Skip to main content

Taryn Enck, 25

Taryn Enck, 25

Jan. 14, 1992 - Aug. 09, 2017
By
Star Staff

Taryn Lynn Enck, who had struggled for more than 10 years with hereditary angioedema, a rare genetic disease, died on Aug. 9 at home on Mulford Avenue in Montauk. She was 25 years old.

Ms. Enck had excelled at many sports throughout her years at McGann Mercy High School in Riverhead. She played varsity first doubles in tennis as a freshman and continued as co-captain as a senior. In each of her high school years, her family wrote, she earned all-league or all-division honors. She also earned varsity letters as a softball pitcher and in winter track.

“Taryn was very passionate in her interests, which included sports, the environment, photography, equality for all. She did not let her disease define her. She fought every day through the pain but had a smile on her face. Her strength was unwavering!” her family wrote.

She was born at Southampton Hospital on Jan. 14, 1992, a daughter of the former Catherine Roxbury and Brigham Enck of Montauk, both of whom survive. Ms. Enck graduated from the Montauk School, attended the Stella Maris School in Sag Harbor, and graduated from McGann Mercy High School.

In addition to her parents, a sister, Megan R. Herlihy of Amagansett, survives, as do her grandmother Cecilia McCaffrey Rarrick of East Hampton, her grandparents Barry and Irene Enck of Mechanicsburg, Pa., an aunt, Susanne Roxbury of Montauk, an uncle, James Roxbury of Harrisburg, Pa., and many cousins.

The family received visitors on Aug. 13 at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. A funeral Mass was said on Aug. 14 at St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk. Ms. Enck was buried at Fort Hill Cemetery in that hamlet.

Her family has suggested donations in her name to the Montauk Ambulance Company, 12 Flamingo Avenue, Montauk 11954, or the Hereditary Angioedema Association, 10560 Main Street, Suite PS40, Fairfax City, Va. 22030.

William Belber Jr.

William Belber Jr.

By
Star Staff

William Belber Jr., a commercial fisherman who grew up in Montauk’s old fishing village on Fort Pond Bay, died on Aug. 11 in Port St. Lucie, Fla. He was 86 and had been in poor health for 10 years.

Known as Bill, he was born in Greenport to William Belber Sr. and the former Ellen Berg and moved to Montauk as a boy. His father had a small restaurant, Bill’s Inn, in the fishing village there, and later moved it to Edgemere Road.

“Bill’s Inn was a favorite for quite some time of many tourists coming to the hamlet, who could pick their own lobster from the open tanks for dinner,” his family wrote. A business leader in the hamlet, his father was also one of the first elected members of the Montauk Board of Fire Commissioners.

Mr. Belber attended East Hampton High School. He enlisted in the Navy during the Korean War, which gave him the opportunity to travel extensively throughout Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Far East aboard the U.S.S. Keppler DD-765, a Gearing-class destroyer deployed during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Mr. Belber also served on the U.S.S. Gearing DD-710.

He returned to Montauk to help run the family’s business after his father had a heart attack.

It was on his first New Year’s Eve out with friends after coming home that he met Isabel Reney, a member of East Hampton’s Round Swamp Lester family. They were married on May 11, 1952.

The couple settled in Montauk, where Mr. Belber became a commercial fisherman, following in the footsteps of his maternal grandfather, Oscar Berg, who was lost at sea off Montauk and whose name is inscribed on the Lost at Sea Memorial overlooking the cliffs at the Lighthouse. Mr. Belber owned and ran a number of fishing vessels over the years, but a smaller one, the Fishawk, was his favorite, his family wrote.

“He would remember, and you never got tired of hearing him telling you, the stories about his times on the water,” they wrote. “Bill had a long and successful career as a commercial fishing captain, calling some of the other captains in the hamlet in the early years, such as Dick Stern, Sy Sarris, and Dickie Edwards, his good friends. ‘We watched out for each other,’ he would say.”

After retiring, the Belbers moved to Florida. Mrs. Belber died in 2007. Mr. Belber is survived by a daughter, Kathleen Rosman of Stuart, Fla., and two sons, William Belber III of Islip and Robert Belber of Schenectady, N.Y. Also surviving are his sisters, Mary Ellen Klein of Port St. Lucie and Carol Napolillo of Amagansett, 10 grandchildren, and 7 great-grandchildren. His brothers, Richard Belber and Robert Belber, died before him.

A funeral with military honors was held in Florida. His ashes will be scattered at sea off Montauk.

