Carol Mary Mercer, an award-winning garden designer who had been a dancer in Broadway plays as a youth, died at her East Hampton home on Nov. 19. She was 92 years old and had congestive heart failure.

For more than 30 years, Mrs. Mercer, along with Lisa Verderosa, a good friend and business partner, ran Secret Garden, through which Mrs. Mercer created gardens that were featured in magazines, books, newspapers, and calendars, including Hallmark’s calendar of roses.

On the South Fork, she was active in the East Hampton Ladies Village Improvement Society, helping to create the Sunken Garden on its Main Street property. She was on the Guild Hall garden committee and a member of the Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons.   Mrs. Mercer had worked as a photography representative for several noted photographers, including Irving Penn. In doing so, she developed a talent for flower arranging, eventually creating arrangements for Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush as well as for leading ladies who happened to be in New York, such as Catherine Deneuve.

She was born in New York City on Dec. 5, 1923, to Walter Keyser and the former Beatrice Lewis. She grew up in Great Neck and attended the Marymount School in New York City. Her show business career began when she got a role as a dancer in a show called “Sons of Fun.” She was enrolled at  Marymount at the time; on occasions when she was absent and the nuns asked where she was, her friends were said to have replied, “She’s a chorus girl on Broadway!”

She later became an Agnes DeMille dancer and was in the original production of “Oklahoma.” She and her first husband, William Windom, were married in 1947.  They both acted on Broadway and in stock shows. They divorced in 1955 but remained friends.

In 1957, Mrs. Mercer married Bob McElfresh, an automobile executive who worked in Switzerland and Germany. In Europe, she often arranged fashion shows for the American Women’s Club. She also  became devoted to travel, touring museums and gardens and seeking out unusual and rare flowers. The couple divorced in 1964.

Mrs. Mercer and Norman Mercer were married in 1971, and lived in Japan for several years, where Mr. Mercer’s import-export business was based. After returning to this country, they divided their time between New York City and East Hampton, where they bought a house on Ocean Avenue designed by Robert A.M. Stern.

Her house and its extensive grounds, which  were on tours for botanical and floral societies from around the world over the years, allowed her to explore garden design. Water, cutting, perennial, and Japanese gardens were among her eclectic creations. She created, and  donated to Hofstra  University, one of the first gardens designed for the physically challenged. She won gold medals at the 1986 and 1993 New York Flower Shows, designed a Garden of Hope at the 1994 New York Antiques Show, and supported the Boys and Girls Club of New York through a rooftop garden for the Kips Bay Showhouse.

In addition to a passion for the theater, Mrs. Mercer enjoyed the fine arts, needlepoint, and sailing. Her husband died in 2007, and she moved to East Hampton full time after his death.

Mrs. Mercer was cremated and a memorial ceremony will be held at a later date. She is survived by a sister, Noel Fischer of North Palm Beach, Fla., a brother, John Keyser of Glen Ellyn, Ill.,  three nieces, and one nephew. Donations in her memory have been suggested to the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, P.O. Box 901, Wainscott 11975; the Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons, P.O. Box 202, Bridgehampton 11932, or to East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978.

Confesor Samot, who moved to East Hampton from Isabella, Puerto Rico, in 1971 with his wife and six children, died at home here on Nov. 3. He was 83 and had had Alzheimer’s disease.

Mr. Samot, whose mother and siblings all immigrated to New York City from northwestern Puerto Rico at the same time, worked in a Sag Harbor factory at first, and then as the yard foreman at Warren’s Garden Center in Water Mill. He retired from that job after many years. 

He loved to watch the New York Mets and to play the game himself, said his son Nelson, who called his father “an accomplished softball player” who was also good at dominoes. Mr. Samot “had a real thing” about car shows and new cars, said his son. “Once the kids had all left home, he would buy a new car, usually a Chevy Impala, every two or three years.”

On Sundays, he was the family cook. He would spend hours preparing a thick stew called sancocho, which calls for meat, vegetables, various tubers, potatoes, corn, garlic, cilantro, squash, parsley, corn, and tomatoes. The stew, which has different Caribbean versions, comes originally from a Spanish soup called cocida.

Born on Oct. 2, 1933, to Juan Samot and the former Ambrocina Rivera, Mr. Samot was one of seven children. Two sisters, Encarnacion Torres and Cruz Maria Dragon, died before him. In addition to his wife, the former Elba Santiago, he is survived by his siblings Celena Samot, Luis Samot, and Lucilla Soto, all of Manhattan, and Ralph Samot of Florida.

Mr. Samot’s son Hector died of cancer in 2003. His surviving children are Raymond Samot, Nelson Samot, David Samot, Elizabeth Fuchs, and Patricia Samot-Yardley, all of whom live in East Hampton. He leaves nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Funeral services were held at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton on Nov. 6, with burial following at Cedar Lawn Cemetery here. Memorial donations to East End Hospice, at P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978-7048, have been suggested. 

