Joanne L. Lee, 62, of Severn, died of cancer Nov. 17 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore after a two-year illness.

Born Feb. 2, 1942, and raised in Baltimore, Mrs. Lee lived in Severn for the past 36 years. She attended nursing school at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, graduating in 1963. She received her bachelor of science degree from the College of Notre Dame in 1982 and a master's degree from the University of Maryland School of Nursing in 1998.

She was a nurse at the Shock Trauma Center at University of Maryland Medical Center and helped start MedStar in Washington, D.C., which was part of the trauma center at Washington Hospital Center.

For a time she was head nurse in the emergency room at Anne Arundel Medical Center and nurse in charge of the walk-in health center at the hospital.

She also was a nurse manager at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center in downtown Baltimore, a division of GBMC in Towson. Later she returned to Anne Arundel Medical Center and worked in utilization review in the neonatal intensive care unit at the hospital.

Mrs. Lee was a member of Friendship Quilters in Linthicum, loved sewing and was an avid fan of the Maryland Terrapins and the Baltimore Ravens.

The daughter of Della Longleyway of Florida and the late Frank Novotny, she is also survived by her husband, Walter Lee; two sons, Skip Lee of Pasadena and Chris Lee of South Carolina; one sister, Anne Crouch of Washington, D.C.; one brother, Frank Novotny Jr. of Eldersburg; and four grandchildren.

Services will be at 2 p.m. tomorrow at St. Bernadette Catholic Church in Severn. Burial will be private. Arrangements are by Barranco and Sons Severna Park Funeral Home.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Leukemia Society of America, Maryland Chapter, in memory of Joanne L. Lee, at 8600 LaSalle Road, Towson, MD 21286.

As Printed in the Capital/Gazette Newspaper on 11/19/2004