Obituaries

Helen Cordier Johns, who had an abiding commitment to social justice and diversity and worked on causes from integration to the support of AIDS patients, died on Aug. 4 in Richmond, Va. She was 89.

Throughout her life, Ms. Johns spent as much time as she could in East Hampton, in a house she built next door to one her maternal grandfather, Howard Ogden Wood, had built in the late 19th century on Georgica Pond. According to family lore, the house was constructed on the spot where a goose fell during a hunting trip to the area.

Lauren Bacall, one of the sirens of Hollywood’s golden age and a Tony-award winning actress for her work on Broadway, died Tuesday from what has been reported to be a massive stroke at home in New York.

Thomas Corwin Tillinghast, a former member of the East Hampton Fire Department and charter member of the East Hampton Kiwanis Club, died of complications of heart disease at home in Southold on July 17.

Mr. Tillinghast, who was born on a dairy farm at Apaquogue and Georgica Roads, lived nearly all of his 61 years in East Hampton. He moved to Southold in 2011, said his brother, Robert Tillinghast of East Hampton.

Hedwig Lucas, who began vacationing in Montauk in 1960 and became a full-time resident in 1997, died on July 27 at her Ditch Plain residence. Known to her friends as Heddy, she was 101 years old.

Her only child, Joseph Lukas of Montauk, said the family used to come to the hamlet every summer. “They stayed at Deep Hollow Ranch for many, many years,” and also camped at Hither Hills State Park. His mother “loved to walk around the Lighthouse,” he said.

    James Thomason died on Monday at home in Sag Harbor. He was 66 and the owner of the Morris Studio, a photo lab in Southampton. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

James Weber, a lifelong resident of East Hampton and member of the Sons of the American Legion, died of an undetermined cause on July 20. Mr. Weber was three days shy of his 45th birthday.

“In the tradition of most Bonackers, Jim was an avid fisherman and a clammer,” wrote his sister, Barbara Young of Hampton Bays. Some of his favorite places, she wrote, were Northwest Dock for fishing and, for clamming, the former site of Camp St. Regis in Northwest Woods.

Karen L. Heaney, a co-founder with her late husband, Dennis Heaney, of East Hampton Electric, died on Aug. 4 in Florida after an illness. She was 70.

Lee Hillard Levy of East Hampton died at Southampton Hospital on July 22 after a brief illness, at the age of 91. His spouse and partner of nearly 40 years, Charles Millevoi, his two sons, Mark and Jeff Levy of California, and three of his four grandchildren were at his side.

Mr. Levy was a fashion designer and business owner whose designs for men’s and women’s outerwear were manufactured under the label Lee Levy Designs toward the end of his career.

Tibor Klein, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor and seasonal Montauk resident who kept a boat at Navy Road there for many years, died yesterday at Chilton Hospital in Pompton Plains, N.J. Known as Teddy, he was 82 and had suffered from heart disease for many years.

Mr. Klein loved fishing, both from the beach and from his boat, and was proud of a trophy he earned for a striped bass he caught while surfcasting. He enjoyed fixing things and giving new life to items he found at the Montauk recycling center. He also enjoyed growing vegetables, cooking, and entertaining.

Arthur Prager of Sag Harbor and New York City died on Friday morning at home on Washington Square in Manhattan. He would have been 92 in August.

Bertha Hopson, the ninth in an East Hampton family of 10 children, who lived here her entire life, died at Southampton Hospital on July 25 as the result of an aneurysm. She was 81.

In 1954, Ms. Hopson was among 12 charter members of East Hampton’s Calvary Baptist Church. She retired only recently from its usher board, after receiving a pin honoring her 55 years of service.

Dr. Bertram E. Bromberg, a distinguished plastic and reconstructive surgeon who summered in Montauk for nearly 50 years from 1959 to 2008, died on June 22 in Jupiter, Fla. The cause was congestive heart failure; he had been ill for six months.

Dr. Bromberg, who was 96, enjoyed gardening as well as sportfishing and continued to fish into his 90s, said his daughter, Betzy Bromberg. He began living in Jupiter year round in 2008.

A memorial Mass for Hedwig Lukas, who died at home in the Ditch Plain area of Montauk on Sunday, will be said at St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk today at 10 a.m. Mrs. Lukas, who was 101, was known as Heddy.

Burial will be at St. Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

A memorial service for James Weber, 46, of East Hampton will be held on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the American Legion Hall in Amagansett. Mr. Weber died on July 20. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

Mary Ann Gauger, a lifelong resident of Sag Harbor, died at home in her sleep on July 22. She had been diagnosed with cancer years ago, her family said. She was 80 years old.

The only child of James Santacroce of Sag Harbor and the former Gladys Radley, a native of Iowa, Mrs. Gauger graduated from Pierson High School and from the Katherine Gibbs secretarial school in Manhattan. She met Wayne Gauger, who was then in the Navy, in 1954 during a visit to Florida. They married six months later, eventually settling in a house on Suffolk Street, where they raised four children.

Rosakate Levy Dellon Bonomo, a retired New York City educator who had a house in Springs for nearly four decades, died in the city on July 22. She was 85, and had been ill for about a year.

