Obituaries

    “Montauk is filled with magic, mystery, and miracles,” Eugenia Rice Bartell once wrote. She shared her love of the place with the children of St. Therese of Lisieux church before embarking on a career in real estate, while keeping up on all the hamlet’s doings as the community editor for the Montauk Pioneer newspaper. After the Pioneer folded, said her daughter Carla Markson, she dreamed of starting a newspaper in the hamlet herself, but it was not to be. She died on April 4 at her Garfield Avenue residence of complications from emphysema. She was 75.

    Friends and family of William G. Field have been invited to a celebration of his life to be held at the American Legion post in Amagansett on April 28 at 2 p.m. Mr. Field, who was born in Springs and had been an East Hampton resident before moving to Ellenton, Fla., died on Jan. 7 at the age of 80.

    Helen Louise Freytag, a bookkeeper who had made Springs and East Hampton her home since World War II, died on Friday at Southampton Hospital. She was 86 and had been in declining health for the past couple of years.

    Known to her friends as Louise, she was born on Dec. 22, 1926, in Greenfield, Mo., to Russell William Brooks and the former Anna M. Barnard. She grew up in Oakland, Calif., where her parents moved when she was a child.

    “He arrived in Montauk in 1979 on a houseboat and stayed for 25 years, loving every moment and everyone he met,” Richard J. Hall’s sister, Carol Hall Murray, wrote.

    Mr. Hall died on March 26 in Huntington of complications related to diabetes. He was 82.

    He was born on June 18, 1930, in Armonk, N.Y., to Esther and Warren Hall, and attended Armonk public schools. Later in life, he worked with antiques and sold magazines. He loved fishing, animals, and scavenging for treasures at local estate sales. 

    Anne Marie Connors, who raised her family in the Cooper Lane, East Hampton, house she and her husband built 59 years ago, died of complications from pneumonia on March 27 at Hope Hospice in Cape Coral, Fla. She was 84 and had been ill for six weeks.

    Those who knew Marilyn Abel, and many here did through her work at the East Hampton Historical Society, book clubs, volunteer activities, and a range of other interests and passions, will remember her for her devoted friendship and dedication to social activism and the First Amendment.

    The long-time resident of East Hampton died on April 5 in Southampton Hospital after a brief illness. She was 74.

    Visiting hours for Martin E. Forsberg of Springs, 45, who died on April 3, will be tomorrow from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

    Wilson Moore Griffing Jr., a 12th-generation Long Islander and a nearly lifelong resident of Amagansett, died of cardiac arrest on March 23 at a nursing home in Freeport after a prolonged period of failing health. He was 85.

    Mr. Griffing, who was known as Sonny, was born in Amagansett on Aug. 14, 1927, to Wilson Griffing and the former Irene Gosman. He grew up on Main Street. When his father died in 1977, Mr. Griffing inherited the house he was born in and continued to live there until the time of his own death.

    Wilson Moore Griffing Jr., a 12th-generation Long Islander and a nearly lifelong resident of Amagansett, died of cardiac arrest on March 23 at a nursing home in Freeport after a prolonged period of failing health. He was 85.

    Mr. Griffing, who was known as Sonny, was born in Amagansett on Aug. 14, 1927, to Wilson Griffing and the former Irene Gosman. He grew up on Main Street. When his father died in 1977, Mr. Griffing inherited the house he was born in and continued to live there until the time of his own death.

    Audrey Bateman Georges, a summer resident of Amagansett, died in her sleep in the early morning of March 6 from complications associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S. She was diagnosed with the disease in 2009.

    Dorothy Jean Goldfarb, who had a career in nursing before moving to East Hampton in the early 1990s, died on Saturday in New York City of a rare form of cancer. She was 81.

    She was born on Nov. 26, 1931, to Margaret S. Johnston, whose maiden name was Steele. Her father’s full name was not provided. She was born in Lonaconing, Md., and grew up there.

    Justine Kornelussen died on March 8 at home in East Hampton, where she lived for almost 50 years. She had been ill with lung cancer for a year and also had dementia, her son, Frank Kornelussen, said on Monday. She was 87 years old.

    She was born to Frank Barosa and the former Margaret Voit in Brooklyn on Jan. 14, 1926. Her mother died when she was a small child, and her father abandoned her. After growing up in an orphanage, “She left and went out on her own, and worked,” her son said, adding that she was dealt some hard knocks as a child.

    Raphael David Silver of East Hampton and New York City, a real estate developer and the producer of such films as “Hester Street” and “Crossing Delancey,” died at a hospital in Salt Lake City on March 4, two days after a skiing accident in Deer Valley, Utah. He was 83.

    Ann F. Walker, who was a director of nursing at New York Presbyterian’s Babies and Children’s Hospital in New York City before moving to Springs, died at home in Jupiter, Fla., on Sunday. No cause of death was given. She was 86.

    Mrs. Walker was known as Rusty. She was born in Haverstraw, N.Y., on Aug. 8, 1926, the daughter of Edward Freyfogle and the former Anna Brady. Her aunt and uncle, Kathryn and Irving Rose, adopted her at an early age and raised her.

    Calvin M. Smith, who was born in the Hayground section of Bridgehampton on Aug. 11, 1927, died of a brain tumor on March 12 at home, across the street from where he was born. He was 85.