Ronald Heller, 86, Fashion Designer

Ronald Heller, 86, Fashion Designer

Feb. 21, 1931 - Aug. 07, 2017
By
Star Staff

Ronald Heller, a fashion designer who at one time had his own boutique in Bergdorf Goodman, died at home in East Hampton on Aug. 7 at the age of 86. He had been diagnosed with arrhythmia earlier this summer, and his health had declined quickly since then.

Mr. Heller was born in London on Feb. 21, 1931, to Leslie and Mary Heller. He grew up in that city, where his father was a kosher butcher, but was evacuated as a child during World War II. Though he gained a place at Cambridge University in 1947, he opted to pursue the law instead. After training for two years to become a lawyer, he found that he was not suited to the profession, his family said, and decided to become a fashion designer.

He left London for a job offer in New York during the “swinging sixties,” his spouse, Bill DeNatale, wrote. There he worked for several manufacturers before establishing his own label in 1980, Ronnie Heller, which had a boutique in Bergdorf Goodman.

It was in the late 1960s that Mr. Heller and Mr. DeNatale, an artist, met, while each worked for different divisions of a clothing manufacturer in Long Island City. They had been together for 51 years, and were married since 2012.

Both traveled frequently to Paris and London for fashion shows. Mr. Heller was “a handsome and sociable character much liked in New York, London, and East Hampton,” where the couple bought a second home in 1981. Mr. DeNatale had been a frequent summer visitor to the South Fork as a child. The couple moved here full time in 2013.

“Ronnie was charming, incredibly witty, and intellectually engaged in history, film, the arts, politics, and architecture,” Mr. DeNatale’s brother, John DeNatale, wrote, adding that “he was the most stylish man I’ve ever met.”

Mr. Heller was proud to have been a part of the gay rights movement in New York City, his brother-in-law wrote. When he and Mr. DeNatale were finally married five years ago there, the judge commented on how short the civil ceremony was. “Ronald straightened his tie and said, ‘The ceremony may have taken a minute, but it took us 40 years to get here,’ ” John DeNatale wrote. Mr. Heller, he said, “was like a brother to me.”

While his career was in fashion, he also had “a special gift for interior design,” his spouse wrote. The couple “developed a wide circle of friends who enjoyed the hospitality and the elegance of their homes.”

In addition to his spouse, Mr. Heller is survived by a brother, Lawrance Heller, and his family in London.

A memorial will be held at a later date.

Julio N. Tubatan

Julio N. Tubatan

Sept. 28, 1959 - Aug. 25, 2017
By
Star Staff

At the age of about 15, Julio N. Tubatan left Ecuador for Montauk, working at Gurney’s Inn for three years before returning to his home country, and in 1980, emigrated to the United States for good, living briefly in Queens, before returning to Montauk, where he would stay for the next 37 years and would raise a family of his own. 

He was one of nine children. His entire family eventually joined him and his oldest brother in the U.S. They were among the first Ecuadorean immigrants to settle in Montauk. 

Mr. Tubatan died on Aug. 25 after falling into Montauk Harbor. His cause of death is still pending, though police have said foul play is not suspected. He was about a month shy of his 58th birthday.

His family — immediate and extended — was everything to him, his daughter, Mirna Tubatan, said. He was the caretaker and would do anything for them. A favorite uncle to many of his 89 nieces and nephews, he was remembered by them for how funny he was, always there with a joke or making a silly face. 

Since her father’s death, Ms. Tubatan said, she has received many calls and messages from friends who said how warm his smile was and how welcoming he always was. 

Her father had left school to come to America looking for a better life, and through his hard work he built a successful business, J.N.T. Masonry, laying brick, stone, and cement for 25 years. His son, Julio Fabian Tubatan, eventually worked alongside him. 

He was humble about his success, his daughter said. He instilled the importance of hard work in his children, but was also there to give them whatever they wanted, said Ms. Tubatan, a kindergarten teacher. He was a driving force in her decision to earn two master’s degrees, she said. 

He was also meticulous, in his work and in the way he lived his life, from his workout regimen to the way he cared for his vehicles. “Everybody here in Montauk knows my dad’s work truck — a big navy blue dump truck,” she said. He kept it “nice and shiny,” she said. He often told her about how he had a little wooden truck when he was growing up in Ecuador and used to dream of having a real one and a big garage full of cars. “That’s exactly what he made himself,” she said: A garage full of mint-condition vehicles. 

He kept everything neat and organized and disliked clutter. Ms. Tubatan laughed about how things would sometimes go missing from the house as part of his effort to tidy up. “Every month was a spring cleaning month for him.” 

He was born in Deleg, Ecuador, on Sept. 28, 1959, to Victor Tubatan and the former Maria Orfelina Molina. He was their third child. He grew up in Deleg and in La Troncal. After he returned from Montauk the first time, he married the former Elsa Fabiola Miranda on April 24, 1980. She also survives.

An early riser, he could often be seen walking his chocolate Lab in their neighborhood or cycling to favorite spots, like the Montauk Point Lighthouse. “He religiously went to Gurney’s every day,” his daughter said. “He liked to keep in shape. He ran, he swam, he loved to go into the steam room and the sauna.” 

In addition to his daughter, son, and wife, who live in Montauk, he is survived by his parents, Victor Tubatan and Maria Tubatan, and his eight siblings, all of whom live in East Hampton. They are: Alfredo Tubatan, Victor Tubatan, Romulo Tubatan, Luis Tubatan, Emma Tubatan, Olga Tubatan, Laura Tubatan, Esperanza Tubatan, and Martha Tubatan. 

Visiting hours will be today from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton, followed by a funeral service at St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk, at 2 p.m. Burial will be at Fort Hill Cemetery in Montauk. 

An online fund has been set up to help the family offset funeral expenses. Donations can be made online at GoFundMe.com/Julio-Tubatan-memorial-fund or sent directly to the Tubatan family at P.O. Box 579, Montauk 11954.

William H. Mann

William H. Mann

By
Star Staff

William H. Mann, who lived in Southampton and Palm Beach, Fla., and was a member of the Maidstone Club here, died of pneumonia on Sunday at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. He was 91. There was a private service yesterday, and a memorial to celebrate his life is to be held at a later date. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

Eleanor Dordelman, 89

Eleanor Dordelman, 89

Oct. 18, 1927 - June 20, 2017
By
Star Staff

Eleanor Belle Dordelman, who was born in Amagansett and was married to Carl Dordelman, a former chief of the East Hampton Village Police Department, died on June 20 at William Childs Hospice House in Palm Bay, Fla., following a massive stroke. She was 89.

“Mom was a very loving and caring mother,” said her daughter Adell Cohen of Barefoot Bay, Fla. “She was always smiling. Anyone who remembers mom would say that as well.” 

Eleanor Belle Dordelman was born on Oct. 18, 1927, in Amagansett to Robert Reed and the former Florence Belle Miller. She grew up there and graduated from East Hampton High School. 

The first time she and her husband met, Ms. Cohen said, her mother was walking toward him and another man, who was her boyfriend at the time. Mr. Dordelman is reported to have told the boyfriend that he was going to marry her. Ms. Cohen said she fell in love with him while reading letters he wrote to her while in the military during World War II. They were married while Mr. Dordelman was on leave, in 1944 or ’45. 

Mr. Dordelman, who died in 2008, was a village police officer for 28 years, serving as chief for 11. He retired in 1977. Over the years, Mrs. Dordelman worked at Home, Sweet Home Museum, the A&P supermarket, a discount store called Priced Rite, and a bank, all in East Hampton. In 1983, the couple moved to Barefoot Bay.

“They took dancing lessons and loved ballroom dancing,” Ms. Cohen said. “Mom was on several committees in Barefoot Bay as chairwoman.” She said her mother also knitted beautiful sweaters and made many for her children and grandchildren. “She made two quilts by hand, one of state flowers that is incredibly beautiful. She knitted shawls for women in a nursing home where her mother lived until her passing.” 

 Along with Ms. Cohen, Mrs. Dordelman’s other children survive. They are Jeanne Suhr of Port St. Lucie, Fla., Carl Dordelman of Melbourne, Fla., Eleanor Emerich of Vero Beach, Fla., and Kathryn Wilson of Cumming, Ga. Thirteen grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren also survive. 

A graveside service is to be held on Sept. 13 at 11 a.m. at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton, the Rev. Scot McCachren of the East Hampton Presbyterian Church officiating. 

Mrs. Dordelman’s family has suggested memorial contributions to William Childs Hospice House, 381 Medplex Parkway, Palm Bay, Fla. 32907. “Both my mom and dad spent their last days there, and the staff was incredibly compassionate and caring,” Ms. Cohen said. 

--

Correction: The family of Eleanor Dordelman gave the incorrect name for the cemetery where she will be buried. It is Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton.

Simone V. Marshall, 93

Simone V. Marshall, 93

By
Star Staff

Simone V. Marshall, who was brought up in Paris but came to the United States to train and work as a psychoanalyst, died at home in Springs on Aug. 22 after a long illness. She was 93. 

 

It was her abiding interest in human psychology that led her from France to Columbia University, where she met her future husband, Robert J. Marshall, whom she called Bob. 

“After World War II, mired in the dank archives of Parisian libraries, translating U.S. Army Jeep manuals into French,” she wrote in an autobiographical essay to be published in Psychoanalytic Inquiry, a professional journal, “I dreamed of being a psychotherapist. When I graduated to translating American psychological journals, I fantasized [about] being a psychoanalyst.”

She was at the Sorbonne in the early 1950s when she spotted a poster describing a Fulbright Scholarship to pursue a doctorate in clinical psychology in the States; she applied, won, and soon found herself sailing on the Ile de France for New York City and Teachers College, Columbia. It was there that she met Mr. Marshall, who remembers her in those first encounters as a glamorous figure surrounded by suitors (“a queen bee swarmed by workers”).

Ms. Marshall, whose maiden name was Verniere, wrote in the aforementioned essay that she was eventually, through her own analysis, able to identify her father’s experiences in World War I as the source of her ambition to work in the field. Urbain Verniere had manned a cannon for four years at Verdun, and suffered severe depression as a survivor of that war.

While working on her doctorate, Ms. Marshall supported herself by teaching French and appearing on a variety of radio programs, including “Name That Tune,” on which she earned the impressive sum of $500. With her future husband and a band of friends she spent one memorable summer traveling cross-country in a DeSoto convertible. Simone and Bob were married in the autumn of 1953, over the objections of her father back in France.

While writing her dissertation, Ms. Marshall worked as a child therapist, but then Mr. Marshall, facing the prospect of draft during the Korean War, entered training as an Army medical officer at Letterman Hospital in San Francisco. Their daughter Gabrielle, named after her French grandmother, was born a short while before Mr. Marshall was posted to work at Fort Dix, N.J., where he became chief psychologist.

While living at Fort Dix, and completing the dissertation (“Personality Correlates of Peptic Ulcer Patients”), Ms. Marshall found a job at New Lisbon, an institution for mentally disabled adults, and then at a clinic at Rutgers University. Although she disliked the military in general, she found there were perks to life with the Army, including medical services, affordable groceries at the P.X. — and dirt-cheap flights to France, where Ms. Marshall reconciled with her parents during a vacation with baby Gaby in arms.

Finally, in 1959, as Ms. Marshall wrote, she “was ready to storm the portals of psychoanalysis,” armed with her Ph.D. as well as an M.A. in developmental psychology. 

The family settled in Westchester County, buying a house on a G.I. loan, and she became a school psychologist in Ossining for a time. The Marshalls’ second child, Annette, was born in this period. After further training at the White Institute, Ms. Marshall worked for a time with a group practice in Yorktown Heights, then launched a home-based practice in Croton-on-Hudson. 

The Marshalls’ house overlooking the Hudson was also the scene of many large parties, for the Fourth of July, New Year’s Eve, birthdays, and anniversaries. “We held hilarious themed costume parties and an uproarious event where people were requested to tell one eighth-grade joke and two fourth-grade jokes,” Ms. Marshall wrote.

It was the era of feminism and “consciousness raising,”and she began running a free women’s therapy group out of her living room. It evolved into the Croton-Cortland Women’s Center, which became a force for change in the community, advocating for equality in school sports and math and science education for girls, among other things.

It was when Gaby and Annette were in college that the Marshalls began to consider moving back down to Manhattan. The move to the city coincided with the beginning of a protracted search for a place to build a second home. After 15 years of seeking just the right weekend property, they settled on East Hampton and a lot in Springs overlooking Gardiner’s Bay, where they built a house with a view in the early 1980s. The choice was made not just because of the proximity of colleagues and friends from the psychoanalysis field but because Annette Marshall, now Annette Franey, had married and was raising a family here.

Annette Franey, a physical therapist in East Hampton, and Gabrielle Marshall-Salomon, a psychiatrist in Summit, N.J., survive, as does their father, Robert Marshall.

Ms. Marshall continued her practice, working from and running group-therapy session in an office on the Upper West Side, but in recent years, as she and her husband began spending more and more time on the East End, she let her professional schedule dwindle. 

