Barbara Leonnig Edelen

Barbara Mary Edelen of Crofton, Md. died of complications from a heart infection on Mother’s
Day, May 10, 2020. She was 79.

Edelen grew up on her family’s farm in Largo in Prince George’s County, Maryland, the fourth
of five children and the only daughter born to Marion and Leo Leonnig. She was spared some of
the more grueling farm work that fell to her four brothers. But she loved playing marbles with
her brothers and riding horses with them from farm to farm, and her favorite rides ended with a
dip in the swimming pool at the former Captain White’s farm on Enterprise Road, which later
became the Enterprise Golf Club. The apple of her father’s eye, Edelen was nicknamed “Shug”
by her brothers; they were jealous that their father was always favoring their sister by buying her
sugary treats. Edelen proved herself a dedicated and star student in high school and college,
eventually earning both a bachelor’s and graduate nursing degree at Georgetown University.

Soon after earning her degrees, she worked for a few years as a home health nurse in the city of
Baltimore. In January 1966, she married Wallace Edelen. The couple lived in Baltimore at first,
and soon after made their home in Crofton, Md., where they raised their three children. Edelen
kept the financial books for her husband’s businesses, which included a Texaco gas station in
Bowie and Edelen Liquors in Upper Marlboro. When her three children were teenagers, in the
early 1980s, Edelen began studying for her accounting degree, astounding everyone with a
winning score on her first try. She got her degree from Bowie State in 1984.
“She was so proud – she got her accounting license on the first test,” her son Wallace Edelen
said. “When she wanted something, she knuckled down and did it.”

She had instilled that work ethic in her children from an early age, gathering them together to do
massive spring cleanings of their house, their grandmother’s farm house, and planting trees with
Uncle Harry and family at the farm. She taught her children the importance of hard work and the
satisfaction of accomplishment.

With her accounting degree, Edelen had landed a job as a fraud investigator with the Office of
Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Because of her unique
background in nursing, she had a special knack for tracking down companies that overbilled the
government for health care services – and some that never provided any services at all. She
focused on Medicare fraud, and helped the government recover millions of dollars in fraudulent
claims. As she grew older, Edelen suggested to her superiors she might want to retire.

“They never wanted to let her go,” Wallace Edelen said of her federal bosses.

When not working hard, Edelen’s favorite source of joy was gathering her family together and
cooking for them, whether it be a regular Sunday dinner, a massive Thanksgiving celebration
with tables spread across two rooms to accommodate her extended Leonnig family, or a tea party
where her children could entertain her aging mother. Edelen cared for her mother into their home
several times when she was recuperating from a surgery or a bout of illness.

“My mom was a caregiver. She loved taking care of people,” said her daughter Mildred Garner.
“She loved to host family dinners. That’s how she shared her love was through her cooking.”

Edelen loved the beaches on the Eastern Shore, and began taking her children for day trips to
soak up the sun and surf when they were small. After years of cost-conscious day trips, she and
her grown daughter Mildred bought a condominium together in Ocean City, and it became a new
destination for family gatherings and memories.

Among her hobbies were antique shopping, playing bridge with friends, and gardening. She had
many happy visits with her children to her father’s Shenandoah River cabin in Strasburg, Va. She
loved to travel, a passion she developed as a young woman after a trip to Europe with her father
and brother Henry, and would later visit Ireland, Alaska, and numerous islands in the Caribbean.
Her favorite getaway: Bermuda.

Later in life, she added two new favorite companions, her two dogs, Jennifer and Isabel. She also
proved she could develop new tastes beyond the ham biscuits and other cooking of Southern
Maryland that she had perfected; she became a huge fan of sushi.

Edelen is preceded in death by her parents, Leo and Marion Leonnig and her two brothers Robert
and Henry Leonnig. She is survived by many loved ones: her three children, Mildred Edelen
Garner and husband Rodney, Wallace Nalle Edelen, Jr and wife Colleen, Alicia Waring Kreitzer
and husband David; seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren; and her two brothers, Kent
and George Leonnig.