Obituaries

The Star has received word of the death of Phebe M. Smith, an East Hampton native who was a descendent of the Dominy family of furniture and clock-makers. Mrs. Smith died on Sept. 25 at Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie, Wyo., having come down with an infection four days before. She was 91 years old.

Born here on Aug. 22, 1925, she was one of two children of Carl F. Mason and the former Phebe Dominy. She graduated from East Hampton High School and later received laboratory training to become a nurse during World War II, which ended before she received her degree.

Cheryl Merser, an author of books on topics such as gardening and cooking, as well as a sought-after ghost writer, died of cancer at home in Sag Harbor on Dec. 6. She was 65 and had been ill for five years.

Devon R. Parent, who graduated from East Hampton High School with the class of 2003, died at home on Friday at the age of 31.

A memorial service for Marian Ford Pryce of Sag Harbor will be held on Saturday at 1 p.m. at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Bridgehampton.

Frank Bradbury Hollenbeck, 84, a prolific architect who also was an artist and singer, died at his Springs house last Thursday with his wife at his side.

Herbert A. Nixon Jr., who lived in East Hampton for about 35 years and worked for the town’s Highway Department for more than 18, died of heart failure on Dec. 7 at Southampton Hospital.

James Elsworth Lowe, a longtime radio personality, composer, and recording artist who lived his later years in East Hampton, died on Dec. 12 at home after a long illness.

Nursing was Janice Blair Whalen’s “true calling,” her husband, Richard Whalen, said, and she was “immensely proud” to have become a certified nurse’s aide in New York State, having previously worked in that capacity for seven years with the United States Veterans Administration in California.

Jean F. Lester, who worked for more than 30 years for the East Hampton School District, died on Dec. 6 at home in Springs.

Kenneth Stewart Freese, a carpenter who had been a quarterback on the East Hampton High School football team and also lettered in track and tennis, died in East Hampton on Nov. 30 at the age of 56.

Sybil Rose Gurka of East Hampton died on Dec. 7 of complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder.

Carol Mary Mercer, an award-winning garden designer who had been a dancer in Broadway plays as a youth, died at her East Hampton home on Nov. 19. She was 92 years old and had congestive heart failure.

Donald Mendres, who owned Hampton Teak in Wainscott and lived on Kettle Hole Road in Montauk for 15 years, died at home on Nov. 15, apparently of a heart attack. He was 72 and had been ill for about six months.

Rhoda H. Bation, who came to know East Hampton several decades ago when her son Matthew S. Dienstag was living here, and who retired here in 1999, died in her sleep on Friday at his house in Rock Stream, N.Y., in the Finger Lakes region. She was 79.

Visiting hours for Janice Whalen of Amagansett will be held on Sunday from 2 to 4 and from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. A funeral service will be held on Monday at 10 a.m. at the Amagansett Presbyterian Church.

Ms. Whalen, the wife of Richard Whalen, was a certified nurse aide. She died on Monday at Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport, where she was being treated for symptoms of schizophrenia. She was 43. An obituary will appear in a future issue. 

Jan Joseph Kalas, an architect who split his time between Brooklyn and East Hampton for many years and continued to keep a sailboat here, died on Oct. 31 after being struck by a car in Long Beach on his way to work. He was 70. 

Mr. Kalas practiced architecture for 40 years, 20 of them at the engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti, where he was a senior vice president. The firm said he was “known for his problem-solving ability and eye for detail.” Colleagues described him as quick-witted and full of energy.

John Zervoulei of Springs, who had owned men’s hairpiece businesses and a jazz club in New York City, died on Nov. 21 at Southampton Hospital.

Mary Ann Siegfried, who volunteered at the Springs Library for nearly two decades after retiring from the Asia Society in New York, died on Friday after a brief illness. She was 85.

Ms. Siegfried grew up in Ohio and set off to see the world with the American Red Cross not long after graduating from Oberlin College, where she majored in fine art. “I signed up to be a recreation worker,” she told The Star in a 2003 interview.

Sandra Jean Bennett, who was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 39 and who survived the cancer’s spread for many years, died at her Springs home on Nov. 17. She was 78.

Warren Jordan MacIsaac, a humanities and drama professor who was an expert on Shakespeare and modern European drama, died at home in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14.

William Riley Franklin Jr., a writer and former Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor resident who in the 1970s actively opposed both a Route 27 bypass project and aircraft traffic at East Hampton Airport, died on Nov. 6 in Great Neck.

Carol M. Mercer, an award-wining garden designer, died on Saturday at home in East Hampton. She was 92.

Confesor Samot, who moved to East Hampton from Isabella, Puerto Rico, in 1971 with his wife and six children, died at home here on Nov. 3. He was 83 and had had Alzheimer’s disease.

David Condie Lamb, a retired naval commander who grew up in East Hampton and New York City, died in Arlington, Va., on Nov. 10, following a series of strokes last summer. He was 87.

Frederick Loftus Dankmyer of Orwigsburg, Pa., and Amagansett, a physician who had been a flight surgeon and was an ophthalmologist, died on Nov. 13 at home in Amagansett.

Jack Rivkin, who has been credited with introducing investment research practices that elevated some of Wall Street’s biggest firms beginning in the 1980s, died on Nov. 8 surrounded by family at his home in Amagansett, where he lived part time since the mid-1970s. He was 76 years old and had pancreatic cancer for the last seven months.

Martin Foster Johns, an ardent surfer and fisherman in his hometown of Montauk, died of pneumonia in Sebastian, Fla., on Nov. 10, at the age of 58.

Rosa Rojas “taught about giving and led by example,” her family wrote. She was “a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, sister, and friend, who had a deep faith in God.”

Thomas Stewart Waller, a former Springs resident who ran a computer store in Bridgehampton while living here, died on Nov. 16 in Portland, Ore., of a heart attack. He was 61.

Tracy Ann Segelken, a public safety dispatcher and one of the first female firefighters in the Springs Fire Department, died of heart failure on Nov. 12 at Southampton Hospital. She was 52.