Carol M. Mercer, an award-wining garden designer, died on Saturday at home in East Hampton. She was 92. A memorial service will be held at a later date, and an obituary will appear in a future issue.

David Condie Lamb, a retired naval commander who grew up in East Hampton and New York City, died in Arlington, Va., on Nov. 10, following a series of strokes last summer. He was 87.

Mr. Lamb’s friends described him as “a world traveler with an encyclopedic knowledge of movies from 1930 to the present,” someone “who knew the exact date of birth of every U.S. president,” and “who as a young man delivered Jackson Pollock his dry-cleaning.” He died, they wrote, “flush in the knowledge that he had lived a full life.”

He went on multiple cruises each year, to places both expected and out of the ordinary. His extensive travels included trips up the coast of Africa, a visit to Iran, and “just every place you can imagine,” said Eleanor Reed, a friend from Arlington.

Mr. Lamb was born in New York City on Sept. 8, 1930, to Joseph Condie Lamb and the former Elizabeth Neale, known as Boots. His mother, who ran the Mrs. Condie Lamb Real Estate Agency in East Hampton, and his father, an artist, owned the house opposite Town Pond called the Studio, which was built by the artist Thomas Moran. After Mrs. Lamb died in 2004, it was bequeathed to Guild Hall. A major renovation of the house, which is a national historic landmark, is nearly complete. 

Mr. Lamb earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University before entering the Navy. He was stationed in San Diego, among other places, and served aboard such ships as the U.S.S. Constellation and the U.S.S. Forrestal. He ended his naval career in Arlington, where he had lived for the last 40 years. Although his military career took him away from East Hampton, he was a frequent visitor until his mother’s death.

Mr. Lamb made friends wherever he went, Ms. Reed said. “He was really good about remembering people and getting to know them. He was an extrovert’s extrovert.” 

He is survived by three cousins who were said to be like siblings to him, Barrie Collins of Connecticut, Mike Neale of Maryland, and Barea Seely of Massachusetts. 

Mr. Lamb was cremated. A brief service will be held at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in East Hampton tomorrow at 1 p.m., the Very Rev. Denis Brunelle officiating. A gathering of friends is planned for Friday, Dec. 2, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. at Rappahanock Coffee in Arlington. 

Rosa Rojas “taught about giving and led by example,” her family wrote. She was “a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, sister, and friend, who had a deep faith in God.” Mrs. Rojas died of lung cancer on Saturday, at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care in Quiogue. She was 82.

Born in Fusagasuga, Colombia, on April 13, 1934, she came to the United States at the age of 21 as a diplomat working with the president of the Colombian Coffee Federation, and fell in love with New York City, said her daughter Carmen Kenrich. 

She became a U.S. resident and went to school to learn English in Manhattan, where she met her future husband, Rafael Rojas. They were married on Nov. 25, 1961. 

Mr. Rojas worked for Jacob Kaplan, the head of the Welch’s Grape Juice company, whose estate on Route 114 in East Hampton is now the headquarters of the local Nature Conservancy chapter. The Rojas family spent summers in East Hampton and winters in Manhattan until 1976, when they moved here permanently, to a house on Long Lane. 

Mrs. Rojas loved to tend her gardens and to cook. “She really nurtured her family,” Ms. Kenrich said. 

She is survived by her husband, who lives in East Hampton, Ms. Kenrich, of Winchester, Mass., another daughter, Elizabeth Silva of Aquebogue, five grandchildren, a brother in Queens, a sister in Bogota, and many nieces and nephews. She was a member of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton, where a service was held on Tuesday. Burial followed at the church cemetery on Cedar Street. 

Memorial contributions have been suggested to the church, at 79 Buell Lane, East Hampton 11937; St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital at stjude.org, or the East Hampton Town Senior Citizens Center, attention Diane Patrizio, 128 Springs-Fireplace Road. 

Thomas Stewart Waller, a former Springs resident who ran a computer store in Bridgehampton while living here, died on Nov. 16 in Portland, Ore., of a heart attack. He was 61. 

Mr. Waller owned Computers Unlimited on Butter Lane in the 1990s and continued to do freelance tech work afterward. He was a member of the American Legion in Amagansett, sponsored a Springs Little League team, the Megabytes, and coached youth roller hockey at the town youth park on Abraham’s Path in Amagansett. 

“He loved working with kids,” said his daughter, Elizabeth Waller of New York City.

Mr. Waller was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, on March 13, 1955, to Thomas Edward Waller and the former Norma Wolfe. He grew up in Hamilton and in Orange County, Calif., and remained a lifelong fan of the Canadian Football League’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1973, and was stationed at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. 

