Mary Jane Nelson | Admissions director, 78

Mary Jane Ostrem Nelson, 78, of Drexel Hill, retired director of admissions at the Hill Top Preparatory School, a school for students with learning disabilities in Rosemont, died of complications from breast cancer Dec. 16 at home.

Mrs. Nelson was a stay-at-home mother raising her children when she began to open up her home to troubled youngsters who needed a place stay. She became a foster parent to three teens and a surrogate mother to many she met through the work of her husband, the Rev. Lawrence E. Nelson, former head of youth ministries for the former Lutheran Church in America.

After he died in 1977, after nearly 30 years of marriage, Mrs. Nelson earned her master's degree in counseling and human relations from Villanova University and found a job that seemed a natural fit for a woman who had spent much of her life caring for troubled youngsters. She became the director of admissions for Hill Top Preparatory School.

Mrs. Nelson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education from the University of Iowa. She taught fifth grade in Gettysburg, Pa., while her husband attended Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, and she was an instrumental part of a counseling ministry with her husband.

The Nelsons moved to Drexel Hill in the late 1950s.

Surviving are sons Christopher, Jeffrey and John; daughters Sarah Ruth Kramer and Jackie Gardiner; and nine grandchildren.

A memorial service will be at 7 p.m. Jan. 9 at Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church, 604 Edmonds Ave., Drexel Hill. Memorial donations may be sent to VITAS Hospice Charitable Fund, 1740 Walton Rd., Suite 100, Blue Bell, Pa. 19422.