Obituaries

Ellen Emma Dracker, who lived in East Hampton for 67 of her 88 years, died on Saturday at Southampton Hospital. She had suffered a broken femur and a series of strokes in May.

Mrs. Dracker was fun-loving and family-oriented, her children wrote, always welcoming guests with her latest home-baked treat, as warmly as if they were members of the family. Among her specialties were brownies, sour cream twists, and stollen, a traditional German cake.

Ernestine Lassaw of Springs died at Southampton Hospital on Friday. She was 101. A memorial will be announced for a date in the fall. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

Felice Lupo, who established Astro Pizza in Amagansett in the early ’70s, naming it to commemorate the space explorations of the time, died at home on Aug. 8 in Baltimore, where he had lived for several years. He was 88. He had not been ill, his family said, and died peacefully in his sleep.

Mr. Lupo was a familiar figure in Amagansett, where his children still run the pizza place and restaurant on Main Street.

Visiting hours for Vera Lens Holden, who lived in Montauk for many years, will be held tomorrow from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Carmon Funeral Home and Family Center in Avon, Conn. Mrs. Holden died on Aug. 13 in Farmington, Conn., after a short illness. A service will be held on Saturday at 11 a.m. at Valley Community Baptist Church in Avon, Conn., with the Rev. Jay Abramson officiating. Mrs. Holden was 96.

An obituary will appear in a future issue.

Geraldine G. Webb, whose life was devoted to her family, her church, and traveling the nation’s roads and waterways with her husband, Richard F. Webb, who survives her, died at home in Punta Gorda, Fla., on July 14. She was 82 and had been ill for the past few years, her family said.

John Sadowsky Jr., who at one time managed East Hampton Bowl, died on Aug. 6 at home in Onancock, Va. He was 75. The cause of death was liver disease, his family said.

Mr. Sadowsky was born on Dec. 18, 1938, at Southampton Hospital, to John Paul Sadowsky and the former Antonia Wazlo. He grew up in East Hampton, graduating from East Hampton High School.

He was in the United States Navy for two years, stationed in Virginia. He then worked for Grumman Aircraft before becoming the manager of the East Hampton bowling lanes.

Nancy Ann Lazar had faced cancer with such grace over the past four years that her family tried to convince her to write a book titled “Top 10 Ways to Look Hot While You Have Cancer” to share what they called “her recipe for success.”

Her secrets: “Get your hair done, dress fashionably, walk three miles every day, always have a pedicure, go to China because you want to, dance on New Year’s, spend every Thursday night on the beach with friends, and wake up every morning to say to yourself in the mirror, ‘You’re beautiful. I love you.’ ”

Raymond J. McCarthy, a cabinet and furniture maker who lived in Montauk and Sag Harbor for more than 30 years, died of kidney failure related to prostate cancer complications on Saturday at Hyder Family Hospice House in Dover, N.H. He was 67 and lived in Wolfeboro, N.H.

Rena Hewie Stoutt, who owned Jamaica Specialties on North Main Street in East Hampton, died at Stony Brook University Hospital on Aug. 12, two days after her 64th birthday. A wake was held on Tuesday at Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton and a funeral was held yesterday at Calvary Baptist Church, also in East Hampton. Burial was at Cedar Lawn Cemetery on Cooper Lane. A full obituary will appear in a future issue.

William G. Abel of Baiting Hollow Road in East Hampton died at home on Friday at 92. No service is planned. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

Alexander Koleoglou, who loved sailing, golf, Montauk, and, most of all, his wife, died July 26 at Southampton Hospital of heart failure, after a brief illness. He was 86.

A funeral service for Dominick Puglisi of Blue Jay Way in East Hampton, who died on Friday, will take place at the Robertaccio Funeral Home on Medford Avenue in Patchogue today at 11 a.m. A deacon from St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church will lead the service. Burial will follow in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Coram.

An obituary for Mr. Puglisi, who was 59, will appear in a future issue.

Helen Cordier Johns, who had an abiding commitment to social justice and diversity and worked on causes from integration to the support of AIDS patients, died on Aug. 4 in Richmond, Va. She was 89.

Throughout her life, Ms. Johns spent as much time as she could in East Hampton, in a house she built next door to one her maternal grandfather, Howard Ogden Wood, had built in the late 19th century on Georgica Pond. According to family lore, the house was constructed on the spot where a goose fell during a hunting trip to the area.

Lauren Bacall, one of the sirens of Hollywood’s golden age and a Tony-award winning actress for her work on Broadway, died Tuesday from what has been reported to be a massive stroke at home in New York.

Thomas Corwin Tillinghast, a former member of the East Hampton Fire Department and charter member of the East Hampton Kiwanis Club, died of complications of heart disease at home in Southold on July 17.

Mr. Tillinghast, who was born on a dairy farm at Apaquogue and Georgica Roads, lived nearly all of his 61 years in East Hampton. He moved to Southold in 2011, said his brother, Robert Tillinghast of East Hampton.

