Obituaries

Monte Wolfson, a retail executive who had a key role in engineering some of the most important innovations of the modern apparel industry, died at Calvary Hospital Hospice in the Bronx on July 2 after a brief illness. He was 91.

He was an East Hampton summer resident for over 40 years, building one of the first houses on East Hollow Road in Georgica in 1974, said his daughter, Suzanne Wolfson. “My father loved Georgica Beach and would head over there with his beach chair at around 5 p.m. every day that he could,” Ms. Wolfson wrote. He also lived in Manhattan.

William E. Matthews enjoyed fishing, especially freshwater fishing in Maine. He took up decoy carving in his retirement, and he enjoyed golf and photography, but “everything else was secondary to his grandchildren,” his son, Dave Matthews, said.

He had two grandsons and twin granddaughters, now ranging in age from their teens to 20s, who visited him and his wife, Catherine, every summer in East Hampton. “He loved to spend time with them,” Mrs. Matthews said.

Frank Salvatore LaBarbera of Springs, who was diagnosed with leukemia eight years ago, died at Stony Brook University Hospital on Saturday at the age of 48.

Mr. LaBarbera kept his sense of humor and positive spirit, his family said, despite his health issues. He had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis as a child and astounding resiliency throughout several remissions. In fact, said the family, his almost miraculous recoveries led hospital staff to nickname him Wonder Boy.

John J. Crimmins Sr., an electrician and electrical foreman in New York City with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local No. 3 for more than 40 years, took great pride in his work, his family said. He recently received his 65-year union membership pin. Formerly of Lakeland, Fla., and Mineola, Mr. Crimmins died on Sunday at his daughter’s house in East Hampton, surrounded by family. He was 90.

Lawrence A. Nelson, formerly of New York and Sag Harbor, died in Scottsdale, Ariz., on June 22. He was 80 and had been ill with liver and bile duct cancer.

Mr. Nelson was born on June 2, 1934, in Detroit. After graduating from Michigan State University, he moved to New York, where he pursued a career in advertising. While living in Sag Harbor, Mr. Nelson was a member of the East Hampton Tennis Club and the Noyac Golf Club.

He is survived by his wife, Joan Nelson of Scottsdale. Burial will be at the family’s plot in Detroit.

Mary A. Steere loved to read, and it was almost a rule that conversation at her Beach Hampton house would not begin on the weekends until 5 p.m. had come and gone. First-time guests could be puzzled by the silence as Ms. Steere and various family members pored through their books, thinking that they had perhaps done something to offend.

The truth was just the opposite. Ms. Steere loved to cook and entertain just as much as she enjoyed her novels, though it was clear that there were distinct times when both where appropriate.

Ronald J. Humphreys, a retired East Hampton Village Police officer who was president of its Police Benevolent Association for years, died of renal failure on June 28 at Southampton Hospital. He was 71. Known as “Big Ron,” he was “always on top of the world,” his family said.

Yves Antoine Bourel, a 22-year-old former Noyac resident, died on July 2 at Newport Hospital in Newport, R.I., after having collapsed the previous day. His family said doctors are not exactly sure why he went into cardiac arrest.

Eli Wallach, a consummate character actor whose career bridged the acting techniques of the 20th century, died on June 24 at home in Manhattan at the age of 98. Mr. Wallach and his wife, the actress Anne Jackson, had a house in East Hampton for many years.

Elsie J. Edwards, who lived on Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett for 66 of her nearly 93 years, died at home on Friday. Her health had been in decline over the last several months, said her son, Bruce J. Edwards of Richmond, Va.

A member of the Amagansett Presbyterian Church, she loved music and sang in the church choir, her son said. She was a determined woman with an energetic spirit, he said.

Janet Carolyn Mundus, who was a fixture in Montauk for many years, died at home on Sunday. She was 88.

Mrs. Mundus was fun-loving and a hard worker with a keen intellect, her family said, and had been married to Frank Mundus, the celebrated shark fisherman.

Nancy Paula Jensen-Norris, an East Hampton native who served for 28 years as a nurse at Southampton Hospital, died on June 21 in Gray, Me. She was 74 and had ovarian cancer for the last five years.

Paul Schiavoni, a member of a large Sag Harbor family and a former member of the Sag Harbor School Board, died at his home on North Haven on June 26. A painting and wallpaper contractor who retired two years ago, he had A.L.S., a neurodegenerative condition known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, for three years. He was 74.

Sandra Steinlauf, a former Montauk columnist for The East Hampton Star, died on May 27 in Boca Raton, Fla., at the age of 73. She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer three and a half years ago.

After graduating from Brooklyn College in 1962, she married Bernard Steinlauf, and the couple moved to Montauk, where, for 15 years, they owned the Takamatzia Motel. Ms. Steinlauf was president of the Montauk PTA, where she implemented a screening program for amblyopia, commonly called lazy eye.

Franco Stephen Denaro, a chef, caterer, and food stylist who lived on Joshua Edwards Court in East Hampton, died on May 28 at Southampton Hospital. Mr. Denaro, who was 61, had a heart attack at the Ross School, where he worked as a chef.