    Ella N. Collins, a retired nurse who lived on Maidstone Avenue in East Hampton Village with her husband, Irad S. Collins, for many years, died on March 20 at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton of pulmonary hypertension, her family said. She was 91.

    Mrs. Collins worked as a nurse at Southampton Hospital for many years. She later worked at what was formerly the Southampton Nursing Home.

    After retiring at 85, Mrs. Collins stayed active by mowing her own lawn, painting, and raking leaves, her family said. She also loved to read.

    Gerald E. McCarthy, a retired detective with the New York Police Department and a devoted member of the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Bridgehampton, died on March 16 at Good Shepherd Hospice in Port Jefferson. His death was caused by leukemia, which was the result of myelodysplastic syndrome, a blood disease.  

    Mark Jay Meyer, known to many who frequented the Amagansett Building Materials company and Village Hardware in East Hampton before that, died of unknown causes on Saturday. He was 50 years old.

    A funeral service was scheduled for today at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton starting at 10:30 a.m. He was to be buried in the church cemetery on Cedar Street.

    A service for Richard T. Johnson, a former Montauk resident who died on Feb. 21 in Greenport, will be held Saturday at 4 p.m. at Fort Hill Cemetery in Montauk.

    Dr. Raymond Francis Bulman, a theology professor and author, died at Good Shepherd Hospice in Port Jefferson on Saturday following a stroke. He was 79 and had been ill for a month.

    Richard D. Lyons, whose connection to the South Fork began with his interest in the woman he was to marry, Susan Pilchik Rosenbaum, died on March 13 at their home in Charleston, S.C. He was 84 and suffered from vascular dementia.

    Mr. Lyons was a reporter for The New York Times for nearly 30 years, writing some 3,000 articles on science, medicine, and psychology, among other subjects, as well as metropolitan and United Nations news. Covering the United States space program, he was The Times’s reporter on the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission.

    Ann Duryea Kirk Willard, the eldest daughter of a surgeon general of the United States Army who worked as a summertime physician in Montauk in the 1950s, died on Feb. 16 in Bedford, Mass. She was 93.

    She was born on Aug. 28, 1919, in Colonia, N.J., to Anne Duryea Kirk and Maj. Gen. Norman T. Kirk. Described by her family as an “Army brat,” she grew up in Washington, D.C., Texas, and the Philippine Islands. Moving often as a child instilled in her a lifelong love of travel.

    Carol Braider, who with her husband ran a shop in East Hampton in the 1950s called the House of Music and Books and an art gallery that showed work by artists such as Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, and Franz Kline, died on March 16 of heart failure at home in Red Hook, N.Y. She was 87.

    A Mass for the Rev. Ronald Ciaravolo, a former pastor of St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk and a Sunday priest for many years at St. Peter’s in Amagansett, will be said in the Montauk church in which he served today at 11 a.m. Father Ron, as he was known, lived in Montauk. He died on Monday. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

    Elfriede Field, whose first job after emigrating from Germany in 1954 was assembling watches at the Bulova factory in Sag Harbor, died at home in East Hampton on Friday of complications of heart disease. She was 80.

    Mrs. Field met and married Russell Field of East Hampton shortly after the end of the war in Germany, where he was stationed as an Army policeman.

    Elizabeth Elting Rogers, a pianist and jazz aficionado who was known on the South Fork as a person of grace and generosity, died on March 7 at home in Bridgehampton. Her death was caused by a brain aneurism, her family said. She was 76.

    A funeral Mass for Gerald E. McCarthy, 76, of Oak Road, Noyac, who died on Saturday at Good Shepherd Hospice in Port Jefferson, will be today at noon at Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Bridgehampton. Burial will be at St. Andrew’s Catholic Cemetery in Sag Harbor. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

    Gloria Joan Rousell of Montauk, a nurse for nearly four decades, died at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton on March 10 of congestive heart failure. She was 90.

    Born on Jan. 14, 1923, in New York City to Anthony Wescott and the former Lela Pettir, she was raised in Corona and Jackson Heights, Queens, where she attended William Cullen Bryant High School. After her graduation from St. Catherine’s Hospital School of Nursing in 1952, she lived in New York City and attended St. John’s University, where she received a B.S. in Nursing in 1955.

    She could have remained forever known as Richard Burton’s first wife, thrown over for Elizabeth Taylor after a slew of other affairs, but Sybil Williams Burton Christopher was not satisfied being a footnote in someone else’s biography.

    “I’m not famous,” she told The Star in 1994, “I’m notorious.” But she was resolute in not wanting “to talk about that nonsense” surrounding her first marriage, which lasted 14 years, despite the affairs.

    Thomas P. Peacock, a former assistant general counsel for the City of New York who chaired the successful capital campaign to restore and expand the Amagansett Library in 2004, died of prostate cancer on March 9 in Islamorada, Fla. He was 79.

    Mr. Peacock was a partner at Winthrop Stimson Putnam and Roberts and a founding partner at the law firm now known as Kramer Levin Naftalis and Frankel, both based in New York City. Besides serving as an assistant general counsel for New York City, he was a general counsel for the group of financial companies known as MONY.