Obituaries

    Ruth Ratcliffe, who loved everything about the Sag Harbor area and never wanted to leave, her family said, died at home on North Haven on Dec. 23. She was 91 and had lived there for 56 years.

    Born in Brooklyn on April 22, 1921, to Henry and Rose Stampfl Bornkamp, she was very close to her only sibling, Robert Bornkamp, who died in 2011.

    She married Robert Ratcliffe in the fall of 1941. During World War II, Ms. Ratcliffe was a true Rosie the Riveter, working as an aircraft riveter.

    Jonathan L. Auerbach, a resident of and lover of all things Sagaponack for the past 20 years, died of cancer on Nov. 29 in New York City with his family by his side. He was 70 years old.

    Mr. Auerbach, who was the founder and managing director of Auerbach Grayson and Company, which provides international securities research, execution, and settlement for United States institutions. He was also a dedicated supporter of the arts, serving in leadership roles at the Shakespeare Globe Center in the United States, as well as the Globe Center in London, which he helped found.

    Joseph Radon Jr., a veteran of World War II who lived on Ayrshire Place in Springs for over 30 years, died at home on Nov. 5. He was 86 and had emphysema.

    He was born in 1926 in New York City, a son of Joseph Radon and the former Anna Kohut. Mr. Radon served in the Army Air Corps during World War II from July 1944 to August 1946. He was self-employed for most of his life.

    Mr. Radon is survived by a brother, Richard Radon of Springs. A sister, Lillian Gibson, died before him. He was buried at Calverton National Cemetery on Nov. 9.

    Rosalie Strong Wootten of Taylors, S.C., an East Hampton native and member of one of the town’s founding families, died at home on Dec. 8 of a brain hemorrhage. She was 85.

    The only girl in a family of four children, she was born in East Hampton on Sept. 25, 1927, the daughter of James Madison Strong and Flora Sweeting Strong, and was called Rose by her family.

    Her great-grandfather was Capt. James G. Scott, who was the Montauk Lighthouse keeper for 25 years.

    Capt. Milton L. Miller Sr., a lifelong commercial fisherman and 12th-generation member of an East Hampton family, died on Sunday in his sleep at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton. He was 97.

    A memorial service for Louise Wilson of East Hampton, who died on Dec. 8, will take place on Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Calvary Baptist Church on Spinner Lane in East Hampton.

    Last week’s obituary for Ms. Wilson should have included the name of her son Windell Gant of Waterboro, S.C.

    George Dayton Payne III died in his sleep on Dec. 11 at the East Hampton house where he had lived for most of his life. He was 86. In his last years he had emphysema and vascular disease that resulted in the amputation of one of his legs.

    James Joseph Corless of Montauk and Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., died of a heart attack on Dec. 11 while en route to Montauk. Mr. Corless, who was known to friends and family as Jim, was the founder and chief executive of Datacom Management Sciences of Norwalk, Conn. He was 85.

    D.M.S.I., as the company is known, provides equipment for large-scale communications systems for such clients as the United States Navy and Coast Guard. During the 1980s, Mr. Corless oversaw its work on the automation of many of the U.S.’s major telephone switching systems.

    Jeffrey Brackett Potter died at Southampton Hospital on Saturday after a brief case of pneumonia. He was 94. A resident of East Hampton, he was the author of several books, including an oral biography of Jackson Pollock, “To a Violent Grave,” which was published in 1985. He also wrote two works of children’s fiction that were published by Viking Press, “Elephant Bridge” and “Robin is a Bear.” At one time, he ran a marine construction company here, East Hampton Dredge and Dock, whose motto was “Your Bottom is Our Business.” 

    John R. Talmage, who grew up in East Hampton and the Bronx, died on Dec. 5 in Middleburg Heights, Ohio, following an aneurism. He was 74.

    Mr. Talmage was born in New York City on Feb. 2, 1938. Raised in East Hampton by his mother, the former Ruth Thinnes, and his stepfather, Donald Gould, he graduated from East Hampton High School with the class of 1955 and went on to Pace College and Rutgers University, eventually becoming a certified public accountant.

    Leonard B. Harmon, a retired insurance company owner  and championship bridge player who lived on Jason’s Lane in East Hampton and who was awarded the Purple Heart for an eye injury during World War II, died at home on Nov. 27. The cause was heart failure and stroke, his family said. He was 93.

    Miriam Brooks, known as Mim, died on Dec. 12, two days shy of her 94th birthday. She had moved from East Hampton to Binghamton, N.Y., in 2008, and lived most recently in Elizabeth Church Manor, a nursing home there.

    Born in Trenton, N.J., in 1918, the daughter of Marion and Bertram Thompson, she graduated from Trenton High School and went to work as a telephone switchboard operator.

   Anne M. Black Koehler of East Hampton, a maternity nurse at Southampton Hospital for 24 years, died on Nov. 24 at St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn of complications following heart surgery. She was 78.

    Many people who recognized her from the hospital would stop her on the street or in a store to introduce her to their children whom she had helped deliver, her family said. “People always told us what a special nurse she was to them.”

    Daniel Varuolo of North Haven, an usher at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Sag Harbor who worked at his nephew’s Emporium Hardware in Sag Harbor, died at home on Monday. He was 88 and had been an active member of the Knights of Columbus and the American Legion’s Chelberg and Battle Post 388 in Sag Harbor.