He was a talented gardener and fisherman, said his son, Stephen Denaro of East Hampton. “He was a good guy, an honorable guy,” he said.

Howard T. Rosen, a New Jersey attorney who often took the month of August off to spend with his family on Sandpiper Lane in Amagansett, died at the age of 86 on May 23 in Naples, Fla. He had been in constant, low-level pain since knee replacement surgery eight years ago, his son Jim Rosen said.

Julian Norman Koenig, a renowned advertising copywriter who nevertheless described himself as just “a writer of short sentences,” died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan on June 12. He was 93 and had suffered what was believed to be a stroke about a week before.

Kenneth B. Frankl, an Amagansett resident who in the course of his legal career was a corporate attorney, a New York City assistant district attorney, and a private practitioner, died at home on June 16. He was 90, and had Parkinson’s disease for many years, and had a stroke in 2005.

Mr. Frankl was passionate about music and played the piano for hours daily, almost until the end of his life, his family said. He loved Shakespeare, bridge, football, and politics, along with his family and the Amagansett community.

Paul Joseph Honorowski, a well-known carver of waterfowl and decoys, died at his Windmill Village apartment in East Hampton on Friday night. He was chronically ill, and had been under medical supervision for some time. He was 59.

Born on Aug. 14, 1954, in Southampton, to Stanley John Honorowski, a sculptor, and the former Genevieve Victoria Lapatowicz, he grew up in East Hampton and graduated from East Hampton High School. He was said to have loved surfing in his youth.

Richard Cummings, a prolific writer and scholar, died of prostate cancer on June 18 in Southampton. He was 76.

As a young man, Mr. Cummings was an associate at a Manhattan law firm, Whitman Breed Abbott & Morgan, and at the United States Agency for International Development in Washington, D.C. He later taught at law schools in the West Indies and Ethiopia.

Robert E. Costello, a pioneering producer of classic ’50s television shows who later won a Peabody Award for the PBS series “The Adams Chronicles” and two Emmys for ABC’s daytime serial “Ryan’s Hope,” died of a heart attack on May 30 at his summer house in Amagansett’s Beach Hampton neighborhood. He was 93 and had been diagnosed many years before with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

    A memorial service for Annamae Bennett, who died in November at the age of 78, will be held at the American Legion Hall in Amagansett on June 28 from noon to 3 p.m. Ms. Bennett lived on Neck Path in Springs.

Frederick C. Filasky, the onetime owner of an East Hampton bed and breakfast called the Plover’s Nest, died at Southampton Hospital on May 29 of congestive heart failure. He was 75, and had been ill for some time.

    Kenneth Richard Frankl, who served as the vice president and general counsel of RKO General until 1984, died at home in Amagansett on Monday. He was 90. His memorial will be held at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons in East Hampton Village at 3 p.m. on June 29.    An obituary for him will appear in a future edition of The East Hampton Star.

Kyu Bong Cho, who moved from Korea to Springs at age 18 and attended East Hampton High School, died of a stroke on May 12 in Alexandria, Va. He was 61.

Mr. Cho came to the United States to live with his sister, Myong A. Cho Miller, and her husband, Mickey Miller, a bayman. One of his first jobs was helping Mr. Miller lift his fish traps early in the morning.

The Star has received word of the death of James Alan Ruthenberg, who grew up in East Hampton and Bohemia, on April 24 in Roanoke, Va., of cancer. He was 54 and had been living in Roanoke for the last 20 years.

“He was kind and generous,” said his mother, Alison Pidgeon of Sweetwater, Tenn., “and well liked by everyone he met.”

Jerry Dillon, who grew up in East Hampton and graduated from East Hampton High School with the class of 1955, died in Columbus, Ohio, on May 25. He was 76 and had a long history of pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure.

Mary Ellen Wilcox, who worked as a teacher and guidance counselor for 32 years upstate, died at home on Round Pond Lane in Sag Harbor on Monday after what was described as a long illness. She was 66.

Soon after moving to Sag Harbor 20 years ago, Ms. Wilcox became a volunteer at the Sag Harbor Community Food Pantry, which enriched her life. According to Ann Wallingford, her life partner of 33 years, she would say, “I come home with so much more than I gave.”

Richard G. Ehrlich, the owner of the Clam Bar on Napeague since 1980, died at home in Southold on Saturday of pancreatic cancer. He was 73, and had been ill for one month.

Known to his friends as Dick, he was born on June 10, 1940, in White Plains, N.Y., to Jacob Ehrlich and the former Mary Gates. Mr. Ehrlich graduated from Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. Fascinated by the world of stamp-collecting, he became a professional philatelist, traveling the world, successfully buying and selling stamp collections.

Robert L. Carter,  a proud veteran who marched in Sag Harbor’s parades whenever he could, died on Memorial Day at the Long Island State Veterans Home in Stony Brook, where he had lived for nearly a year. He was 82 and had Alzheimer’s disease.