Hedwig Lucas, who began vacationing in Montauk in 1960 and became a full-time resident in 1997, died on July 27 at her Ditch Plain residence. Known to her friends as Heddy, she was 101 years old.

Her only child, Joseph Lukas of Montauk, said the family used to come to the hamlet every summer. “They stayed at Deep Hollow Ranch for many, many years,” and also camped at Hither Hills State Park. His mother “loved to walk around the Lighthouse,” he said.

    James Thomason died on Monday at home in Sag Harbor. He was 66 and the owner of the Morris Studio, a photo lab in Southampton. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

James Weber, a lifelong resident of East Hampton and member of the Sons of the American Legion, died of an undetermined cause on July 20. Mr. Weber was three days shy of his 45th birthday.

“In the tradition of most Bonackers, Jim was an avid fisherman and a clammer,” wrote his sister, Barbara Young of Hampton Bays. Some of his favorite places, she wrote, were Northwest Dock for fishing and, for clamming, the former site of Camp St. Regis in Northwest Woods.

Karen L. Heaney, a co-founder with her late husband, Dennis Heaney, of East Hampton Electric, died on Aug. 4 in Florida after an illness. She was 70.

Lee Hillard Levy of East Hampton died at Southampton Hospital on July 22 after a brief illness, at the age of 91. His spouse and partner of nearly 40 years, Charles Millevoi, his two sons, Mark and Jeff Levy of California, and three of his four grandchildren were at his side.

Mr. Levy was a fashion designer and business owner whose designs for men’s and women’s outerwear were manufactured under the label Lee Levy Designs toward the end of his career.

Tibor Klein, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor and seasonal Montauk resident who kept a boat at Navy Road there for many years, died yesterday at Chilton Hospital in Pompton Plains, N.J. Known as Teddy, he was 82 and had suffered from heart disease for many years.

Mr. Klein loved fishing, both from the beach and from his boat, and was proud of a trophy he earned for a striped bass he caught while surfcasting. He enjoyed fixing things and giving new life to items he found at the Montauk recycling center. He also enjoyed growing vegetables, cooking, and entertaining.

Arthur Prager of Sag Harbor and New York City died on Friday morning at home on Washington Square in Manhattan. He would have been 92 in August.

Bertha Hopson, the ninth in an East Hampton family of 10 children, who lived here her entire life, died at Southampton Hospital on July 25 as the result of an aneurysm. She was 81.

In 1954, Ms. Hopson was among 12 charter members of East Hampton’s Calvary Baptist Church. She retired only recently from its usher board, after receiving a pin honoring her 55 years of service.

Dr. Bertram E. Bromberg, a distinguished plastic and reconstructive surgeon who summered in Montauk for nearly 50 years from 1959 to 2008, died on June 22 in Jupiter, Fla. The cause was congestive heart failure; he had been ill for six months.

Dr. Bromberg, who was 96, enjoyed gardening as well as sportfishing and continued to fish into his 90s, said his daughter, Betzy Bromberg. He began living in Jupiter year round in 2008.

A memorial Mass for Hedwig Lukas, who died at home in the Ditch Plain area of Montauk on Sunday, will be said at St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk today at 10 a.m. Mrs. Lukas, who was 101, was known as Heddy.

Burial will be at St. Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

A memorial service for James Weber, 46, of East Hampton will be held on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the American Legion Hall in Amagansett. Mr. Weber died on July 20. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

Mary Ann Gauger, a lifelong resident of Sag Harbor, died at home in her sleep on July 22. She had been diagnosed with cancer years ago, her family said. She was 80 years old.

The only child of James Santacroce of Sag Harbor and the former Gladys Radley, a native of Iowa, Mrs. Gauger graduated from Pierson High School and from the Katherine Gibbs secretarial school in Manhattan. She met Wayne Gauger, who was then in the Navy, in 1954 during a visit to Florida. They married six months later, eventually settling in a house on Suffolk Street, where they raised four children.

Rosakate Levy Dellon Bonomo, a retired New York City educator who had a house in Springs for nearly four decades, died in the city on July 22. She was 85, and had been ill for about a year.

    Locally, Mrs. Bonomo was active with the Friends of Guild Hall and the Springs Improvement Society. She and her late husband, Michael J. Bonomo, were among the founders of the LongHouse Reserve’s volunteer program, and Mrs. Bonomo also worked on behalf of the East Hampton Day Care Learning Center, now known as the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center.

Susan H. Rockford, an attorney and active member of the East End arts community, died of complications of ovarian cancer at Tidewell Hospice House in Venice, Fla., on July 15. She was 66.

After retiring as an attorney for the City of New York in 2003, Ms. Rockford moved to Shelter Island, where she rediscovered and nourished her lifelong passion for the arts. Originally a photographer, she turned to abstract painting, creating a series of tactile, multi-textured pieces on canvas and linen.

Donald T. Foley, a fighter pilot during World War II who was instrumental in developing the Montauk Airport and had overseen the opening of nine airport terminals at Newark, LaGuardia, and Kennedy Airports, died at his Montauk home on June 30. He was 93 and his health had been declining over the past year.