FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 2010
KLMNO OBITUARIES
OF NOTE
rated World War II flying ace hailed as a hero of the French “Normandie-Niemen” squadron based in the Soviet Union, died Aug. 23 of complications from cancer. He was 92. The office of France’s veterans
KEVIN CLARK/THE WASHINGTON POST
Satoshi Kon’s 2003 animated film “Tokyo Godfathers” was nominated for an Oscar.
FAMILY PHOTO
Bonnie Ladin, an organizer with the SEIU for over 20 years, and husband Joseph Hansen, president of UCFW International.
BONNIE LADIN, 59
Her devotion to workers had its start in a bakery
Bonnie Ladin, 59, a professor
at the National Labor College who discovered her passion for workers’ rights as a member of a bakers union in the 1970s and went on to become a leading or- ganizer with the Service Employ- ees International Union, died Aug. 25 at her home in Rockville. She had cancer. Ms. Ladin worked for the SEIU for more than 20 years before joining the National Labor Col- lege in Silver Spring in 2001. Ms. Ladin taught courses on organiz- ing tactics and leadership skills. At the SEIU, Ms. Ladin was the organizing director of District 925, a union of mostly female clerical workers. Its name is a play on the title of the 1980 movie “Nine to Five,” starring Jane Fon- da, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton as secretaries fed up with their chauvinistic male boss. As the leader of District 925,
Ms. Ladin helped organize work- ers in cities across the country, in- cluding Chicago, Cleveland and Seattle. She later became the SEIU’s
national organizing director for clerical and health workers, par- ticularly employees of nursing
Robin S. Vierbuchen VOLUNTEER
Robin S. Vierbuchen, 82, a vol- unteer at Meals on Wheels, the Chevy Chase Women’s Repub- lican Club and the Kiwanis Club, died Aug. 16 at Springhouse at Westwood, a nursing home in Bethesda. She had lympho- ma.
Robin S. Vierbuchen
Robin Love Stickle, a third-genera- tion Washing- tonian, was a 1946 graduate of the Nation- al Cathedral School. She attended Che-
vy Chase Junior College and George Washington University. She attended Columbia Coun-
try Club in Chevy Chase, where her husband was president. She was a longtime Bethesda resi- dent. Her husband of 49 years, Rich- ard C. Vierbuchen Sr., died in 1999. Survivors include four chil- dren, Richard C. Vierbuchen Jr. of Weybridge, England, Robin Sproul of Bethesda, Thomas Vierbuchen of Charlottesville and L. Catherine Moreland of Middletown, Md.; a twin sister, Ruth Bernard of Mays Chapel, Md; and nine grandchildren. —Adam Bernstein
Alice Tafoya U-MD. SECRETARY
Alice Tafoya, 88, who retired in 1978 from the University of Maryland’s admissions office, died Aug. 9 at Bowie Assisted Living. She had Alzheimer’s dis- ease. Mrs. Tafoya did secretarial and administrative work in the ad- missions office, which she joined in 1968 after raising her children. From 1942 to 1950, she was a sec- retary at the Pentagon. Alice Mae Zeni was born in
Hibbing, Minn., and received a secretarial degree from Hibbing Community College in 1942. She volunteered with the par- ent-teacher associations at her children’s schools and with local Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts troops. In retirement, she and her hus- band split their time between their home in College Park and a home in Miami. Her husband of 47 years, Ben
Tafoya, died in 1994. Survivors include three chil- dren, Dennis Tafoya of College
homes, and she represented more than 100,000 union members. Bonnie Lou Ladin was born in
Los Angeles. She graduated from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and she received a master’s degree in Russian stud- ies from San Francisco State Uni- versity.
She spent two years in New
York as an AmeriCorps volunteer, working on welfare rights before deciding she wanted to be a ba- ker. Working at a Safeway bakery in San Francisco in the late 1970s, Ms. Ladin realized that she could combine her passions for bakery work and social activism as a union member, spurring her deci- sion to become a labor organizer. Survivors include her husband of 26 years, Joseph Hansen of Rockville, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union; a son, David Hansen of Rockville; three step- daughters, Elizabeth Hatab and Kathleen Hansen, both of Mil- waukee, and Ann Rose of Bel- gium, Wis.; a stepson, Robert Hansen of Bellingham, Wash.; two sisters; a brother; and five grandchildren.
— T. Rees Shapiro
Park, Catherine Tafoya of Salt Lake City and Monica Tafoya of Frederick; two sisters, Ann Sotz- sky of Frederick and Louise Bla- zina of Hibbing; and three grandchildren.
