Obituaries

    Brandon Burns Stewart, who found East Hampton a vital extension of his life in the Manhattan art world, died of cancer on Nov. 2 in New York City. He had been sick for two months. He was 58.

    Born in Manhattan, his parents, Jack and Margo Stewart, were both artists, as well as activists for artists. Growing up surrounded by art and artists, he ended up making it his life’s work.

    As a child, he attended the Rudolf Steiner School, then the Hackley School, and went on to college at Case Western Reserve University.

    Asked in 2011 how she felt about turning 100, Elsie Garretson of East Hampton told The East Hampton Star, “I really don’t feel any different. You just go with the years, you keep breathing and living until God says, ‘Come on Elsie, you’ve spent enough time on earth.’ ”

    She had been “a great worrier,” she said. “Then I realized one day, why do you worry? Nothing comes from it. Try to take things in stride. Ride with the waves.”

    Kurt Kahofer of Wainscott, a maitre d’ at Herb McCarthy’s Bowden Square, which in its day was one of Southampton’s most popular restaurants, and a fixture for 35 years at the “21” Club in New York City, died at the age of 80 on Jan. 28 in Florida. His death was unexpected and the cause had not yet been determined, his family said this week.

    Louis C. McDonald, who retired from a career in distribution and freight management to live in Montauk and fish aboard his boat, the Hattaduit, died on Tuesday at home on Old West Lake Drive. He was 77 and had lung cancer, his family said.

    Mr. McDonald, who was known as Lou, was a member of the Montauk Friends of Erin and active with the Montauk Lions Club, among other organizations. He was a past commodore of the Wyncote Club in Huntington, an honorary member of the Joseph J. Gorman Knights of Columbus in Syosset, and a member of the Glendale Kiwanis Club.

    Richard L. Sharpe, a part-time Amagansett resident who had a long career on the business side of the radio industry, died on Jan. 1 in Locust Valley, where he also had a house. He was 72. The cause was a heart attack, his family said.

    Mr. Sharpe began his career as an advertising salesman before moving into national sales for large radio groups. He later ran a New York City radio representation company.

    William J. Hood, a retired senior officer in the Central Intelligence Agency and a writer, died at home in Amagansett early on the morning of Jan. 28. He would have turned 93 on April 19.

    During World War II, having just transferred from the Army into military intelligence, Mr. Hood volunteered for the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the C.I.A. He worked for a time on Ultra, a top-secret exploitation of coded German messages that the British and Americans had cracked and that the Germans thought was invulnerable, Enigma.

    Alice Vera Darden, who had been a devoted member of the Bridgehampton First Baptist Church since 1935, died at the age of 101 on Jan. 23 and was eulogized there at a service conducted by the Rev. Frank Bryant on Tuesday.

    Born on Aug. 31, 1911, Mrs. Darden died at the home of one of her granddaughters, Alice Johnson, in Southampton.

    A Sag Harbor native who grew up on Bridge Street in that village, then married an East Hampton man and lived on Pantigo Road in East Hampton Village, Barbara P. Lester died on Sunday at the Riverhead Care Center. She was 93.

    Mrs. Lester worked as a housekeeper for many East Hampton residents, including the actress Dina Merrill, her family said.

    Claude Simon Sarfati, who owned the Huntting Inn in East Hampton for a season and managed the Bridgehampton Club for six years, died after a brief illness on Sunday at his house in East Hampton, three days short of his 83rd birthday.

    William Martin Stahl, M.D., a surgeon and professor of medicine who was considered a master teacher by his peers and legions of students and residents whom he trained, died at home in Larchmont, N.Y., on Dec. 22, at the age of 90. His family described his death as natural and peaceful.

    A memorial service for Dr. Ethel Person of Amagansett and Manhattan, sponsored by the Psychoanalytic Center of Columbia University, will take place on Feb. 9 from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Uris Auditorium of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, 1300 York Avenue in Manhattan.

    Dr. Person, who died in October, was among those profiled in The New York Times Magazine’s annual end-of-year “The Lives They Lived” issue.

    Irene McClain Weidert, who grew up in Sag Harbor and lived in Southampton and Lady Lake, Fla., over the years, died at home in Southampton on Jan. 20. She was 85 and had had a long illness.

    Josephine Iacono, the last surviving sibling of the six children who grew up on the Iacono Farm on Long Lane in East Hampton, died at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton on Sunday. She had lived there for the last two and a half years but her family, who visited her there the previous day, said she seemed in good health and her death was unexpected. She was 88.

    Robert Ellsworth Bennett, a locksmith who had worked at many trades as a younger man, died of cancer at home in Springs on Jan. 15. He was 77.

    He was born on July 14, 1935, to Lewis and Lily Wood Bennett on Cedar Street in East Hampton “in the little white house next door to the firehouse, which has since been torn down,” his family wrote. He was a tenth-generation East Hampton Bennett.

    Susan Alling Miller, a summer resident of Amagansett for many years, died in her sleep at home in Stamford, Conn., on Jan. 17. She was 85.

    Born Helen Susan Alling in Newark, N.J., on Dec. 21, 1927, she was the oldest daughter of Dr. Frederic A. Alling and Helen Stearly. Her maternal grandfather was the Rt. Rev. Wilson Stearly, the fourth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark.

    In the 1930s, her family moved to Montclair, N.J., where she lived for most of her life. The family spent summers on Buzzards Bay, Mass., and in Quiogue.

