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KLMNO OBITUARIES ALOCALLIFE:LOUISEGABEL,89
Arlington schoolteacher retired in ’91 but never quit doing the job she loved
BY EMMA BROWN PHOTOS COURTESY OF MIDDLETON FAMILY
KyleMiddleton, right, with fellow soldiers in Afghanistan. Middleton was killed by a makeshift bomb in Kandahar province.
Va. soldier loved
recalled as soccer star, dedicated infantryman
BY FREDRICK KUNKLE ANDMICHAEL LARIS
It was something of a surprise
to Kyle Middleton’s family when the handsome young Virginia man who had once been a soccer star decided to join the Army nearly two years ago. But then, he had always loved being part of a team. “That family of soldiers — he
loved that,” said his stepmother, Diane Middleton, 51, of Amelia County. “He loved family.He real- ly thrived in that kind of a family environment.” Spec.WilliamK.Middleton,26,
known to friends and family as Kyle, was killed Monday when Afghan insurgents attacked his foot patrol in Kandahar province withamakeshiftbomb,according to relatives and the military. An- other member of his unit, Sgt. Sean M. Flannery of Pennsylva- nia, alsowas killed. Friends and military officials
said Middleton was a decorated infantryman who had attended highschool inChesterfield,Va.He received a bachelor’s degree from Old Dominion University in Nor- folk,where he joined the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity and studied film. He had a way of making those around him feel like they mattered. “He was always genuinely in-
terested in where you were at in life,” said Bret Kelly, a fraternity brother. “He was one of those all-around good guys. There aren’tmany of those.” Middleton was also someone
who followed several sports reli- giouslyandrelishedagoodprank, according to friends and family. “He was very spontaneous. If he got an idea in his head, he would just do it,” said his half brother, ZacharyMiddleton, 21. A college roommate, Christian
Parsons, 28, saidvisitors ventured at their risk to their ODU lair, knowing that if they fell asleep after a night of partying, they were liable to awake covered in goo from the kitchen or with a mustache or a unibrow drawn on their faces with marker. Middle- ton and his roommates could be- come so carried awaywith practi- cal jokes that they were driven to sue one another for peace and draw up armistices agreements on notebook paper and tack them to their doors. “If you didn’t have that, you
might be woken up with an elec- tric guitar amp at full-up at 4 o’clock in the morning,” said Par- sons, who also was a member of
H
being part of a team Afghan casualty
alf the men and women who go into teaching end up leaving the profession
within five years. And then there are fabulous anomalies — one of whom was Louise Gabel, who taught elementary school in Ar- lington County for 61 years, the last 19 as a full-time volunteer. She was a volunteer at Carlin
Springs Elementary, where four- fifths of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch—a greater proportion of low-income chil- dren than any other Arlington school. Mrs. Gabel, whodied Oct. 18 at
Inova Fairfax Hospital at age 89, walked to Carlin Springs each day from her retirement home in Bai- leys Crossroads, a mile-and-a-half commute. She specialized in tutoring
Spec. WilliamK.Middleton
Middleton’s fraternity. Until he joined the Army, the
teams thatMiddleton lovedmost were those that played soccer.His family said Middleton played the sport from an early age and longedtoplayprofessionallyuntil a knee injury slowed his play.One of the beneficiaries of his life in- surance policy is the FC Rich- mondSoccerClub, forwhose trav- el team “Magic” Middleton had played, his stepmother said. When his father, Clarence
“Hank”Middleton, suggestedthat he enlist in theNational Guard to help pay for college, KyleMiddle- ton was opposed. After college, Middleton tended bar inNorfolk. But Middleton’s hunger for
physical challenges, camaraderie and adventure led himto enlist in theArmy inApril 2009.Unable to find work in the movie industry, he was looking for something more disciplined andmeaningful than tending bar. “He never really pondered the
‘what-if ’s.’ I always knewthat as a soldier, there was always a possi- bility hewouldn’t come back, and he knew that,” said Parsons, a DefenseDepartment employee in Suffolk,Va. When Middleton first arrived
in Afghanistan, he sounded let down, telling friends and family he had been shipped to a place with nothing but sand and more waiting-around. “He wanted to be one of the
guys out there in the field. He wantedtobe at the front,”Parsons said. Middleton had never sounded
happier than when the family spoke to himthe Saturday before his death. He was happy to be on patrols and in the middle of the action, his stepmother said. “You could hear it in his voice:
He was finally doing what he wanted to be doing over there,” DianeMiddleton said. KyleMiddletonis tobe interred
at Arlington National Cemetery, althoughfinal arrangementshave not beenmade.
kunklef@washpost.com larism@washpost.com
Staff researcher Eddy Palanzo contributed to this report.