—Emma Brown
Patricia Watson CHURCH MEMBER
Patricia Watson, 63, a former
physical therapist who became an active member of Chevy Chase United Methodist Church, died Aug. 14 at her home in Washington. She had metasta- sized breast cancer. Ms. Watson was on the mis- sions committee at Chevy Chase United Methodist Church and was vice chairwoman of the church’s United Methodist Wom- en chapter. Through the church, she did mission work in Russia and Costa Rica in the 1990s. She began her physical thera- py career in the Navy in the late 1960s based in Philadelphia and later worked in hospitals in Kai- lua, Hawaii, and Portland, Ore. She worked in Washington for orthopedic surgeon Randall Lewis from 1981 to 1985, then be- came a homemaker. Patricia Watson was born in
Chicago and completed high school in Oxnard, Calif. She was a 1968 physical therapy graduate of Loma Linda University in Cali- fornia.
She was a past Girl Scout lead- er.
Survivors include her husband of 32 years, Paul B. Green of Washington; three daughters, Li- ana Green of Jacksonville, Fla., Megan Green of Chicago and Kimberly Green of Washington; a brother; and a granddaughter. —Adam Bernstein
George C. White Jr. NASA ENGINEER
George C. White Jr., 95, a for-
mer NASA engineer responsible for quality assurance for the Apollo program, died of pneumo- nia Aug. 13 at Asbury Methodist Village in Gaithersburg. Mr. White joined NASA in 1963 to work on vehicles for Apollo missions to the moon. He be- came director of quality and reli- ability in 1966 and helped inves- tigate a fatal launch-pad fire that killed three astronauts in 1967. He later became director of
safety, quality and reliability for all of NASA’s flight centers and oversaw projects on Spacelab and space shuttle design. He re- tired in 1978. George Chester White Jr. was
Satoshi Kon
ANIMATED-FILM DIRECTOR Acclaimed Japanese animated-
film director Satoshi Kon, known for “Tokyo Godfathers,” “Millen- nium Actress” and other prize- winning movies, died Aug. 24 of pancreatic cancer. He was 46. Considered one of Japan’s most
exciting directors of animated films, or “anime,” Mr. Kon was born in 1963 on the island of Hok- kaido and debuted as a comic- book artist at age 23 while still an art student at Musashino Art University near Tokyo. He began making animated films about 1990, establishing a style that blurred the boundaries of reality and fantasy. In his Oscar-nom- inated 2003 film “Tokyo God- fathers,” loosely based on the 1948 John Ford movie “3 God- fathers,” Mr. Kon featured three homeless people instead of three cowboys, breaking with the clean and ritzy image of the Japanese capital. Mr. Kon’s characters — a drag queen, a runaway high school girl and a former profes- sional bicycle racer — pick up an abandoned infant from a garbage dump on Christmas Day and set out to find its parents. The 2006 film “Paprika,” based on a novel by writer Yasutaka Tsutsui, won a prize at the Brus- sels anime festival in 2007. Mr. Kon was working on his first chil- dren’s film, “The Dreaming Ma- chine,” at the time of his death.
Marcel Albert WWII FLYING ACE
Marcel Albert, a widely deco-
born in West Grove, Pa., and was a 1937 aeronautical engineering graduate of Tri-State College (now Trine University) in Angola, Ind.
During World War II, Mr. White helped oversee the break- down and reconstruction of a captured Japanese Zero fighter plane. After the war, he worked for private aircraft firms and for the National Advisory Commit- tee for Aeronautics, a NASA fore- runner. He was a licensed pilot and a member of Rockville Presbyteri- an Church. Survivors include his wife of 71 years, Marcia McOmber White, of Gaithersburg; two daughters, Carol White of New York and Sandra Milledge of Miami; and two grandsons.
—T. Rees Shapiro
Peter Winter APPRAISER
Peter Winter, 77, who worked as an appraiser of antiques and fine arts during the 1960s and ’70s at Arpad Antiques in Wash- ington’s Georgetown neighbor- hood, died Aug. 4 of cancer at his home in La Jolla, Calif. He had lived in Bethesda until five years ago. In retirement, he enjoyed scu- ba diving at locations around the world, including Fiji and the Galapagos Islands. Peter McGowin Winter was born in Glendale, Calif., and at- tended California Polytechnic State University before joining the Air Force in 1952. He served until 1956, including an assign- ment in Japan during the Korean War. He came to Washington to work for the National Security Agency. He volunteered for the National Symphony Orchestra and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Mr. Winter enjoyed listening to classical music and sailing on the Chesapeake Bay. Survivors include his wife of 47 years, Catherine Yacker Winter of La Jolla; two children, Melissa Weiss of Athens, Vt., and Chris- tian Winter of Los Angeles; and a brother.
