Obituaries

Howard E. Lester Jr., a decorated retired Air Force master sergeant who grew up in East Hampton, died in Portsmouth, N.H., on Saturday. He was 75.

Marie Grace Steidle of Springs, a homemaker and longtime volunteer for a number of worthy causes, died in her sleep at home on Jan. 15 at the age of 93.

Mrs. Steidle was described by her family as energetic and sociable. She dedicated herself to community service, volunteering with the American Red Cross, Meals on Wheels, and the Southampton Hospital Thrift Shop, among others. A lifelong pursuit of learning led her to take classes in real estate, quilting, yoga, rug-braiding, oil painting, and cooking.

Despite his young age, Matthew Lester, who was a senior at East Hampton High School, felt a great civic duty, not only to his community, but to the whole world, his parents said.

Robert D. Hildreth, who won a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star as a soldier in Germany during World War II, died at home on Tuesday morning.

Barbara Mahoney Brooks, a mother, author, and Georgica Beach fixture who was the matriarch of an informal artist and surfer commune in the earliest days of wave riding there, died of natural causes on Jan. 14 in New York City.

M. Grace Steidle of East Hampton died on Sunday at the age of 93. A prayer service will be held at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton at 2 p.m. on Sunday. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

James Leonard Rea, who had a career with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, first as a surveyor and then, after several transfers and promotions, in the Soil Conservation Service, died on Dec. 29 at home in Ventura, Calif., of complications following a heart attack.

Joseph Vincent DiBlasi, who spent all his summers in Montauk, died at his Northport home on Sunday. He was 67 and had had cancer for two years.

Services for Matthew Lester of Springs, a 17-year-old East Hampton High School student who died on Monday, will begin Friday.

David P. Krusa, a former commercial fisherman who had put as much energy into developing an offshore tilefish harvest as he did writing poetry and fiction, died of congestive heart failure on Jan. 4 at home in Montauk.

Janet Maloney, who in the late 1970s inherited a house on Springs-Fireplace Road that had belonged to her cousin Merrill Millar Lake, died of natural causes at her Manhattan residence on Jan. 4.

Polly Kraft, an artist and longtime Wainscott summer resident, died on Jan. 1 at home in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., of pancreatic cancer.

Tere LoPrete, a book designer whose credits included the first edition of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” and books by Julia Child, Tom Wolfe, and James Michener, died at home in Wainscott on Dec. 27 surrounded by friends and family.

Thomas Edmund Andres of Springs-Fireplace Road in Springs died on Sunday at home after an accidental fall.

Ursula Ahnelt-Yezil of Springs died on Jan. 2 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan.

Ute von Engelhardt, one of the first Pan American World Airways stewardesses and a longtime resident of East Hampton, where she worked at a number of well-known shops, died unexpectedly on Dec. 31 while visiting her sisters in Germany.

Daniel Ryan Shields Sr., who had been a painting contractor, an East Hampton Town Parks Department employee, and an Amagansett Fire Department captain, died on Dec. 27 at Southampton Hospital of congestive heart failure and complications of the disease.

Dianne d’Etreillis Roussel, who was an artist and designer from a young age and through Roussel Art Conservation, a family firm, worked on Ronald Reagan’s official White House Christmas ornament and many sculptures at Lincoln Center and Rockefeller Center, died on Dec. 25 at Haven Hospice in New York City of complications of lung cancer.

A graveside service was held at Oak Grove Cemetery in Amagansett on Saturday for Edna Mae Steckowski, 86, who died on Dec. 28 at her Miankoma Lane, Amagansett, home, which she and her husband built in 1950.

Irving Schiffman, a former textile executive and a summer resident of East Hampton for more than 50 years, died at his Manhattan residence on Dec. 15 of congestive heart disease.

Matthew Henry Yuska of Accabonac Road in East Hampton died of pneumonia on Dec. 22 at the Long Island State Veterans Home in Stony Brook

Andrzej Wasilewicz was an actor, writer, director, producer, and musician, but he also was a political activist who fought for democracy in Poland.

Bernard A. Barnes, a longtime teacher and art director in the Newburgh City, N.Y., School District who spent summers on Gardiner Drive in Amagansett for more than 50 years, died of cardiopulmonary arrest on Dec. 16 at Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Margaret Negro, who lived in Springs and wintered in Port St. Lucie Fla., died on Dec. 14 at her house in Florida. She was 92 and had recently been in declining health.

Rae Burgess, who was 96, died on Monday at Southampton Hospital.

Allene Talmage, a teacher at the Springs School for more than 20 years who was known for her dedication to children, the natural world, and the Springs community, died at the age of 93 at Southampton Hospital on Nov. 17.

Cecilia Coleman, who spent summers in Montauk from the 1960s until recently, died on Dec. 10 at Astor Terrace, the rehabilitation unit of the Odd Fellow Home nursing facility in Green Bay.

David Lee, who had owned a jewelry store in Sag Harbor and was active in many facets of the Sag Harbor and East Hampton communities, died on Nov. 29 at the Southampton Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing.

Herbert Knoblach, a Montauk resident who was a pioneer in mako shark fishing and had worked at Hither Hills State Park and the Montauk Marine Basin, died at home on Friday of the complications of diabetes.

Marian Ford Pryce, a retired nurse anesthetist who started spending summers in Sag Harbor in 1936 and lived in the Chatfield’s Hill neighborhood, died on Nov. 15 at Stony Brook University Hospital at the age of 82 following a stroke.