Obituaries

Edmund L. Downes was a huge Nascar fan. He loved watching it on television, and he used to have season tickets to the Dover International Speedway in Delaware, where he would take his family to watch his all-time favorite driver, the late Dale Earnhardt Sr.

Mr. Downes, a retired carpenter, died at home on Jesse Halsey Lane in Sag Harbor on May 4 at the age of 73. His family buried him with his favorite Nascar baseball hat and a hammer.

Eleanor Dickinson Baker, who was born in Third House, one of three colonial-era buildings on Montauk, died on May 1 at Southampton Hospital. She was 95 and had fallen two weeks earlier.

One of five children, Mrs. Baker was born on Dec. 21, 1918, to Frank Dickinson and the former Loretta Kelly. She grew up in the hamlet, attending the Montauk School and graduating from East Hampton High School.

    A memorial gathering for Eleanor Leaver, who died on Feb. 16 at the age of 93, will take place at Ashawagh Hall in Springs on May 25 from 5 to 7 p.m. Ms. Leaver, a pen-and-ink illustrator and artist who was known as Chip, lived in Springs for 43 years.

Leonard R. Mott, a lifelong resident of East Hampton who lived on Austin Road for the last 40 years, died on April 15 at Southampton Hospital.

Mr. Mott was a lover of the outdoors, of reading, and of sports, said his daughter, MaryBeth Fisher of East Hampton, and a big fan of the New York teams: the Giants, the Knicks, the Rangers, and the once-Brooklyn, now Los Angeles, Dodgers. He retired from long service to the Town of Riverhead, where he was a sewage plant operator, in 1981.

Marie Edwards Burkhardt, who was the last of her generation of Amagansett Edwardses, died on May 7 of pneumonia at Sentara Princess Anne Hospital in Virginia Beach. She was 99.

Mrs. Edwards came from a family that was among the first colonists to arrive in what would become East Hampton Town. Her father, Herbert N. Edwards, who was born in 1870, was a fisherman and whaler who took part in the last whale chases here and was East Hampton Town supervisor for two terms in the 1920s and ’30s.

Mary Johnston Evans, who had a successful career in business and was once honored as one of the 200 top corporate women by BusinessWeek magazine, died of complications of Alzheimer’s disease on May 5 at the Greens at Cannondale, an assisted-living facility in Wilton, Conn. She was 84 and had lived in East Hampton and New York City.

Remembered as smart, witty, and charming, Mrs. Evans was said to be one of the most successful women of her generation, one who inspired many women to take leadership positions in their communities and in business.

Mary Klassa, who lived in Montauk as a girl and attended South Fork schools, died on April 3 at Garden City Hospital in Michigan following a stroke. She was 64.

She was born Mary Alice McGuire on June 29, 1949, at Southampton Hospital, to William McGuire and the former Eva Holmes.

Mary Frances Steinberg, a former East Hampton resident and East Hampton Star employee, died on April 27 at home on Staten Island. The family said she died of natural causes. She was 80.

A native of Manhattan, where she grew up on the Upper West Side, Ms. Steinberg was born on April 26, 1934, to Michael McCarthy and the former Mary Arrigan. In 1965 she married Harold Steinberg, a former co-owner and executive of Chelsea House publishers. He died in 1999.

Molly Jo Miller, the former owner of an East Hampton antiques shop, died at home in East Hampton on May 3 at the age of 76. She had had heart problems for several months, her family said.

Mrs. Miller, who was known as M.J., and her husband, Walter (Pete) Miller, became part-time East End residents after buying a house in 1972. They moved here permanently in 1989, and she ran Circle Antiques on Main Street, beginning that year, for about a decade. She was a proud member of the Ladies Auxiliary of American Legion Post 419 in Amagansett.

A memorial service for Otis G. Pike, who represented the First Congressional District from 1960 to 1978 and died on Jan. 20, will be held at the First Congregational Church of Riverhead, at 103 First Street, on May 24 at 10:30 a.m.

Visiting hours will be next Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Reginald H. Tuthill Funeral Home, 406 East Main Street in Riverhead, and on Friday, May 23, from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. The public will be welcomed.

    The family of Phyllis and Richard Madan, East Hampton residents who died in November and January, respectively, both at 85, have announced that a memorial gathering for them will be held at 46 Maple Lane in East Hampton on June 7. Friends have been invited to stop by from 4 to 8 p.m. to share a story and lift a glass of champagne in the couple’s honor.