After earning a master’s in education from California State University at Fullerton, he taught elementary school in Santa Ana, Calif., in the 1980s. In 1990, he and his wife, the former Julie Pospisil, moved to Springs to raise their daughter and son, Andrew, close to her family in Montauk. The marriage ended in divorce.

Mr. Waller was an involved and loving father, his daughter said. In 2010 he retired to Orange County to care for his elderly parents, and relocated to Portland in 2015 after their deaths.

In addition to his children, both of whom live in New York City, he is survived by a brother, David Waller of Orange County. His children plan a private celebration of his life, in Canada.

Contributions in his memory have been suggested to Pets for Vets, which trains shelter dogs to be service animals and then provides them to veterans free of charge. The address is P.O. Box 10860, Wilmington, N.C. 28404.

Martin Foster Johns, an ardent surfer and fisherman in his hometown of Montauk, died of pneumonia in Sebastian, Fla., on Nov. 10, at the age of 58. He had been greatly weakened over the last three years by a combination of Lyme disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, often called Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

He was born in Dallas on Feb. 19, 1958, to Vernon Johns and the former Ellen Pilbro, who moved to Montauk, where she had grown up, when Martin was an infant. He was the younger of their two children. 

His grandmother ran a restaurant on Second House Road called Pilbro’s, and his grandfather ran the Mohawk Cottages next door. The family lived on one side of the restaurant building, which is still standing; it looks like a double house. Old-timers still speak of Pilbro’s with affection.

Mr. Johns attended the Montauk School and East Hampton High School, graduating with the class of 1976. He was a Boy Scout, and loved playing baseball. As a teenager he took up surfing, and it became his passion. Stan Pluhowski, a childhood friend, said he was “an avid surfer, a very good surfer. Atlantic Terrace beach was his favorite break. And Turtle Cove.” His first board was a Nomad, Mr. Pluhowski recalled, followed by a Sunshine.

Mr. Johns’s mother was an accomplished baker, and he worked for a time in the Montauk Bake Shop, then as a chef in Montauk’s top restaurants. He was a chef at Gosman’s for many years, and at Dave’s Grill as well.

Along with a number of other Montauk surfers, he began going to Rincon, Puerto Rico, in the winters. His favorite beach there was Maria’s, Mr. Pluhowski said, adding that Mr. Johns had married a woman whom he met in Rincon, but that the marriage lasted only a short time. 

Mr. Johns, who lived on Fairview Avenue until May, when he sold his house and moved to Sebastian, enjoyed fishing in his kayak, said another friend, James Lancaster. He also loved the music of the ’70s, Jethro Tull most of all.

His sister, Susan Pluhowski, died in 1997. Mr. Johns, who had a dog that he loved, a Chihuahua, leaves no immediate survivors.

He was cremated, and his ashes will be spread off Montauk after a service in the spring. Mr. Lancaster suggested memorial donations for the Montauk Community Church, P.O. Box 698, Montauk 11954, or St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, Tenn., 38105.

Frederick Loftus Dankmyer of Orwigsburg, Pa., and Amagansett, a physician who had been a flight surgeon and was an ophthalmologist, died on Nov. 13 at home in Amagansett. He had had Parkinson’s disease for many years and was especially ill in the last year.

Dr. Dankmyer graduated from St. Vincent Preparatory School and St. Vincent College, Benedictine centers of education in Latrobe, Pa., and from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He served as a flight surgeon at McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, Wash., during the Vietnam War. 

After leaving the service, Dr. Dankmyer completed a residency in ophthalmology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He then practiced in Pottsville, Pa., after which he held a volunteer teaching position a Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia. He was a member of the Academy of Ophthalmology in New Orleans and the Northeast Pennsylvania Lions Eye Bank in Bethlehem, Pa.

Dr. Dankmyer’s family said he loved nature and marksmanship, hunting upland birds, ducks, and deer. He also was an accomplished woodworker who made finely crafted furniture.

Frederick Loftus Dankmyer was born on June 16, 1937, in St. Mary’s, Pa., one of the four children of Edward D. Dankmyer and the former Helen O’Connor. His parents and a brother, Edward Dankmyer, died before him. 

He is survived by his wife, Constance Dankmyer, the owner of Nellie’s Antiques in Amagansett, which she opened in 1992. Their four children, Kimberly Ann Foster of Darien, Conn., David Sedgebrook Dankmyer of St. Louis, Christopher Charles Dankmyer of Collegeville, Pa., and Katina Elizabeth Dankmyer of Orwisburg, survive, as do two sisters, Jane Eacobacci of Dennis Port, Mass., and Nancy Casey of Oakton, Va., and nine grandchildren. 

