The Sisters

Eleanor Zimmerman graduated from the Institute of Notre Dame in 1946 and took her degree in physical education from the University of Maryland in 1950. She began at Southern High School and worked at the Recreation Pier in Fells Point — where she met Tom Troy, a recreational supervisor, and married him in 1952.

When Archbishop Keough High School opened its doors to generations of Catholic girls, Eleanor was there with a whistle and a clipboard. She was a physical education instructor first, but what Keough remembers her for is the athletic program she expanded and the basketball team she coached. The school became Seton Keough and closed in 2017; the girls Eleanor taught are, by now, grandmothers themselves.

She was a member of St. Mark Roman Catholic Church in Catonsville for decades and, after 2007, of St. Luke & St. Andrew Parish on Coastal Highway. She died 30 May 2019 at Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin.

In an era when a nursing career was stitched together one patient at a time, Joan Foit gave Mercy Medical Center thirty‑nine years. She married James Bernard “Jim” Foit Jr. around 1957 and raised three children in Catonsville. The Friday shopping trips with grandchildren, the camera always in her bag, the card games and the bingo halls — all family record.

“Some of my sweetest memories are of Fridays with my grandmother as a kid — shopping all day, stopping at what felt like 10 different stores, then heading to get her hair done.”
— Tara, granddaughter, March 2025

She outlived her sister by six years and her husband by five, dying peacefully in Catonsville on 14 March 2025 at 89.

In the spring of 1978, a Catonsville kid named Jimmy Foit — Joan's son James D. — was picked first‑team All‑Metro shortstop for Mount Saint Joseph. A young man named Cal Ripken Jr., a three‑sport standout over in Aberdeen, was placed on the second team as a pitcher. Keith Mills made the call. Cal Ripken Sr. — so the story goes — “chewed out one of our Oriole writers.”

The joke outlived the argument. Through the Orioles' 1980s press boxes, whenever a ground ball got past the Aberdeen kid at short, a writer would mutter “Foit would've had it.”

Jimmy Foit went on to Virginia Tech, started every game at shortstop for four years, and was drafted by the Texas Rangers in the 26th round of 1982. He played 212 minor league games, finishing with the Tulsa Drillers, then went home to Frederick County to teach in 1988.

By 1992 he was head baseball coach at Governor Thomas Johnson High School. His teams won Maryland state championships in 1992 and 2002. Frederick News‑Post Coach of the Year, 1994. Inducted into the Alvin G. Quinn Sports Hall of Fame.

Eleanor and Tom raised five children in Catonsville:

1. Joseph Troy · LaPlata, MD
2. Michael Troy · Tunkhannock, PA ← father of Marie, this page's editor
3. Thomas D. Troy Jr. · Oceanside, CA
4. Robert Troy · Los Angeles, CA
5. Danielle Troy Davis · Catonsville, MD

Joan and Jim raised three:

1. Michele “Shelly” Bent (Mark)
2. James D. Foit (Liz) — the Sports Page subject above
3. Renee Smith (Rob)

Between them: 17 grandchildren and 15 great‑grandchildren as of 2025.