—Emma Brown
Raedina D. Winters DANCING INSTRUCTOR
RaedinaD. Winters, 98, found- ing director of the Golden Rays, a tap-dancing troupe for senior cit- izens in Northern Virginia, died Aug. 9 at her home in Alexandria. She had esophageal cancer. Since the late 1970s, Mrs. Win-
affairs minister, Hubert Falco, ex- pressed condolences to Mr. Al- bert’s former comrades-in-arms and “all the Russians who consid- er him a great hero.” France’s Order of the Libera- tion said Mr. Albert died in Har- lingen, Tex., where he moved and founded a hotel chain after the war. It said he was buried in Chi- pley, Fla. The order — founded by Gen.
Charles de Gaulle — said on its Web site that Mr. Albert flew 199 missions and holds the record of 24 “victories” for the Normandie- Niemen, including seven in Octo- ber 1944 alone. Mr. Albert’s nephew Jean Mav-
inger described Mr. Albert as a dynamic if secretive man who rarely talked about his wartime experiences. “He really didn’t like to talk about it. All his friends died in Russia,” Mavinger said by tele- phone from his home near Orly airport south of Paris. “It really affected him.” Mavinger said Mr. Albert, who had no children, is survived by a 96-year-old sister and nieces and nephews. He said Mr. Albert had wanted to be buried next to his American-born wife, who died and was interred in Florida last year.
William R. Kirtley DIABETES RESEARCHER
Dr. William R. Kirtley, 96, a medical research pioneer who helped develop drugs after World War II that improved the lives of diabetics, died Aug. 22 at a hospi- tal near his home in Hilton Head, S.C. No cause of death was report- ed.
Dr. Kirtley was part of a re- search team at Eli Lilly in Indian- apolis that conducted ground- breaking research on diabetes drugs after the war. “My dad was proud of his work and what it meant for the lives of people with diabetes,” daughter Jane Kirtley said in an interview
ters taught tap-dancing at senior centers throughout Northern Virginia. Until June, she was teaching at Little River Glen Sen- ior Center in Fairfax County. The Golden Rays performed throughout the Washington re- gion and participated in the an- nual Cherry Blossom Festival Pa- rade.
She was born Raedina David- son in Chicago. In the 1930s, she managed her own dance studio in Des Moines. She moved to the Washington region in the late 1970s. Her husband of 59 years, Mil- ton S. Winters, died in 1995. Survivors include three chil- dren, Ann Simon of Oakton, Sherman Winters of Potomac and Theodora Berlatsky of Lans- dale, Pa; six grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. —Lauren Wiseman
Albert Yamada PUBLIC AFFAIRS EXECUTIVE
Albert Yamada, 71, president of
Masaoka and Associates, a public affairs consulting firm in Wash- ington, died Aug. 7 at Inova Fair- fax Hospital after a stroke. He was a Reston resident. Mr. Yamada, an expert on
international trade, joined Ma- saoka in 1987 and worked there until his death. As president, he represented Toyota; Taka- ta Corp., an automotive safety-parts manufac-
Albert Yamada
turer; and the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas. Tomohiko
Albert Yama- da was born
in Kamakura, Japan. As a child, he saw American bomber planes fly over his house en route to Tokyo during World War II. He came to the United States
to attend Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania and was a 1962 English and journalism gradu- ate. He became a U.S. citizen in 1969. After college, he worked as a journalist for the Elizabethtown Chronicle, as editor of the em- ployee magazine of the Campbell Soup Co. and as a public rela- tions specialist for Philadelphia Gas Works. He was a member of the Amer-
ican League of Lobbyists, the Na- tional Passenger Safety Associa- tion and the Public Relations So- ciety of America.
S
B7
FOTOTECA ONLINE A COMUNISMULUI ROMANESC VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gheorghe Apostol, second from right, in 1969 with other Romanian Communist officials, including political rival Nicolae Ceausescu, left.
Wednesday. She said Kirtley helped refine
injectable insulin and helped de- velop pills to help certain diabet- ics naturally produce insulin. Dr. Kirtley won the Banting
Medal from the American Dia- betes Association in 1971.
