Betty M. Blake, 88; worked at Pendle Hill

"She was a permanent teenager," said Betty Miller Blake's daughter Genie, who recalled that even in her 70s, her mother knew how to make a good prank call.

Mrs. Blake, 88, of Media, a teacher, database manager, and tender-hearted jokester, died May 31 at Broomall Presbyterian Village after a stroke.

A great storyteller and mimic, Mrs. Blake would call friends and family pretending to be anyone from an Amtrak attendant to a telemarketer, her daughter said.

Mrs. Blake was also sentimental. She once drove past a former home and, finding the house demolished, hired a dump truck to bring the bricks from the site to her present house. She used the bricks to pave the driveway.

Mrs. Blake enjoyed exploring different religions and was drawn to the Quakers because of the group's pacifism and emphasis on equal rights.

She took a class at a Quaker study center, Pendle Hill in Wallingford, then took a word-processing course so she could become the database manager at the center, where she worked from 1985 until her retirement in 1996.

Mrs. Blake, a native of Cumberland, Md., graduated from Atlantic Christian College in North Carolina in 1943, where she met her husband, Howard. The two were married that year. She taught sixth grade and high school French in Draper, N.C., and then spent a year teaching sixth grade in St. Petersburg, Fla.

After moving to Rittenhouse Square in the 1950s, she was a secretary at the Chestnut Street Association before moving to Media with her husband to raise her family.

In the 1970s, she was a Girl Scout leader for Troop 483 in Wallingford.

She later became a substitute teacher at an American school in Germany for three years and lived briefly in London while her husband, a Temple University professor, taught abroad.

Mrs. Blake loved travel and visited Russia, Iceland, and South America. She enjoyed summers in Ocean City, Md.

A canine lover, Mrs. Blake was the dog-sitter for relatives and neighbors. She spoiled the animals and returned them heavier than when they arrived, said her daughter, adding, "We even did before-and-after pictures."

In addition to her husband and daughter, Mrs. Blake is survived by a son, Howard "Chip" Jr., and one grandson.

A celebration of her life will be held at 2 p.m. July 11 at the Terrace at Tyler Arboretum, 515 Painter Rd., Media.