3rd suspect in Betts’s death reaches plea deal
BY DANMORSE The third of four suspects orig-
inally charged in the slaying of D.C. Principal Brian K. Betts has reached a plea agreement, bring- ing prosecution of the high-pro- file murder case closer to a finish. Joel Johnson, 19,whohad been
charged with murder, intends to plead guilty to a lesser charge of accessory after the fact to first-de- gree murder, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, according toMontgomeryCounty Circuit Court records. Johnson is due in court on the
matter Tuesday, according to court records. Betts, well-known for his work
with students and a leading face of education reform, was found shot in his Silver Spring home in April. As detectives built their case,
they learned that Alante Saun- ders had called a sex chat line, linked up with Betts and set up a meeting for the purpose of rob- bing him, according to authori- ties. He arrived at Betts’s house
with three others, according to prosecutors. He went upstairs and shot Betts. Saunders’s attor- ney said the gun went off acci- dently.
Saunders, 19, pleaded guilty to
murder and recently was sen- tenced to 40 years. An accomplice, Sharif Lancast-
er, 19, pleaded guilty to robbery and a handgun charge. He faces up to 35 years in prison and is to be sentenced in February. Policehadfingerprint evidence
against both Lancaster and Saun- ders. The evidence against Johnson
did not appear as
strong.Prosecu- tors said he went to the house, and he was also linked to the case through the use of Betts’s stolen credit cards. Transactions were made soon after Betts was killed, according to authorities. The case against the fourth
defendant, Deontra Gray, also 19, has yet to be resolved. His attor- ney, Barbara Graham, said there is no evidence Gray ever went inside the house.
morsed@washpost.com
first-graders who struggled to
read.Shealsoworkedcloselywith fifth-graders on math skills, jumped into other classrooms to help out with special projects and served as a field trip chaperone. “We have volunteers who will
come once a week, or once a month — but Mrs. Gabel came every single day to school, all year long,” said Corina Coronel, the principal at Carlin Springs. Mrs. Gabel began her career at
Claremont Elementary in 1959. Gay Hammerman, whose sons were in Mrs. Gabel’s third-grade class four decades ago, recalled her as “just wonderful at commu- nicating material and picking up on each child, knowing just what each child needed.” When declining enrollments
forced Claremont’s closure in 1983, Mrs. Gabel transferred to
Willard W. ‘Lindy’
Lindquist CONTROLLER, CONSULTANT Willard W. “Lindy” Lindquist,
66, who co-owned and operated a consulting business that works with government contractors, died of cardiac arrest Nov. 14 at a hospital in Scottsdale, Ariz. He had pneumonia. Mr. Lindquist spent much of
his early career in theWashington area as a controller or chief finan- cial officer for government con- tractors including McDonnell Douglas and DDL Omni Engi- neering. In 1993, he started his own consultingcompany, theManage- ment Link, where his second wife became a business partner. They moved to Arizona in
2005 from Gaithersburg, andMr. Lindquist continued working un- til hisdeath.Hewasmost recently a resident of Prescott, Ariz. Willard Walter Lindquist was
a native of Melrose, Minn., and a 1967 graduate of Yankton College in South Dakota. He received a master’s degree in business ad- ministration from the University ofMaryland in 1970. He was a past president and
executive chairman of theUnited Way of Frederick County. His first marriage, to the for-
merKarenArny,endedin divorce. Survivors include his wife of 18 years, Marsha Bookstaber Lindquist of Prescott; a daughter from his first marriage, Jenny Croghan of Frederick; and two granddaughters.
—AdamBernstein LeRoy Reinburg Jr.
COAST GUARD CAPTAIN LeRoy Reinburg Jr., 87, a re-
tired Coast Guard captain who served in Vietnam, diedNov. 10 at the National Naval Medical Cen- ter in Bethesda. He had heart disease. Capt. Reinburg served aboard
a number of Coast Guard cutters and participated in missions at sea fromHawaii to Alaska. Later in his career, he com-
manded the Coast Guard cutters Magnolia,
Ironwood and
Pontchartrain. During the Viet- nam War, he was aboard a Coast Guard vessel off Vietnam assist- ing with the delivery of supplies
andammunition.For hiswartime duties, Capt. Reinburg received the Bronze StarMedal. His last posting, before retir-
ing from the service in 1976, was at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington.He became a marine safety consultant in the District before retiring again in the early 1990s.
Capt. Reinburg was born in
Washington, and his father was a Coast Guard rear admiral. He joined the Coast Guard in 1942 and graduated in 1948 from the
U.S.CoastGuardAcademyinNew
Glencarlyn Elementary, now Car- lin Springs. She retired in 1991 but never stopped showing up for work.