Gheorghe Apostol ROMANIAN POLITICIAN
Gheorghe Apostol, 97, a vet-
eran Communist politician who gained international attention in 1989 by publicly criticizing Ro- manian dictator Nicolae Ceau- sescu, died Aug. 21 in Bucharest. The cause of death was not re- ported. Mr. Apostol became a Commu- nist in the 1930s when the party was still illegal in Romania, and he served as a close ally of the Communist leader at the time, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. After the Communist Party’s
post-World War II rise to power in Romania, Mr. Apostol served as a top government official. When Gheorghiu-Dej died in
1965, Mr. Apostol was defeated in the ensuing contest for Commu- nist Party leader by Ceausescu, who ended up ruling Romania with an iron fist for nearly a quar- ter-century. Mr. Apostol was soon consid-
His marriage to Helen Wash- burn ended in divorce. Survivors include his second
wife, Kristine Heine of Reston; two children from his first mar- riage, James Yamada of Ashe- ville, N.C., and Sarah Yamada of Sarasota, Fla.; and three grand- daughters.
—T. Rees Shapiro
Janice Bertsch COSMETOLOGIST
Janice Bertsch, 89, a former
cosmetologist and member of the Montgomery Farm Women’s Co- operative Market, died Aug. 23 at her home in Silver Spring from complications of open-heart sur- gery and pneumonia. Born in Fremont, Ohio, Janice
Ruth Ahner graduated from the old Toledo School of Cosmetol- ogy in 1939. She worked as a cos- metologist in Sandusky before leaving her job to raise a family. Mrs. Bertsch moved to Silver Spring in 1990 and joined the Montgomery Farm Women’s Co- operative Market. During the summers, she operated an an- tiques store on Kelleys Island in the western part of Lake Erie. Her husband of 47 years, Ed-
win A. Bertsch, died in 1988. Survivors include three chil- dren, Dennis Bertsch of Alexan- dria, Barbara Ott of Silver Spring and Susan Canino of Lumberton, N.J.; a brother; nine grandchil- dren; and 15 great-grandchil- dren.
—Megan Buerger
Maurice Flagg RED CROSS EMPLOYEE
Maurice Flagg, who worked in public relations for the American Red Cross for more than 30 years, died Aug. 16 of complica- tions from congestive heart fail- ure at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington County. He was 84. Mr. Flagg began working in communications for the Red Cross at its Washington head- quarters in 1950. In 1966, he
ered the dictator’s rival. Acting on the advice of senior party members, he became a diplomat and served as Romania’s ambas- sador to Argentina in the 1970s and later served in Brazil before returning to Romania in 1988. Mr. Apostol gained interna-
tional attention in March 1989 by signing the “letter of the six,” in which he and five other senior Communists publicly criticized Ceausescu for the first time. In the letter, they opposed the rul- er’s plans to destroy thousands of villages and accused him of dam- aging the country’s economy and reputation abroad. The letter was broadcast on Radio Free Europe and Voice of America, and a short time later Mr. Apostol was accused of being a Soviet spy and placed under house arrest. But that didn’t last long, as Ro- mania slipped into political chaos again. Mr. Apostol was released dur- ing Romania’s anti-Communist revolt in December 1989, during which Ceausescu was toppled and executed in a bloody uprising that killed more than 1,000 peo- ple.
Soon afterward, Mr. Apostol
retired from public life. He rarely spoke in public.
— From news services
joined the public relations divi- sion of the President’s Commit- tee on Mental Retardation, which advised the president on issues important to people with intellectual disabilities. In 1970, Mr. Flagg rejoined the Red Cross and soon became the founding editor of the outreach publication Good Neighbor. He ran the magazine until 1976, when he became the director of blood services information. After retiring in 1988, Mr.
Flagg worked on a consultant ba- sis in Geneva as an executive as- sistant to the secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Soci- eties. He also traveled frequently, in- cluding to Russia to assist as a volunteer on scientific research expeditions. From 1990 to 2009, he pub- lished a newsletter, the Occa- sional Letter, of his reflections and observations. It was distrib- uted 12 times a year to several hundred subscribers. Maurice Stillman Flagg was born in Westford, Mass., and graduated from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, in 1949. He moved to the Washington area after graduation to work at the old Washington Evening Star newspaper. A longtime resident of Arling-
ton, Mr. Flagg was deeply in- volved in civic affairs. He sat on the county’s planning, transpor- tation and public utilities com- missions as well as its commis- sion on aging. Mr. Flagg was a member of Ar-
lingtonians for a Better County, the Arlington County Democrat- ic Committee and Rock Spring Congregational United Church of Christ in Arlington. His marriage to Marianne An-
gell ended in divorce. Survivors include two sons, Buck Flagg of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Anthony Flagg of Lithia, Fla.; a sister; a brother; and two grand- children.
—Emma Brown
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134