    With his wife, Rosetta, Mr. Varuolo moved to North Haven in 1985 and built a retirement house on Cove’s End Lane. Mrs. Varuolo survives.

   Juana M. Bahamondes of Queens Lane in East Hampton died on Tuesday at the age of 78.

    Visiting hours will be today from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton, with a funeral Mass scheduled for tomorrow at 10 a.m. at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Cemetery on Cedar Street. A full obituary will appear in a future issue.

    Leon Jaroff was a man who did not suffer fools gladly. A senior editor at Time magazine, in charge at different times of its science, medicine, environment, and behavior sections, he wrote some 44 Time cover stories and a column for the magazine called “Skeptic Eye.” He was 85 when he died at his Further Lane, East Hampton, residence on Oct. 20, having been in declining health for some time. A memorial gathering was held at the Time-Life Building in Rockefeller Center on Nov. 29.

    Louise Wilson, who had worked as a housekeeper for many prominent East Hampton families since coming here from Walterboro, S.C., in 1956, died on Saturday at the Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead. She was 74 and had been ill with lung cancer for a year.

    A missionary at Calvary Baptist Church in East Hampton, she sang in the church choir there and never missed a year working on the church’s annual barbecue benefit. Until recent years, she was also a familiar face at the polling place in Springs, where she worked as an election inspector.

    Timothy Allen Smith, a 27-year member of the Springs Fire Department whom friends called Chick, died on Nov. 30 of a heart-related illness. He was 51.

    His friends said he was “a born, bred Bonacker.” A lifelong resident of East Hampton and graduate of East Hampton High School, Mr. Smith was a carpenter who enjoyed boating, fishing, clamming, and watching Nascar races.

    Beatrice Lorraine Terry Strong, who lived in Wainscott for many years with her husband, Douglas Pierson Strong, and raised a family there, died on Tuesday in Albemarle, N.C., where she had lived for several years. She was 85 and had Alzheimer’s disease, her family said.

    As a New York Telephone Company switchboard operator, Ms. Strong’s voice would have been familiar to several generations of South Fork residents. Later in her working life, she was the switchboard operator at Southampton Hospital.

    Dr. Elaine Tuccillo, 66, a clinical psychologist, died at her Hither Hills residence on Nov. 16 of lung cancer. She had been diagnosed with the disease in June.

    Though she smoked cigarettes as a young woman, her husband, Dr. Scott Baum, said they were stunned at the diagnosis. “She was a strong, healthy person,” he said.

    Joseph Holmes of East Hampton, a familiar face from 27 years of service at the East Hampton Post Office, died of lung cancer at Southampton Hospital on Nov. 27. He was 74.

    Lisa de Kooning, the only child of the Abstract Expressionist painter Willem de Kooning and an artist in her own right, died on Nov. 23 at a family home on the island of St. John in the Virgin Islands, reportedly from injuries after a fall. She was 56.

    Christopher Thomas Stamp, who discovered and co-managed the Who for 10 years, founded the independent Track Records label, and called East Hampton home for 23 years, died on Saturday at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. He was 70 and had cancer for the past year.

    Donald Schellinger, a Sag Harbor carpenter who was known as Dode, died on Tuesday at Southampton Hospital. He was 70 years old and had lung cancer.

    Mr. Schellinger worked over the years as a carpenter for several local businesses. He was a longtime member of the Sag Harbor Fire Department.

    A father and grandfather, Mr. Schellinger was married to the former Judith Warner, who died 10 years ago.

    Elaine Tuccillo, 66, died at home in Montauk on Nov. 16. She will be buried at Fort Hill Cemetery in that hamlet on Saturday at 1 p.m. A full obituary will appear in a future issue.

    Visiting hours for Ellen Menaik Cox of Sag Harbor, who died at Southampton Hospital on Sunday, will be held tonight from 7 to 9 at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in Sag Harbor. Ms. Cox was 86. A service will be held at the funeral home tomorrow at 11 a.m. Burial will follow at Oakland Cemetery in Sag Harbor. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

    Visiting hours for Emilio Pidilla Berrezueta, 18, a student at Southampton High School, who died on Monday in Montauk, will be tonight from 5 to 9   at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton.

    A funeral Mass will be said tomorrow at 11 a.m. at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

    Eric Louis Rooney, who spent childhood summers in Montauk and for whom it remained a favorite place, was buried at Fort Hill Cemetery there on Nov. 21. Mr. Rooney died in Queens on Nov. 17. The cause of death was an accident, his family said. He was 26.

    Mr. Rooney was born on Sept. 16, 1986, to Bruna DiBiase and Richard Rooney in New York City. He grew up  in Flushing, Queens, and on Butternut Drive in Montauk.

   An 18-year-old East Hampton woman had two car accidents in four days last week, both of them involving deer. Ashley Silvertsen was driving a 1995 Jeep on the afternoon of Nov. 20 on Three Mile Harbor-Hog Creek Road in Springs when she thought she saw a deer on the road ahead. She swerved and went off the side of the road, coming to a stop in some shrubbery. The Jeep was towed away with damage to the undercarriage.

    James Bernard Leonard, a former newspaper pressman, died on Thanksgiving Day in a hospital in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. He was 91 and had gone to Florida to visit a son.

    Mr. Leonard’s career in newspapers included a stint as a flyboy, a pressroom apprentice who literally caught stacks of papers as they flew off the presses. He went on to become a pressman for The New York Journal-American, The New York Times, and The Daily News, working for that paper in Long Island City until he retired.