Anthony Drexel Duke, who as founder of the former Boys Harbor camp on Three Mile Harbor in East Hampton was a model and benefactor to generations of inner-city children, died at home in Gainesville, Fla., on April 30.

Christopher A. Cosich, a well-known bodybuilder and strength and fitness coach, died at home in Amagansett on April 21. He was 47 years old.

Eileen M. Buquicchio, who was 88, died at home on Middle Highway in East Hampton on Friday. She had suffered a series of strokes over the last seven months and died in her sleep.

Karin Terjesen Anderson, 45, of East Hampton, died at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City on April 28.

According to family legend, Mary Laura Bistrian was born on the kitchen table in the Cozzen’s house on Cozzen’s Lane in Amagansett. It was June 14, 1919, in the days when children were born at home.

Melville Straus, a longtime champion of Guild Hall as its chairman and a distinguished and successful businessman, died after a long illness with brain cancer on Thursday in New York City. Mr. Straus, who was known as Mickey, was 75.

Nancy Mulford Swank, a descendant of the Amagansett Mulford family, died of a heart attack on April 25 in Chapel Hill, N.C., where she had lived since 1979. She was 80.

Raymond James Costello Jr., a lifelong carpenter and Navy veteran, died surrounded by family on April 15 at the Pleasant Bay Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Brewster, Mass., after a long illness.

Robert Willis Espach, who was an attorney for more than 50 years, died of complications of cancer at Stony Brook University Hospital on Saturday. He was 84.

William Daniel Wall, who was 71, died on March 21 at the Indian River Medical Center in Vero Beach, Fla.

Alexander Sedlis, a distinguished cancer surgeon and professor of medicine who survived the Holocaust after escaping from a Polish ghetto, died on Feb. 17 in New York City of pancreatic cancer. He would have been 93 on May 17.

    Anthony Drexel Duke, who founded Boys and Girls Harbor in East Hampton in 1937, died yesterday in Gainesville, Fla. He was 95 and had cancer, his family said.

    Plans for celebrations of his life will be announced. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

Bruce Erickson, a lifelong fisherman and longtime resident of Montauk, died last Thursday at Heartland Health Care Center in Fort Myers, Fla. Mr. Erickson, who was 72, had been ill with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for the last nine years.

    A memorial service and burial for Joyce King, who died on April 11, will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m. at Calverton National Cemetery. Ms. King, who grew up in East Hampton, died at Florida Hospital in Orlando, Fla., of complications related to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. She was 70.

Timothy Scott Stanton, a Manhattan native and former advertising director for World-Wide Holdings Corporation, a family-run business started by his father and uncle, died in Chicago last Thursday following what his family said was a long-term illness. He was 56.

Mr. Stanton spent summers with his family on Hither Lane in East Hampton.

Virginia Marie Kehoe, who moved to East Hampton with her husband in 1987 after her retirement from the Bryant Library in Roslyn, died on March 19 after an illness of three months. She was 91.

Known as Ginny, her family said she would be remembered for warmth, beauty, friendliness, humor, patience, and steadfastness.

Born Virginia Marie Smith on May 24, 1922, her parents were George Smith and the former Anna Irwin. The family, which included three sons, lived in Jamaica, Queens, where she attended Richmond High School, graduating in 1942.

Annette Heller, who had careers as a jewelry maker, a focus group leader, and a snack food entrepreneur before settling full-time in Springs and turning her attention to art, died on Sunday at home on Longwoods Lane in Springs. She was 77 and had fought breast cancer for 20 years.

Born to Simon and Gladys Abraham on Feb. 17, 1937, she graduated from the City College of New York with a bachelor’s degree in education and a master’s in school psychology. She became a teacher and took pride in helping students reach their full potential, her family said.

    Betty Eames of East Hampton, a member of American Legion Post 419 in Amagansett and a former fire police volunteer with the Springs Department, died of pneumonia on April 13 at Southampton Hospital. She was 76 and had lung cancer since 2008. 

Dorothy Patterson, a former Bridgehampton and North Fork resident, died at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton on March 27. She was 92.

She was born on Aug. 23, 1921, in Colorado to Rob Rozwell and the former Emma Goodale. When she was still young, the family moved to a farm on the North Fork, where she attended school, graduating from Riverhead High School.

During World War II she and her first husband, Donald D. Wells, lived in Yuma, Ariz., where Mr. Wells was stationed in the military and where she worked in an aircraft factory.