Obituaries

John Easevoli of Key Largo, Fla., and Amagansett died on Jan. 24 at Southampton Hospital of complications of a heart attack he had had several months earlier.

Funeral services for Donald M. Halsey of Fithian Lane, East Hampton, will be held at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church tomorrow.

Eugene Lyle Stoler of East Hampton and New York City died at home in the city on Saturday.

Michael C. Hennessy, 80, a resident of North Haven from 1974 to 1988 who had since moved to Dingle in Ireland’s County Kerry, died at home there on Sunday after a two-year illness.

Clara Hamilton, who had been the secretary of the Amagansett Presbyterian Church for 30 years before she retired about 10 years ago, died on Jan. 18 at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton, where she had been for six months.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., for Mary Hawke, 89, of Southampton, who died on Jan. 20. Funeral services were held on Jan. 23 at the Southampton Presbyterian Church, followed by private burial in Flemington, N.J.

A full obituary will appear in a future issue.

Joseph D. Policano of East Hampton, a retired public relations executive, was well known to regular readers of The East Hampton Star for his near-weekly letters to the editor over many years.

Susanna Irma Jacob, a tailor, ceramic artist, friend to animals, and involved parishioner at St. Therese de Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk, died at Southampton Hospital on Sunday of pneumonia.

Earl C. Rishel of Water Mill, a gifted musician and trumpeter who taught at Southampton High School for almost 20 years, died at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing on Sunday.

Visiting hours for Victoria M. Carillo of Surfside Drive in Montauk and Key West will be at Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton on Friday.

Marie Grace Steidle of Springs, a homemaker and longtime volunteer for a number of worthy causes, died in her sleep at home on Jan. 15 at the age of 93.

Mrs. Steidle was described by her family as energetic and sociable. She dedicated herself to community service, volunteering with the American Red Cross, Meals on Wheels, and the Southampton Hospital Thrift Shop, among others. A lifelong pursuit of learning led her to take classes in real estate, quilting, yoga, rug-braiding, oil painting, and cooking.

Howard E. Lester Jr., a decorated retired Air Force master sergeant who grew up in East Hampton, died in Portsmouth, N.H., on Saturday. He was 75.

George Ward Jr., a former Sag Harbor police officer and 29-year Fire Department volunteer, died at his home in the village on Jan. 8 at the age of 75.

Despite his young age, Matthew Lester, who was a senior at East Hampton High School, felt a great civic duty, not only to his community, but to the whole world, his parents said.

Visiting hours for Clara Hamilton of Amagansett, who died on Jan. 18 at the age of 85, will be at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton tomorrow from 7 to 9 p.m. Her funeral will be held there on Saturday at 11 a.m., with burial following at Oak Grove Cemetery in Amagansett. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

Robert D. Hildreth, who won a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star as a soldier in Germany during World War II, died at home on Tuesday morning.

Joseph Vincent DiBlasi, who spent all his summers in Montauk, died at his Northport home on Sunday. He was 67 and had had cancer for two years.

James Leonard Rea, who had a career with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, first as a surveyor and then, after several transfers and promotions, in the Soil Conservation Service, died on Dec. 29 at home in Ventura, Calif., of complications following a heart attack.

M. Grace Steidle of East Hampton died on Sunday at the age of 93. A prayer service will be held at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton at 2 p.m. on Sunday. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

Barbara Mahoney Brooks, a mother, author, and Georgica Beach fixture who was the matriarch of an informal artist and surfer commune in the earliest days of wave riding there, died of natural causes on Jan. 14 in New York City.

Services for Matthew Lester of Springs, a 17-year-old East Hampton High School student who died on Monday, will begin Friday.

Ute von Engelhardt, one of the first Pan American World Airways stewardesses and a longtime resident of East Hampton, where she worked at a number of well-known shops, died unexpectedly on Dec. 31 while visiting her sisters in Germany.

Thomas Edmund Andres of Springs-Fireplace Road in Springs died on Sunday at home after an accidental fall.

David P. Krusa, a former commercial fisherman who had put as much energy into developing an offshore tilefish harvest as he did writing poetry and fiction, died of congestive heart failure on Jan. 4 at home in Montauk.

Ursula Ahnelt-Yezil of Springs died on Jan. 2 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan.

Janet Maloney, who in the late 1970s inherited a house on Springs-Fireplace Road that had belonged to her cousin Merrill Millar Lake, died of natural causes at her Manhattan residence on Jan. 4.

Tere LoPrete, a book designer whose credits included the first edition of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” and books by Julia Child, Tom Wolfe, and James Michener, died at home in Wainscott on Dec. 27 surrounded by friends and family.

Polly Kraft, an artist and longtime Wainscott summer resident, died on Jan. 1 at home in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., of pancreatic cancer.

Dianne d’Etreillis Roussel, who was an artist and designer from a young age and through Roussel Art Conservation, a family firm, worked on Ronald Reagan’s official White House Christmas ornament and many sculptures at Lincoln Center and Rockefeller Center, died on Dec. 25 at Haven Hospice in New York City of complications of lung cancer.

A graveside service was held at Oak Grove Cemetery in Amagansett on Saturday for Edna Mae Steckowski, 86, who died on Dec. 28 at her Miankoma Lane, Amagansett, home, which she and her husband built in 1950.