Baltimore Sun; Baltimore, MD; 1999-8-31

Betty Lake Lanahan, 77, owned several race horses

Betty Lake Lanahan, who owned horses that competed in steeplechase
races, died of cancer Saturday at the Gilchrist Center for Hospice
Care in Towson. She was 77 and lived in Ruxton.  She and her husband,
Wallace Lanahan Jr., who worked in the State Department's Foreign
Service before moving to Maryland in 1942, owned several horses that
ran in steeplechase races, including Sam Son of a Gun, who was horse
of the year in 1981. Their horses won two Virginia Gold Cups, two New
Jersey Hunt Cups, two Pennsylvania Hunt Cups and two Grand Nationals.
But Mrs. Lanahan celebrated victories from a distance -- she was
apprehensive around the powerful animals.  She served on the Women's
Board of Johns Hopkins Hospital and was a nurse's aide at the Happy Hills
Convalescent Home for Children from 1944 to 1945. She was a member of
the Mount Vernon Club and the Garden Club of Twenty.  The former Betty
Lake was born and reared in Vina del Mar, Chile, where she graduated from
high school.  Services will be held at 11: 00 a.m. today at St. Thomas
Episcopal Church, 232 St. Thomas Lane, Garrison Forest.  She is survived
by her husband of 57 years, Wallace Lanahan Jr. of Ruxton; two sons,
W. Wallace Lanahan III of Ruxton and Michael B.  Lanahan of Dallas;
a daughter, Barbara L. Mauro of Washington; and seven grandchildren.