Obituaries

Joanne Backlund of Noyac died on Aug. 31 at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital after having gone into cardiac arrest at home three days earlier.

Over the course of 17 years, Susan Lynn Solomon of Amagansett and New York City, a founder and longtime chief executive officer of the New York Stem Cell Foundation, raised more than $400 million to advance the field of stem cell research. Ms. Solomon, who had had only recently stepped down as the organization’s C.E.O., died last Thursday, at home in Amagansett, five years after she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She was 71.

Jean Knoesel, who lived in East Hampton for more than 40 years, died at home on Old House Landing Road in Northwest on Saturday after a short illness.

A service for Dominic Annacone, an educator who served as principal of Pierson High School and superintendent of the Sag Harbor School District, interim superintendent of the Springs School District, and superintendent of the Wainscott School District, will be held at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton on on Wednesday at 11 a.m., followed by interment at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton at 1 p.m. 

Vaughan Bianca Allentuck died at home in Springs on Saturday, surrounded by her family. She was 90. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

Lucas Conrad Matthiessen, 69, an editor and writer who also ran a network of clinics for drug and alcohol abusers, died on Aug. 20 at a hospice near his home on City Island in the Bronx. The cause of death was metastatic cancer, said his wife, Claire de Brunner.

Barbara E. Schwartz, a former teacher in Manhattan who lived in East Hampton for 20 years, died at home on Settlers Landing Lane on Aug. 31. She was 76.

A onetime Vietnam War tank driver who became a New York Police Department detective and later a proprietor of a local wine shop, Rodney Roncaglio of East Hampton died on Aug. 24 at the Kanas Hospice Center in Quiogue. He was 75.

Maralyn Rittenour was traveling in Italy over the summer when she started feeling unwell. It was lymphoma, she learned when she returned home to Springs. She died on Aug. 18 at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital at age 84.

Steve Haweeli, whose WordHampton Public Relations firm in Springs became the pre-eminent promoter of restaurants and hospitality companies here and across Long Island, died on Aug. 23 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan of complications from Covid-19.

Richard W. Smith Jr., a past president of the Maidstone Club, died at his Borden Lane residence in East Hampton Village on Aug. 20. The cause was cardiopulmonary arrest.

James Howard Sweeney, who worked as a cinematographer, gaffer, best boy, and props man in the film industry in California for many years, died in his sleep on June 13 at home in Brooklyn.