Obituaries

Harold Ralston Simmons Jr., an internationally noted interior designer, died at home in East Hampton on Aug. 12.

Marianne Toy of Sag Harbor Village, whose smile was the first thing people noticed about her, her family said, died on Aug. 5 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

Patricia A. Reilly Dunn, who lived on Newtown Lane in East Hampton for 50 years and in that time managed the Sea Spray Inn and worked as a real estate broker at the Windward and Devlin McNiff agencies, died on Aug. 13 at home in Ridge after a brief illness.

Rena Hewie Stoutt, who owned Jamaica Specialties on North Main Street in East Hampton, died at Stony Brook University Hospital on Aug. 12, surrounded by family.

Vera Lens Holden, a Montauk resident for over 40 years and one of the first occupants of a Leisurama house in Culloden Shores, died on Aug. 13 in Farmington, Conn.

Walter Galcik Sr., a World War II veteran who was the caretaker of Shadmoor State Park as part of his work for the Town of East Hampton, died at home in Ditch Plain, Montauk, last Thursday.

Dominick Puglisi took a long and varied path to realizing his life’s dream but when he made it a reality by opening an Italian restaurant, he met with unexpected, though not entirely unforeseeable, success.

A childhood in the kitchens of his Sicilian grandmother and mother left him with a love of food and a sense of how cooking and sharing a meal can create true bonds among people. But it was not until he and his wife had built what they thought would be their retirement house in Arizona that it would come together at last.

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.