School was the center of her
life.HersonJonsaid thatworking with children helped Mrs. Gabel “stay young and useful and hap- py.” And, after being widowed in 2004, she found a second ro- mance at Carlin Springs with a fellow retiree and tutor. She “described herself feeling
like a teenage girl,” Jon Gabel said in a eulogy for his mother.
London, Conn. He received a master’s degree
in administration from George WashingtonUniversity in the ear- ly 1970s. His first wife,Marjorie Fayard
Reinburg, died in 1990. Their daughter Anora Reinburg Rob- bins died in 2007. Survivors include his second
wife, Marie Hilliard Reinburg of Silver Spring; five children from his first marriage, Virginia Rein- burg of Somerville, Mass., Molly Smith of McMurray, Pa., Claire Reinburg of Arlington, Leroy Re- inburg of Arlington, Tex., and Mary Reinburg of the Washing- ton area; and eight grandchil- dren.
—T. Rees Shapiro Elaine Ron
NIH SENIOR INVESTIGATOR Elaine Ron, 67,whohad been a
senior investigator at the Nation- al Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genet- ics, died Nov. 20 at her home in Bethesda. She had cancer. Dr. Ron joined the National
Cancer Institute in 1986 and was chief of the Radiation Epidemiol- ogy Branch from 1997 to 2002. Her NIH biography credited her with being a leading expert in radiation epidemiology and in the causes of thyroid cancer. She wrote more than 200 sci-
entific peer-reviewed papers.Her honors included the NIH Direc- tor’sAward. Elaine Straus was a New York
native and a history and political science graduate of CaseWestern Reserve University in Cleveland. She received a master’s degree in public health from Yale Universi- ty and a doctorate in epidemiolo- gy from the Tel Aviv University medical school. She conducted postdoctoral research at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, Israel.
During the six-day Arab-Israe-
li War of June 1967, she was a volunteer in the Israeli govern- ment press office. Her marriage to Moshe Ron
ended in divorce. Survivors in- clude a son, ArielRonof Oakland, Calif.
—AdamBernstein Elwood L. Ward
DEPUTY U.S. MARSHAL Elwood L. Ward, 74, a deputy
U.S. marshal from 1969 to 1992, mostly in the Washington area, diedNov. 11 at a hospital in Orlan- do of complications from diabe- tes.
Mr.Ward was an officer in the
Hyattsville Police Department for seven years before joining the Justice Department as a deputy U.S. marshal. He retired after about five years working in Nor- folk. He was a former resident of Charlotte Hall, Md., and lived
Myron ‘Mike’ Wolowitz
VETERANS AFFAIRS LAWYER Myron “Mike” Wolowitz, 88, a
lawyerwhohelpeddeterminevet- erans’ eligibility for benefits as a member of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, died Nov. 23 at the Bed- ford Court continuing-care facili- ty in Silver Spring. He had pneu- monia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Mr. Wolowitz joined what is
now the Department of Veterans Affairs in Chicago in 1963 and moved to Washington five years later.He retired in 1992. Myron Wolowitz was born in
Brooklyn, N.Y., and served in the Army duringWorldWar II. After the war, he was an ac-
countant in Chicago and went to night school atDePaulUniversity, from which he received a law degree. His first wife, Rose Gaines,
died in 1969. Survivors include his wife of 39 years, Phyllis Kush- nerWolowitzof SilverSpring; two children from his first marriage, David Wolowitz of Oak Park, Ill., and Steven Wolowitz of Green- wich, Conn.; two adopted chil- dren, Joseph Wolowitz of Rock- ville and Lori Wolowitz of Bur- tonsville; and six grandchildren. —EmmaBrown
Nicola J. Brintzenhofe
BUSINESS OWNER NicolaJ. Brintzenhofe, 62,who
ran her own financial services business for small companies in the Washington area, died of esophageal cancer Nov. 14 at her sister’s home in Damascus. She was a Springfield resident. Ms. Brintzenhofe was an ac-
countant and helped keep books and do tax work for a number of local businesses. She also acted as thechief financial officer for three companies, including Direct Im- pact, a Washington area public relations firm. She was also an investor and
partner for a number of Curves fitness facilities and Massage Envy spas. Nicola Jeanne Brintzenhofe was born in Minneapolis and
James P. Burke
ARCHIVIST James P. Burke, 94, an archi-
vist who retired from the State Department in 1973 as the chief of the records branch, diedNov. 11 at his home in La Plata. He had melanoma. Mr. Burke started at the State
Department as a clerk in 1939. Earlier in his career, he worked for the Reconstruction Finance Corp. James Patrick Burke was born
in Mahanoy City, Pa., and moved to the District when he was 16.He was a 1935 graduate of Eastern High School. He served in the Army duringWorldWar II . In 1967,Mr. Burke received the
State Department’s Meritorious HonorAward. Survivors includeasister,Rose
T. Burke of La Plata. —Lauren Wiseman
L. Eugene Fairman
PASTEURIZER L. Eugene Fairman, 90, a re-
tired pasteurizer at the old Alex- andria Dairy inFallsChurch, died Nov. 14 at Inova Fairfax Hospital. He had pneumonia. Mr. Fairman worked at Alex-
andria Dairy, which later became Shenandoah’s Pride, for 30 years before retiring in 1978. In retire- ment, he ran a small home-repair business. Lawrence Eugene Fairman
was born in Indiana, Pa., and moved to Arlington County in 1939 after graduating from high school. During his first 10 years in the area, Mr. Fairman held vari- ous trade jobs ranging fromhome repairs to farming work before entering the dairy business. He was a member of Walker
Chapel UnitedMethodist Church in Arlington. His wife of 55 years, Virginia S.
