Obituaries

Irving Hirschberg, a year-round resident of Amagansett for the last 35 years, died at Southampton Hospital on Dec. 30 following a heart attack.

Janine Marie Strong, familiar to many as a dental assistant in East Hampton offices of Dr. Gerald Sexton and later Dr. Michael Edwards, died at home in East Hampton on Saturday.

Karen Rickenbach Mesiha, 54, a survivor of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, and the daughter of East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. and his wife, the former Jean Smith, died of cancer on Dec. 12 at St. Francis Hospital in Flower Hill, a village in Nassau County, after a long illness.

Leonard Exter Spector, who most recently divided his time between a house on Flaggy Hole Road in Springs and Deer Isle, Me., died on Dec. 12 at Southampton Hospital.

Antoinette O’Connor, a part-time resident of Montauk for 43 years who was called both Rose and Toni, died on Dec. 5. She was 85 and had had a respiratory illness for about eight years.

Mike Kirshenbaum, a retired director of personnel for the Department of the Navy, died at Southampton Hospital on Friday at the age of 96. The cause was attributed to congestive heart failure and pneumonia.

Patricia Story, the East Hampton High School nurse for 25 years who cared for children with AIDS after her retirement, died on Dec. 13 at Avow Hospice in Naples, Fla.

Rose Millevolte, an artist who owned and operated Gallery East in East Hampton for 25 years, died in Naples, Fla., on Dec. 20 following what her loved ones described as a “long and courageous battle with Alzheimer’s disease.”

Ann Shengold, an artist and art director who lived on Sherrill Road in East Hampton for several years, died of lung cancer on Nov. 26 at home in Mattituck.

Pete DeCastro of Springs, a carpenter and builder who was a descendant of Sag Harbor fishermen and whalers, died at home of cancer on Friday evening.

Richard Moore Thayer, a Sagaponack resident and former member of the Sagaponack School Board, died at home last Thursday.

William B. Conway, who grew up in Montauk and became a civil engineer and partner in Modjeski and Masters, which specialized in bridge-building, died on Dec. 14 in New Orleans, where he had lived with his family for many years.

William H. Miller, a former resident of Amagansett, where he played in the men’s slow-pitch softball league for many years, died on Dec. 12 in Panama City, Fla.

Clara LiPani, who was an active and devoted member of St. Terese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk, where she had lived with her family, died on Dec. 3.

A celebration of the life of Clyde Lyle Jackson, 58, a former Montauk resident who died at home in Exmore, Va., will take place at Sammy’s restaurant in Montauk on Sunday.

There will be a graveside service at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton tomorrow at noon for Margaret Schorsch.

A graveside service for Patricia Young, a clerk at the East Hampton Post Office who died on Dec. 8, will be held Monday at the Jamesport Cemetery on the North Fork.

Gary J. Tweed, who had a house on Robertson Drive on North Haven for 25 years, died on Dec. 9 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City at the age of 70

Kathleen Mezynieski, who lived in Wainscott for 50 years, died at South­ampton Hospital last Thursday of kidney failure. She would have been 72 on Saturday.

Margaret E. Till Edeline, who was a young actress in London before moving to this country, died on Dec. 12 at her daughter’s house in Norfolk, Va.

Robert Roy Metz, who had been the president and C.E.O. of United Media, a licensing and newspaper-syndication company that launched and syndicated the “Garfield” and “Dilbert” comic strips under his leadership, died of pneumonia on Sunday.

Roland A. Reich, a former East Hampton resident who had worked for New York Telephone in Manhattan for 42 years, died on Saturday in North Kingston, R.I.

George Dorsey Brenning, who was among the founders of the East End Gay Organization in the 1970s, died of complications from surgery on Nov. 6 at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C.

Sy Coopersmith, a practicing Manhattan psychoanalyst for nearly a half-century and the owner of an East Hampton house for much of that time, died at his home in Great Neck on Nov. 6, at the age of 84.

Hy Brodsky, a public relations man, jazz historian, and Montauk community activist, died on Sunday at Southampton Hospital. Mr. Brodsky, who was 89, had not been ill, his family said.

Joanne Shea Cole, whose family said she dedicated her life to healing practices and service to others, died on Friday in Albany. She was 69 and had pancreatic cancer for three months.

Jody Lee Kalafut, who grew up in Montauk and with her husband operated Jody’s Country Kitchen on the hamlet’s Main Street from 1978 to 1982, died on Oct. 25 at her East Hampton house.

Daniel Justman, a well-known psychoanalyst, died of Alzheimer’s disease at home in Manhattan on Nov. 15.

Margaret Lewis, a longtime member of Calvary Baptist Church in East Hampton who had 7 grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren, and 2 great-great grandchildren, died at Southampton Hospital on Friday.

Marie Norkin Warach, a former president of the Artists Alliance of East Hampton and a longtime resident of Springs, died in New York City on Nov. 18.