The Rev. Msgr. Donald Hanson will officiate at a funeral Mass for Mr. Dankmyer on Saturday at 10 a.m. at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton. Donations in his memory have been suggested to East End Hospice. P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978-7048, or the St. Louis American Parkinson Disease Association, 1415 Elbridge Payne Road, Suite 150, Chesterfield, Mo. 63017. 

--

Correction: The original version of this obituary failed to include some of Dr. Dankmyer's professional positions and affiliations and incorrectly stated that he had held positions at the Academy of Ophthalmology in New Orleans and the Northeast Pennsylvania Lions Eye Bank in Bethlehem, Pa., when in fact he was a member of both the academy adn the eye bank. 

Jack Rivkin, who has been credited with introducing investment research practices that elevated some of Wall Street’s biggest firms beginning in the 1980s, died on Nov. 8 surrounded by family at his home in Amagansett, where he lived part time since the mid-1970s. He was 76 years old and had pancreatic cancer for the last seven months.

Mr. Rivkin held management positions at Lehman Brothers Inc., Smith Barney, PaineWebber, Citigroup Investments, Neuberger Berman, and Mitchell Hutchins. While he was at Lehman Brothers, he helped the company’s underperforming research department become the top-ranked research team on Wall Street, a turnaround that eventually became a case study at Harvard Business School.

He was a regular on Bloomberg Radio and CNBC, and was a partner at Idealabs and Dale Carnegie, an executive adviser to Aquiline Capital Partners, and the director of the New York Society of Security Analysts, the World Policy Institute, and multiple private companies. He was also an adjunct professor of security analysis at Columbia University and served on the board of the nonprofit organization Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America, or LEDA. Most recently, he was the chief executive officer and vice chairman of the board of Altegris. Matt Osborn, the co-founder of Altegris, told Bloomberg News last week, “We are honored to have had the opportunity to work with Jack. He will be greatly missed.”

Mr. Rivkin was born Aug. 20, 1940, in Tulsa, Okla., one of three children of David Rivkin and the former Margaret Perry. He grew up in Tulsa, attended Edison High School, and enrolled in the Colorado School of Mines, where he graduated in 1962 with a degree in metallurgical engineering.

Mr. Rivkin served two years in the Army, from 1962 to 1964, and was stationed in Alaska and Arizona. 

He was married to Jane Miley on Aug. 16, 1964. 

He earned his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1968. 

The couple raised their children in New York City. 

His family said he was known as a natural mentor and leader in the business world, but was “a present and thoughtful friend and family man as well. He was a role model for those around him, balancing strength and kindness and exemplifying integrity, empathy, and compassion.”

Mr. Rivkin loved traveling, and with his wife visited many places, including Africa, Europe, India, and Argentina, where the couple owned a house for 10 years. He also loved fly-fishing, football, meditation, and heartfelt conversation.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Rivkin is survived by his brother, Jeffrey Rivkin of Tulsa, his daughter, Susan Verde of East Hampton, his son, Michael Rivkin of Los Angeles, and four grandchildren. 

A memorial service was held last Thursday at the Angler’s Club of New York City. He was cremated and his ashes will be scattered in Argentina. Memorial donations in his name can be sent to LEDA, Development Department, 501 Seventh Avenue, 7th Floor, New York 10018, or the New York Stem Cell Foundation, online at nyscf.org.

Tracy Ann Segelken, a public safety dispatcher and one of the first female firefighters in the Springs Fire Department, died of heart failure on Nov. 12 at Southampton Hospital. She was 52. 

After working at Apple Bank for many years, Ms. Segelken joined the East Hampton Town Police Department as a dispatcher in 2003. Police Chief Michael Sarlo said, “She was popular within our ranks, as a supportive and caring friend who always put others before herself. She leaves a big void in our radio room.” 

Born on Aug. 13, 1964, in Bayview Hospital in Mastic Beach, Ms. Segelken was the daughter of William Segelken and the former Patricia Goss. Her father was a town police officer who retired as captain in 1996. She grew up in Springs, graduating from the Springs School in 1978 and East Hampton High School in 1982. 

She lived in Springs and joined the Springs Fire Department 29 years ago. Though not the first, she was one of the early female firefighters in the department. She was a member of Company #3 and volunteered on the house and basement committees. She also served as the department’s treasurer and the treasurer of the benevolent association at one point.

Ms. Segelken is survived by her father, who lives in Georgetown, S.C., and her brother, William Segelken Jr. of East Hampton. She was very close to her nieces, Aspen and Reilly Segelken, and her nephew, Morgan Segelken, as well as her godson, Garrett Severance, all of whom survive. 

Ms. Segelken was creamated. Services were held last week at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. 

Memorial donations have been suggested to the Springs Fire Department, 179 Fort Pond Boulevard, East Hampton 11937.