    Sven E. Danielson Jr., whose passion and career, the restoration of historic buildings, were one and the same, died in Castine, Me., on Jan. 17 of metastatic melanoma. He was 70 and had moved to Castine 10 years ago.

    William J. Hood, a writer and former Office of Strategic Services and Central Intelligence Agency officer, died at home in Amagansett early in the morning on Monday. The cause was a stroke. A full obituary will appear in a future issue.

    William R. Peters, a corporate lawyer and businessman who had lived in East Hampton for the last 12 years, died on Jan. 21 after a sudden, short illness. His wife of 22 years, Shelley McBee Peters, was by his side. He had just turned 67.

    Mr. Peters was born on Jan. 18, 1946, in Great Neck, and grew up there. He was a graduate of the University of Rochester, where he received a bachelor’s degree, and of New York University Law School, where he earned juris doctor and master’s degrees. During the Vietnam era, he served in the Army.

    Ethyl C. Comerford, formerly of Noyac, a teacher at the Most Holy Trinity School in East Hampton for many years, died on Jan. 8 at the Fairview, a nursing home in Groton, Conn., where she had lived for the past nine months. Ms. Comerford was 92.

    Born on Jan. 14, 1920, in Astoria, Queens, to Joseph Masheck and Rose Cermak, she received a bachelor’s degree from what was formerly known as St. Joseph’s College for Women in Brooklyn. After graduating, she worked first as a secretary at Universal Pictures and later as an executive secretary at the Kimberly-Clark Corporation.

    James Albert Christensen of Laurel Trail in Sag Harbor, a 91-year old World War II Veteran, died at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton on Jan. 14, seven weeks after suffering a brain hemorrhage.

    Born on Sept. 25, 1921 in Carrollton, Mich. to the former Iva King and Albert Christensen, Mr. Christensen grew up in Saginaw, Mich., where he graduated from St. Andrew’s High School. While there, he served on the Eucharistic committee, English club, Sodality fellowship, and was a member of the football team.

    James H. O’Connell of Bayberry Lane on North Haven, who appeared in numerous community theater productions and was an active member of the Sag Harbor Knights of Columbus and  a lector at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Sag Harbor, died of pneumonia at Southampton Hospital on New Year’s Day. He was 99.

    Mr. O’Connell had retired from Met Life in 1978, where he had a 44-year career as an underwriter and in marketing.

    Mary Michell Kernell, 87,  who came to Amagansett in the early 1980s by way of Beverly Hills, New York City,  Port Washington, and the village of Sands Point in Nassau County, and whose family described her as savvy, extremely well read, kind, and strikingly beautiful, died on Jan. 14 at Southampton Hospital following a brief illness.

    Robert Bruce Anderson Sr., a World War II veteran and descendant of one of East Hampton’s founding families, the Fithians, died on Friday at Southampton Hospital. He was 90 and had lived on Cooper Lane in East Hampton for most of his life.

    He was born on the family homestead on Indian Wells Highway in Amagansett on Jan. 9, 1923, one of 10 children of Herbert Keith Anderson and the former Sybil Rae Fithian. He attended grade school in Amagansett and graduated in East Hampton High School’s class of 1940.

    Robert Harold Levenson, who was as famous for his taglines in the golden age of advertising as he was for his roses in East Hampton, died in New York City on Jan. 16. He was 83 and had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

    Mr. Levenson was eulogized in print and blogs in the last week by the advertising industry as a visionary and a generous mentor who told copywriters to imagine they were writing a letter and describing something to an intelligent friend who knew less about the product than they did.

    Walter E. Ershow, who flew 23 missions over enemy territory during World War II, died on Jan. 9 at the age of 89. The cause was heart failure, his family said. A part-time resident of East Hampton, he had been in declining health since October.

    Born in Newark, N.J., on Sept. 14, 1923, to David J. Ershowsky and the former Minnie Reinfeld, he grew up in the Weequahic section of the city. He graduated from Weequahic High School and then attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

    The Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in Sag Harbor is handling arrangements for James Christensen of Laurel Trail, Sag Harbor, who died on Monday at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton. He was 91. A service had not been announced as of yesterday.

    Mary Kernell, a longtime resident of Amagansett, died early Tuesday morning at Southampton Hospital. She was 87 years old.

    A full obituary will appear in next week’s Star.

    Myron Shulman, an architect who designed houses that embraced the openness and light of the East End, died on Jan. 7 at his house on Sarah’s Lane in Amagansett of Parkinson’s disease. He was 72 and had been in declining health for 13 years.

    Known to his friends as Bud, he was born in Newark to Murray Shulman and the former Augusta Charry on Feb. 17, 1937. Growing up in the Weequahic section of the city, he graduated from Weequahic High School, then attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture.

    Robert Bennett of Neck Path, Amagansett, died on Tuesday at the age of 77. A celebration of his life will be announced for a date in the late spring, his wife, Anna Mae Bennett, said. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

    Robert G. Lamparter of Montauk, a civic activist, Boy Scout leader, and dedicated surfcaster who worked passionately to give back to the hamlet he called home, died last Thursday at Southampton Hospital. He was 77 and had cancer.

    Mr. Lamparter built a summer house in Montauk in 1973, splitting his time between Montauk and Commack until he moved east year round in 1996, when he retired from his job as an art and photography teacher at Walt Whitman High School in Huntington.