael's Business School. Unable to find a satisfactory job because she was still only 16 years old, a scholarship was found for her to attend Villa Gulie, a school for medical secretaries. However, her scholarship was withdrawn in mid term when it was realized that she had not graduated from high school.

Another scholarship was found for Betty to attend high school at Holy Angels Academy in Fort Lee, New Jersey. She was there from 1948 to 1950 in their "nun-prep" program. Needing only a few hours to graduate, she talked with Sister Claudine of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, who was to become a life-long friend, and was accepted as a postulant in the order. On August 28, 1950, she entered the convent motherhouse at 901 Aisquith St. in Baltimore. She was immediately assigned to teach first grade at Blessed Sacrement Parish School. Each evening, Sister Irene would help her prepare for the following day. This individualized training and her natural aptitute and interest in teaching resulted in her soon being recognized as one of the outstanding teachers in the order. In her two years as a postulant Betty finished high school and started college at Notre Dame in Baltimore.

On July 16, 1952, Betty entered the Noviciate at 6401 North Charles St. where she spent the required year of seclusion. She was given the name Sister Mary Annicia, adopted from her mother's name.

On July 24, 1953, Betty took first vows. Requesting that she be stationed in Baltimore to be near her family, she was promptly sent to Rochester, New York, for six years. Rochester is most remembered for its "perpetual" snow, ice-covered wash basins, unheated chapels, and 50 children to be matched with 50 sets of boots, coats, hats, and mittins. It was during this time that her mother died. As one of her three-in-a-lifetime visits home, she was permitted to see her mother in the hospital shortly before she died. Since she was to return to Baltimore to take her temporary vows on July 24, she was permitted to leave her class a few days before the end of the session and return in time to attend her mother's funeral, something her sister Clara (Sr. Mary Conrado) was not permitted to do.


Sister M. Annicia, ca. 1963
On July 24, 1959, Betty, as Sister Annicia, took her final vows in Baltimore and was assigned to teach at Mt. Calvary in Forestville, Maryland. Her first grade had as many as 77 children. In 1964, having taken classes continuously at a variety of different colleges, she finally graduated from Notre College: 14 years of of night and weekend study.

She was then transferred back to Baltimore to the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen on N. Charles St. She was also granted a scholarship to attend graduate school in special education at St. Louis University. Weighing only 90 pounds, 35 pounds underweight, friends at school made certain she had a plentiful supply of high-caloric foods to sustain her through each summer's study.

In the spring of 1967, while teaching full time and carrying the other duties expected of a nun, she was selected to prepare and present a television series, Come to the Father. She received no help in this effort, and was getting so little sleep that her sister, Helen, came in and taught her class several days. That fall she was requested to give a professional workshop on the television series. On the day of the workshop, while the others in the order went out on a picnic, she totally exhausted herself carrying out all of the details herself, including serving refreshments. Betty had been frequently disillusioned with her life as a religious: many of the outward manifestations were inconsistent with the inward realities—what was preached was often not practiced within the order. That night, exhausted and frustrated, she decided to leave the order. While awaiting her official release by the Vatican, she requested and was send to Tacony, Pennsylvania, to be with her sister, Clara, who was assigned to an orphanage there.

Released from the order, Betty taught two years in Baltimore and struggled to make up for her years of isolation. She attended St. Louis University these two summers as a lay person. In 1969 she moved to Greenbelt, Maryland, and began teaching junior high school "special ed". In summer, 1970, she returned to St. Louis to receive her Masters degree. In 1974, she and Walter Gilbert met while taking a Dale Carnegie course. On March 15, 1976, they remet while Betty was arranging a reunion of the class. They were married a year later.

Walter was born, raised, and attended college in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He majored in mathematics and physics and was very active in music on the campus. He graduated magna cum laude in 1959. He came to Maryland with his first wife, Sandra Jean (Borden) to attend graduate school at the University of Maryland. They had two children, Katherine Ann (Kitty), and Truman John. Walter left the field of physics and entered the field of computer systems programming; he found computers both fascinating and entertaining. He worked at the Computer Science Center of the University of Maryland College Park Campus until he retired on October 31, 1998.

In 1979, Betty and Walter built a cabin in Great Cacapon, West Virginia, where they spend many happy and relaxing weekends and vacations.

Sources: