Herbert A. Nixon Jr., who lived in East Hampton for about 35 years and worked for the town’s Highway Department for more than 18, died of heart failure on Dec. 7 at Southampton Hospital. He was 77 and had been ill for several years. 

“He was an avid outdoorsman who loved hunting, fishing, and trapping,” his daughter, Vivian Nixon of Nashua, N.H., wrote in providing information for his obituary. “He enjoyed spending quality time with his dogs, as well as other pets,” she said. 

Mr. Nixon was born on Jan. 15, 1939, in Columbia, N.C., to Herbert Nixon Sr. and the former Iva Deborah Owens. He grew up and graduated from high school there and then served in the Army. Before moving to East Hampton, he and his family lived for a time in East Elmhurst, Queens. 

Mr. Nixon’s longtime partner, Sheila Lynch of East Hampton, survives him, as do six children. In addition to Ms. Nixon, they are Herbert Nixon III of Manteo, N.C., Tanisha Barrett of the Bronx, Iva S. Nixon-Ryans of Queens, Keesha L. Nixon of Lithonia, Ga., and Derrick L. Short of East Hampton. Also surviving are six siblings, Ricky Nixon of Colonia, N.J., Robert L. Nixon of Spring Valley, N.Y., Milford Nixon of Denville, N.J., Patty Nixon of North Plainfield, N.J., Mary Elizabeth Nixon of Flushing, Queens, and Nancy Alexander of Columbia, N.C. Twenty-six grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews also survive. A brother, Billy Nixon, died before him. 

Visiting hours were on Tuesday evening at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. A funeral service will take place on Saturday at Chapel Hill Baptist Church in Columbia, of which Mr. Nixon was a member. Burial will follow at the church cemetery. 

Jean F. Lester, who worked for more than 30 years for the East Hampton School District, died on Dec. 6 at home in Springs. She was 71 and had pancreatic cancer, which was diagnosed about five months ago. 

Mrs. Lester was born on Nov. 23, 1945, in Southampton, one of the three children of Earl Finch and the former Grace DiSunno of East Hampton. She graduated from East Hampton High School and at first worked as a bookkeeper at what was then the First National Bank in East Hampton. She then found work at East Hampton High School, helping with guidance and special education. She was married to Ronnie Lester, who survives.

Kathy Barnes described her sister as someone who was extremely helpful to others whenever they needed it. After retiring, she devoted herself to caring for her yard, flowers, and house.

In addition to her husband and Mrs. Barnes, she is survived by a half brother, Keith LeDuc of Charlotte, N.C., a daughter, Tara Harden of Maidens, Va., and three grandsons. Linda Shields of Amagansett, another sister, died about 25 years ago.

The Rev. Steven Howarth of the Amagansett Presbyterian Church officiated at a graveyard service at Green River Cemetery in Springs, where Mrs. Lester was buried.

Donations in her name have been suggested, to the Lustgarten Foundation, which sponsors research toward a cure for pancreatic cancer, 1111 Stewart Avenue, Bethpage, N.Y. 11714.

James Elsworth Lowe, a longtime radio personality, composer, and recording artist who lived his later years in East Hampton, died on Dec. 12 at home after a long illness. He was 93 years old.

Mr. Lowe, who was known as Jim, was a fixture on WNEW radio for about 30 years, beginning in 1964. For his signature show, “Jim Lowe’s New York,” he drew upon his extensive knowledge of the American Songbook, for which he developed a passion as a youth in his grandfather’s record, sheet music, and instrument store in Springfield, Mo., where he was born and raised. 

Mr. Lowe was known to listeners as “Mr. Broadway”; his knowledge of lyrics, composers, arrangers, and performers was encyclopedic. He counted among his friends Irving Berlin, Lena Horne, Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, and Frank Sinatra, who was known to have called his radio show several times to sing “Happy Birthday” to him. Mr. Lowe’s voice was familiar to American music lovers in another way, too. In 1956, he recorded a song called “Green Door,” which became a gold record, selling two-and-a-half million copies and briefly displacing Elvis Presley in Billboard’s top spot. He continued to compose and record original songs, to sing and play the piano, and make frequent club appearances.

In an interview published in June 2004, Mr. Lowe told The East Hampton Star that “after ‘Green Door,’ which was such a big hit, people would ask me, ‘Why didn’t you keep recording?’ And I would say I did, but no one knew it. I belonged in radio.”

He was born on May 7, 1923, to Dr. H.A. Lowe and the former Pearl Lines. He graduated from what is now Central High School and enrolled in the University of Missouri, but his education was interrupted when he was drafted into the Army toward the end of World War II. He was stationed stateside, and returned to the university after the war, graduating in 1948.

 Mr. Lowe’s radio work began at the university. He then had short stints on the air in Springfield, Indianapolis, and Chicago before moving to New York City in 1956 to join WBCS. There, he was the featured host of “Jazz Is My Beat” and “Upbeat Saturday Night,” and teamed in 1958 with Florence Henderson, the actress, to lead a CBS-TV audience participation series called “Sing Along.” Mr. Lowe went to WNBC the following year, launching his own daily show, contributing to the program “Monitor,” and appearing several times on “The Today Show.” 

Mr. Lowe retired from broadcasting in the 1990s, becoming a founding board member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and hosting many of the annual Lyrics and Lyricists performances at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. He also hosted musical events for Guild Hall in East Hampton, the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, and the Southampton Cultural Center.

Mr. Lowe loved reading and history and was a vigilant observer of politics. He enjoyed football, golf, and the sports teams of his alma mater. He had a house in East Hampton for about 50 years and moved here full time about 16 years ago, enjoying the company of what his family said were “many creative and wonderful people.”

“Jim’s life, characterized by his abiding interest in friends, family, music, and the world around him, was full and eventful. Beyond those things, he will be equally remembered for his charm, wit, intelligence, good humor, kindness, and his exceedingly good nature,” his family wrote.

He is survived by two nieces, Cindy Lowe Lurvey of Las Cruces, N.M., and Melissa Lowe of Springfield. A brother, Dr. H.A. Lowe Jr., died before him. He will be buried on Tuesday at Maple Park Cemetery in Springfield with the Gorman-Scharpf Funeral Home directing a graveside ceremony. Donations in Mr. Lowe’s memory have been suggested to the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, P.O. Box 901, Wainscott 11975.

William Riley Franklin Jr., a writer and former Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor resident who in the 1970s actively opposed both a Route 27 bypass project and aircraft traffic at East Hampton Airport, died on Nov. 6 in Great Neck. He was 91. 

Concerned about increasing noise, as well as plans to expand the airport further, he wrote letters and made phone calls in opposition. As for the proposed bypass, it was ultimately killed by Gov. Hugh Carey in 1975.

Mr. Franklin was born in Colorado Springs on July 13, 1925, the son of William Riley Franklin Sr. and the former Lilian Jones. After graduating from Colorado Springs High School and the University of Colorado in Boulder, he went into journalism, working for papers including The Scottsbluff Star Herald in Nebraska and The Kansas City Star. He later taught journalism at the University of Colorado. 

Eventually he moved to New York City, where his professional life was spent in various forms of media. Working for a diverse group of companies, he was a writer, advertising manager, and a communications consultant, a field in which he eventually freelanced.

His marriage to the former Agnes Saulis ended in divorce after a few years, and on June 18, 1966, he married the former Jocelyn White in Bridgehampton, where he had begun spending summers. The summer they met, she was in Wainscott visiting a sister. With his first wife he had had a son, William Franklin, who lives in Turners Falls, Mass.

In 1969, the Franklins made the South Fork their year-round home. They moved to Sag Harbor in 1972, where they spent the next four years. Their son, Matthew Franklin, lives in Great Neck. 

Mr. Franklin was “very creative,” his wife said. He loved early jazz and American literature, and had an extensive collection of books, records, and tapes dedicated to both fields. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a favorite author, though he liked the work of Ernest Hemingway even more. Concerned about the environment, he joined the Sierra Club, and later in life became interested in Native Indians and their education, particularly  the Dakotas.

The couple left the East End in 1976 and moved to Amherst, Mass., in 1980. Earlier this year, they relocated to Great Neck to be closer to their son, Matthew.

In addition to his wife and sons, Mr. Franklin is survived by a brother, Charles Franklin of Palm Desert, Calif., and by two grandchildren. He was cremated, and his ashes will be dispersed in Colorado Springs, where a private memorial service is planned.

The family has suggested memorial donations to the American Indian College Fund, 8333 Greenwood Boulevard, Denver, Colo. 80217.

John Zervoulei of Springs, who had owned men’s hairpiece businesses and a jazz club in New York City, died on Nov. 21 at Southampton Hospital. Mr. Zervoulei, who was 72, had developed emphysema as a result of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 

His businesses in New York, for which he served as designer and stylist, included Head Start Hair for Men. Men came to his shops not only to deal with hair loss, but sometimes to conceal their natural hair. He styled short-haired wigs for men with long hair whose jobs required short cuts. Through his work, he had occasion to travel often to France, and became quite the Francophile, said his son, John Michael Zervoulei. 

A jazz fan, he opened a club of his own called 55 Grand in Lower Manhattan in the early 1980s. Mike Stern, a guitarist who played with Miles Davis, lived upstairs, and he and Davis’s other band members often hung out at the club, making it a hotspot for fusion jazz, his son said. 

Mr. Zervoulei was born in New York’s Little Italy on May 27, 1944, a son of James Zervoulei, a Greek immigrant, and the former Mary Zito. He grew up in Little Italy near Old St. Patrick’s, attended La Salle Academy, and graduated from Seward Park High School. 

He met his future wife, Caroline DePietro, when they were teenagers. They were married in 1968. 

They lived in Peter Cooper Village in Lower Manhattan. A sailing enthusiast, Mr. Zervoulei owned a Morgan 27 racing boat that he would race out of Sheepshead Bay. 

The couple split their time between New York and Springs between 2000 and 2005, when they moved here full time. 

In addition to his wife and son, who lives in New York, Mr. Zervoulei is survived by eight nieces and nephews and five great-nieces and great-nephews. His parents and his younger brother, Charles Zervoulei, died before him. 

He was cremated, and had requested that his ashes be spread in Paris. A memorial service will be announced on the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home website in the future. 

Contributions have been suggested to Southampton Hospital, 240 Meeting House Lane, Southampton 11968-5090.

Jan Joseph Kalas, an architect who split his time between Brooklyn and East Hampton for many years and continued to keep a sailboat here, died on Oct. 31 after being struck by a car in Long Beach on his way to work. He was 70. 

Mr. Kalas practiced architecture for 40 years, 20 of them at the engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti, where he was a senior vice president. The firm said he was “known for his problem-solving ability and eye for detail.” Colleagues described him as quick-witted and full of energy.

He earned his B.A. in architecture from the University of Miami and a graduate certificate from the energy and engineering policy program at the Polytechnic Institute of New York in Brooklyn. Mr. Kalas was an advocate of sustainable design, his firm said, and was “a skilled diagnostician.” 

“Because of his background in design and construction, he understood how buildings are constructed and how they fail,” Gary Mancini, a managing principal at Thornton Tomasetti, wrote on the firm’s website. “It was this perfect balance of expertise that made him so good at litigation support.” He specialized in condition assessments, remediation, and litigation support for a wide range of building types, according to the firm, and had worked on such projects as the Chrysler Building, the Harry Winston store, and the New York State Supreme Court Building in New York City. 

He was a visiting professor at Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture for nearly 25 years. Before joining Thornton Tomasetti, he was a design architect with the Eggers Group, where he worked on a number of projects at the Military Academy at West Point. 

Outside of work, Mr. Kalas loved to sail. He collected vintage model trains and enjoyed reading, art, and spending time with his family. He was “a selfless man,” they said, who “always wanted to make sure you were okay before he was.” Seeing his family happy always “brought him joy,” they wrote. 

Mr. Kalas was born in Queens on Nov. 28, 1945, to Jerry and Mildred Kalas. He grew up in Queens and attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. As a boy, he paid frequent visits to the East End on fishing trips with his father. A dedicated sailor, he sailed and raced out of East Hampton starting in 1980, at first spending weekends aboard a boat and later buying a house here with his first wife, the former Debra Kahn. They were members of the now-defunct East Hampton Yacht Club. 

The couple reared their two sons in East Hampton and Brooklyn. 

After marrying Maggie Schelle, his second wife, and relocating to Northport, Mr. Kalas became stepfather to her daughter, Brigitte, and then father to a daughter, Anna. 

Mr. Kalas had lived in Long Beach with his girlfriend, Linda Peters, for the past year and a half. 

In addition to Ms. Peters, Mr. Kalas is survived by his children, Jan Kalas of Santa Barbara, Calif., Kristofer Kalas of New York City and East Hampton, and Anna Kalas of Northport, and by his stepdaughter, Brigitte Schelle of Oahu, Hawaii. His first wife, Debra Kalas of East Hampton and Palm Beach, Fla., and his second wife, Maggie Kalas of Northport, also survive.

Services were held in early November at St. Paul’s Methodist Church in Northport and the Metropolitan Pavilion in Manhattan. Mr. Kalas was cremated.

Mary Ann Siegfried, who volunteered at the Springs Library for nearly two decades after retiring from the Asia Society in New York, died on Friday after a brief illness. She was 85.

Ms. Siegfried grew up in Ohio and set off to see the world with the American Red Cross not long after graduating from Oberlin College, where she majored in fine art. “I signed up to be a recreation worker,” she told The Star in a 2003 interview.

It was the mid-1950s, just after the Korean War, and she was sent to South Korea, where American troops were still stationed. “Seoul was in ruins. People were lying in the streets,” she recalled in the interview. “It was a fascinating time to be there. There were still older people who wore traditional things like horsehair hats.” 

She was posted to the countryside outside Seoul. “We lived in a compound of tropical Quonset huts. . . . There were still mines, and you were always told to stay on the path.” She looked after soldiers who were recuperating from minor injuries, playing cards with them, arranging for visiting performers, and even taking them to the racetrack. 

After two years, she returned home to Ohio via freighter and soon set out for New York City, where she landed a job with the Asia Society. The nonprofit’s mission was to introduce Americans to Asia, “since most people didn’t even know where it was,” she told The Star. 

Through editing the society’s newsletter on Afghanistan, The Af­ghanistan Forum, for more than 25 years, she became an expert on that country. She traveled there extensively as well as to India, Thailand, the Philippines, Japan, the former Soviet Union, and many other destinations. 

She began visiting her mother and stepfather in East Hampton in the mid-1960s and settled here after retiring. In the 1990s, she brought her research and information-gathering skills to bear on that hamlet’s history, putting together The Star Shines on Springs, a monthly Springs Historical Society newsletter featuring items of interest culled from past decades of East Hampton Stars. She also put together a number of booklets on the hamlet and its landmarks. 

She became a fixture at the Springs Library, drawn there by her love of reading (mysteries were her favorite). “You’re never sure if you’re interfering, but if you hang around and look as if you might be useful, they eventually get used to you,” she told The Star.

Ms. Siegfried had collected playing cards since she was a child, when her interest took root while she was recuperating from a bout of polio, and her knowledge of cards was “extraordinary in its breadth and depth,” her family wrote. She contributed to and edited a number of national playing card collector newsletters. 

She also loved crossword puzzles and was devoted to her pets.

Ms. Siegfried was born in Ashtabula, Ohio, on Sept. 18, 1931, to Rudolph Robert Siegfried and the former Mary Elizabeth Smith. She grew up in Ashtabula, a small city on the shore of Lake Erie, and graduated from high school there before going on to Oberlin. 

She is survived by a first cousin, Anne Smith Colin of California, a number of extended family members from New York and Arkansas, and her good friends Heather Anderson of Springs and Chris Brunner of New Jersey.

She will be buried at Chestnut Grove Cemetery in Ashtabula. 

Donations have been suggested to the Springs Library, care of the Springs Historical Society, P.O. Box 1860, East Hampton 11937.

Sandra Jean Bennett, who was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 39 and who survived the cancer’s spread for many years, died at her Springs home on Nov. 17. She was 78. 

Mrs. Bennett came to East Hampton as a young woman when her father was hired to operate the town airport. Her family moved many times while she was growing up and she had attended 16 different schools.

According to her daughter Susan Seekamp, her brothers would ask their mother to find out what the kids in each new school, which might be in California after they had been living in New York, were wearing because they did not want to appear too different. “My mother,” Ms. Seekamp said, “didn’t care, she wore what she wanted and then everyone else would start wearing what she had on.”

Mrs. Bennett was born on March 31, 1938, in Jamestown, N.Y., one of three children of George Vine and the former Racheal Melquist, both of whom died before her. She met John C. Bennett in East Hampton, and they were married in 1960. 

Mrs. Bennett was a homebody who enjoyed cooking and entertaining. She loved being outdoors and especially enjoyed going to Maidstone Beach, to which she would bicycle and where she would swim. She frequently drove her Jeep there when she was ill.

In addition to her husband and Ms. Seekamp, who is an owner of Brent’s Deli in Amagansett,  Mrs. Bennett is survived by her other children, Stacy Rogers of Mattituck and Jo Ann Comfort of Bridgehampton. Her brothers, George Vine of West Islip and Scott Vine of Bellport, also survive, as do five grandchildren. 

Visiting hours took place at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton on Nov. 23; Mrs. Bennett was buried at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton that afternoon. The family has suggested memorial donations to the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, P.O. Box 5028, Hagerstown, Md. 21741-5028.

Warren Jordan MacIsaac, a humanities and drama professor who was an expert on Shakespeare and modern European drama, died at home in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14. He was 86 and had emphysema. 

A summer resident of East Hampton, Mr. MacIsaac dedicated his life’s work, his family said, to literature, history, drama, and professional theater. Before his retirement in 1995, he spent 25 years teaching at Catholic University of America in Washington, where he worked with a number of influential figures in 20th-century theater and on productions at the university’s Hartke Theater. 

“He was a man of words . . . an avid reader, writer, and poet, a true intellectual,” said his son Thomas MacIsaac of Bethesda, Md. 

From 1980 to 1985, Mr. MacIsaac was also the dramaturge at Center Stage in Baltimore, an early leader in regional theater innovation, where he helped to discover new actors such as Samuel L. Jackson and Boyd Gaines and sponsored playwrights including John Pielmeier and Eric Overmyer. 

Mr. MacIsaac’s literary interests were diverse. He wrote an undergraduate thesis on Shakespeare and a doctoral dissertation on Graham Greene, and was a fan of the work of James Agee. 

He was regularly published in literary and scholarly journals such as Shakespeare Quarterly and wrote playbill articles placing dramatic works into historical and social contexts for many of the major Washington, D.C., theaters. 

For the National Endowment for the Arts, for which he was a fellow, and for the New York State Council on the Arts, he did evaluations of theater programs that had applied for grants.

Born on Dec. 31, 1929, in Worcester, Mass., the son of Angus J. MacIsaac and the former Helen J. Jordan, he grew up in Cambridge, Mass., and attended Cambridge High and Latin. 

After a year in the Air Force, he entered Harvard College, where he earned the Boylston Prize for public speaking and graduated summa cum laude in 1954. He earned a master’s degree in 1962 and a Ph.D. in English in 1964 from Harvard University. 

Before taking his university post, Mr. MacIsaac served as the headmaster at the American School in Lugano, Switzerland, and as a teacher at Brooks School in North Andover, Mass., and Phillips Academy Andover, also in Massachusetts. 

From 1962 until 1969, he was a professor in the humanities department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he met his lifelong friend, the playwright A.R. Gurney, who taught literature at M.I.T. and helped foster Mr. MacIsaac’s love of the theater.

As a political activist for peace, Mr. MacIsaac led campaign efforts in Scituate, Mass., for Eugene McCarthy in his bid for president. 

Mr. MacIsaac met his future wife, Grace Collins, at the Widener Library at Harvard. They married in 1958 and lived in the Boston area before moving to, D.C. An English literature teacher and Trinity College administrator, she died in 2000. 

The couple first came to East Hampton in 1990 to visit their daughter Helen MacIsaac and her husband, Eric Kuhn, an editor at The Star. The MacIsaacs went on to buy a house in Barnes Landing, where they spent summers. 

Mr. MacIsaac is survived by his four children. In addition to Thomas MacIsaac and Helen MacIsaac, who lives in Washington, they are Joseph MacIsaac and Dr. Laura MacIsaac, both of New York City. Seven grandchildren also survive. 

A private service will be held in Washington this month. Memorial donations have been suggested to the Shakespeare Society and can be made online at shakespearesociety.org.

Visiting hours for Janice Whalen of Amagansett will be held on Sunday from 2 to 4 and from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. A funeral service will be held on Monday at 10 a.m. at the Amagansett Presbyterian Church.

Ms. Whalen, the wife of Richard Whalen, was a certified nurse aide. She died on Monday at Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport, where she was being treated for symptoms of schizophrenia. She was 43. An obituary will appear in a future issue.