Most recently, more time was spent with grandchildren (of which there are three), organizing photo albums, and planning the couple’s next vacation. She wrote about her long and unusual life, and described bidding goodbye to old patients after so many years, and facing her own aging, like this:

“I shed a few tears and in the words of Edith Piaf, ‘Je ne regrette rien.’ There is an enhanced sense of ease, curiosity, puzzlement, but with an odd mixture of my old emotional companions — insecurity and accomplishment. And this is where I must say, ‘Au revoir.’ ”

Judith A. Ackerman, 75

Judith A. Ackerman, 75

Oct. 30, 1941 - Aug. 09, 2017
By
Star Staff

Judith Ackerman, who had been ill for many years, died at home on Georgica Road in East Hampton on Aug. 9 at the age of 75. Her family said her health had been compromised by a number of ailments, including a heart attack and stroke.  

Known as Judie, Mrs. Ackerman and her husband, Leonard I. Ackerman, had been high school sweethearts in Rochester. They celebrated their 55th anniversary last month. In 1972, they became year-round East Hampton residents when he moved his law practice here. 

Mrs. Ackerman was born on Oct. 30, 1941, to the former Hortense Schwartz and Milton Paull. She attended the Rochester Business Institute and the Rochester Institute of Technology and worked as a nurse in Elizabeth, N.J., while her husband finished law school at Rutgers University. They moved to New York City in 1964, where she enrolled in the New York School of Interior Design and began a freelance career in decorative arts and interior design.

The couple’s two daughters had been born by the time the couple moved to East Hampton, and she devoted herself to being a full-time mother and community volunteer. She was active in East Hampton elementary and middle school activities and was an early supporter of the Retreat, an agency for women who are victims of domestic abuse. She worked with Enez Whipple, the longtime director of Guild Hall, and was a member of the East Hampton Ladies Village Improvement Society, serving on various committees.

Before her illness, Mrs. Ackerman and her husband enjoyed traveling and had made friends with people all over the world. About 20 years ago they began spending winters in Palm Beach.

In addition to her husband and their daughters, Kara Soriento and Brooke Bick, both of New York City, two grandchildren survive, as well as Mrs. Ackerman’s brother, Milt Cohen of Rochester, and sister, Harriett Montefiore of Manhattan.

A graveside service was held on Aug. 10 at Shaarey Pardes Accabonac Grove Cemetery in Springs, with Cantor-Rabbi Debra Davidson presiding. The family has suggested memorial donations to the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center, P.O. Box 63, East Hampton 11937.

Donald Norton, 93

Donald Norton, 93

By
Star Staff

Donald Norton, who was born at home in East Hampton Village in 1923, died on July 29 at East End Hospice in Westhampton Beach at the age of 93. According to his friend and caregiver, Ed Rack, he had had six heart attacks and nine cardiac stents, and defied the doctors who, 13 years ago, gave him just six months to live.

Mr. Norton had two brothers, Willard Norton and Gerald Norton, both World War II veterans, and one sister, all of whom predeceased him. He was a son of Lillian Norton Thomas, who remarried after her first husband died, and Willard Norton, a builder and carpenter. He graduated from East Hampton High School, then in the same Newtown Lane building as the middle school. During World War II, Mr. Norton worked for a time at the War Shipping Administration in New York City. Back home, he spent the rest of his working life at the East Hampton Town Highway Department.

A private graveside ceremony was held at Green River Cemetery in Springs. Mr. Rack said his friend, who never married, was a good and kind man, anonymously giving gift certificates for shoes or other items that people he knew or met needed. He suggested that donations in Donald Norton’s name be sent to East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978.

Paula M. Dankowski

Paula M. Dankowski

Jan. 6, 1959 - Aug. 03, 2017
By
Star Staff

Paula Dankowski of Plattsburgh, N.Y., formerly of Wainscott, died on Aug. 3 at the Visiting Nurse Association Respite House in Colchester, Vt. She was 58 and had been diagnosed with lung cancer 18 months ago.

Ms. Dankowski was born on Jan. 6, 1959, at Southampton Hospital, one of two children of the former Barbara C. Bahns and Henry E. Dankowski Jr., who died last August. Her mother and brother, Peter Dankowski, both of Wainscott, survive, as does her longtime companion, Steven Peterson of Plattsburgh.

She graduated from Mercy High School in Riverhead in 1977 and for three years took classes at the State Universities at Cobleskill and Morrisville.

According to her family, she “loved walking on the beach, and had a great passion for animals, especially horses.” They said that her greatest wish was to ride again.

A Mass of Christian burial was said on Aug. 8 at Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Bridgehampton, followed by burial in the family plot at the Wainscott Cemetery. The family has suggested donations in Ms. Dankowski’s name to the V.N.A. Respite House, 3113 Roosevelt Highway, Colchester, Vt. 05446.