Frances H. Alden, an entrepreneur and former college professor, died on May 19 at a retirement community in Cockeysville, Maryland. She was 85 years old and had been suffering from lung cancer.
A native of Warsaw, North Carolina, Alden was a graduate of what is now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She managed a preschool in Baltimore for 15 years and then earned a master’s degree in early childhood education from Towson University in Maryland.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Alden joined the faculty at Villa Julie College, now known as Stevenson University in Maryland. There, she served as chair of the department of psychology. After leaving the college, she began a successful gift basket business called Basket Case Inc.