Fairman, died in 2007. Their daughter, Gail O. Chlon, died in 2008. Survivors include two sons,
Larry Fairman of Palm Harbor, Fla., and Jerry Fairman of Annan- dale; and five grandchildren. —Megan Buerger
ard University. She wanted to become a public school social worker, but Arlington County re- quired teaching experience first —
andonceMrs.Gabeldiscovered the classroom, she never left it. Her husband died in 2004 after
63 years of marriage. In addition to son Jon of An- nandale, survivors include three other children, Susan Poretz of McLean and Carol Berlin and David Gabel, both of Newton, Mass.; her companion, RoyeLow- ry of Falls Church; nine grand- children; and six great-grandchil- dren. Mrs. Gabel was a 63-yearmem-
ber of Beth El Hebrew Congrega- tion, a Reform synagogue in Alex- andria. In 2009, Arlington recognized
her dedication to children and community with the Ellen M. Bozman Lifetime Achievement Award. On Oct. 18, Mrs. Gabel was
FAMILY PHOTO Louise Gabel helped Arlington first-graders learn how to read. Louise Kohn was born March
9, 1921, inNewark and grewup in New York City, where her father worked as an insurance sales- man.
She graduated from Hunter
College at 19 and soon married Richard Gabel, a Columbia Uni- versity graduate student in eco- nomics whom she had met on a blind date. AfterWorldWar II, the couple
moved to Northern Virginia and Mrs. Gabel received a master’s degree in social work from How-
most recently inHudson, Fla. Elwood LeeWard was born in
Washington and raised inHyatts- ville, where he was a 1957 gradu- ate ofNorthwesternHigh School. He served in theMarine Corps
from 1953 to 1955 and in theNavy from 1957 to 1962. Hismembershipsincluded the
Fraternal Order of Police and the 1stMarine DivisionAssociation. His marriage to Linda Burch
Ward ended in divorce. Survivors include four children, Richard Ward ofHughesville, Md., Joseph Ward of Arlington,Melissa Lopes ofOrlandoandStephanieWardof St. Petersburg, Fla.; two sisters; and two grandsons. —AdamBernstein
crossing a street on her way to school when she was struck by an Arlington school bus carrying students toClaremont, the school where she had first taught. She died later that afternoon. The incident is still under in-
vestigation, said an Arlington po- lice spokeswoman. No charges have been filed. At the time of Mrs. Gabel’s
death,newsreports called her “an elderly woman.” Her friends and family said that was hardly an accurate description. “She was not doddering, not
feeble, not hanging in there,” said Hammerman, who was reac- quainted with Mrs. Gabel when they became neighbors several months ago. “She was on the upward trail.”
browne@washpost.com
moved to theWashington area in the late 1950s. She was a 1966 graduate of the old La ReineHigh School in Suitland. Her marriage to Daniel Salerio
ended in divorce. Survivors in- clude two sons, Danny Salerio of Port Republic, Md., and Christo- pher Salerio of San Diego; her father, Richard Brintzenhofe of Damascus; five sisters, Rebecca Faherty of Germantown, Cynthia Sullivan of Haymarket, Karlynn Brintzenhofe Szoc of Hyattsville, Kristen Kiernan ofDamascusand DanetteMertz ofClifton; and two brothers, Keith Brintzenhofe of Bainbridge Island,Wash.,andDa- vid Brintzenhofe of Springfield. —T. Rees Shapiro
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2010
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