    Locally, Mrs. Bonomo was active with the Friends of Guild Hall and the Springs Improvement Society. She and her late husband, Michael J. Bonomo, were among the founders of the LongHouse Reserve’s volunteer program, and Mrs. Bonomo also worked on behalf of the East Hampton Day Care Learning Center, now known as the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center.

Susan H. Rockford, an attorney and active member of the East End arts community, died of complications of ovarian cancer at Tidewell Hospice House in Venice, Fla., on July 15. She was 66.

After retiring as an attorney for the City of New York in 2003, Ms. Rockford moved to Shelter Island, where she rediscovered and nourished her lifelong passion for the arts. Originally a photographer, she turned to abstract painting, creating a series of tactile, multi-textured pieces on canvas and linen.

Donald T. Foley, a fighter pilot during World War II who was instrumental in developing the Montauk Airport and had overseen the opening of nine airport terminals at Newark, LaGuardia, and Kennedy Airports, died at his Montauk home on June 30. He was 93 and his health had been declining over the past year.  

Dorothy T. King, who was in charge of the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection for 31 years, died at Southampton Hospital on Saturday following a stroke. She was 84.

A resident of Gerard Drive in Springs for 43 years, Ms. King retired from the library in 2002 but continued to volunteer there until 2005. She was “a gold mine of information,” Ann Chapman, a library board member, told The Star for a story about Ms. King after her retirement.

Elia Millan, a native of Colombia who made Montauk her home for 30 years, died at Southampton Hospital last Thursday. Diagnosed with cancer several years ago, she had not been really ill until two months ago.

A funeral for Robert E. Kalbacher of Springs is to be held today at 11 a.m. at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Amagansett. Mr. Kalbacher, who was 82, died on Saturday. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

Pauline Wittmer, who had lived with her daughter on Manor Lane in East Hampton for the past 10 years, died of renal failure on June 29 at San Simeon by the Sound Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in Greenport. She was 83 and had been ill for some time.

Mrs. Wittmer was born in Hewlett on Nov. 13, 1931, to Allen Smith and the former Gladys Morrison. She grew up and attended high school there, said her daughter, Jerilyn Giaime.

Visiting hours for Tom Tillinghast, a former East Hampton resident who died on July 14 in Southold, where he had been living in recent years, will be held on Thursday from 3 to 7 p.m. at Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton.

Burial will be Friday at 11 a.m. at South End Cemetery overlooking Town Pond in East Hampton. An obituary for Mr. Tillinghast, who was 61, will appear in a future issue.

Growing up Jewish in pre-Hitler Poland with a series of nurses and nannies who sang to him in a Babel of native tongues, Yehuda Nir could read or speak seven languages by the time he was 10. The one that helped save his life, though, he did not learn until he was 11, soon after his father was murdered — Latin, which allowed the blond-haired child not only to pass as a Roman Catholic, but even to serve as an altar boy.

Brian Gayman, an artist who designed and built a Modernist house in Springs, died on July 1 in Melville. He had been ill for five weeks following a heart attack. He was 65.

Mr. Gayman and his wife, Bonnie Rychlak, who survives him and is an artist as well, first came to the East End in 1995, when they rented a house in Montauk. Ms. Rychlak said they “looked around at different areas in which to buy, but Brian just fell in love with Springs. There was its history, but, most important, it felt authentic.” They bought a lot on Neck Path that year.

A memorial service for Elizabeth Ann (Betsy) Keller of Montauk, who died in her sleep at home at Camp Hero on Dec. 14, will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Nancy Howarth officiating. Mrs. Keller was 61.

Faith Dewitt Heppenheimer Chase, a summer resident of East Hampton and a direct descendant of William Bradford of the Massachusetts Plymouth Colony, died last Thursday in Tucson after a short illness. She was 80.

Ms. Chase, a member of the Society of Mayflower Descendants, was active in the community, her daughter, Christina Chase Simonds of Lancaster, Pa., wrote. She was a volunteer for the Ladies Village Improvement Society, Guild Hall, East End Hospice, the Community Council of East Hampton, and Southampton Hospital.

Jeffrey Steven Bogetti, 46, died of brain cancer in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on May 30 following a four-and-a-half-year illness.

Mr. Bogetti, a roofing contractor who surfed and passed on his love for the water through his work with the East Hampton Volunteer Ocean Rescue Squad and as an instructor of junior lifeguards here, was born on Sept. 25, 1967, in Bronxville, N.Y.

Joseph Kazickas, a summer resident of East Hampton for 55 years, died of kidney failure on July 9 at his home on Egypt Lane. Mr. Kazickas, an entrepreneur and philanthropist, was 96 years old.

Michael Ehrhardt, a travel writer for Conde Nast for 30 years, died on Feb. 4 at St. Barnabas Hospital in Short Hills, N.J., The Star has learned. A former resident of Old Orchard Lane in East Hampton, he was 64 years old and lived in Roseland, N.J.

He was being treated for a recurrence of multiple myeloma and had been hospitalized for about a month when he had a heart attack, according to Howard Cavallero, his companion of 23 years.