Charles Emerson McKenney, 84, a Wainscott resident since the late 1970s who had a long career as a patent lawyer with the Manhattan firm of Pennie & Edmunds, died on March 1 at Palm Beach Hospice in Florida after a weeklong illness.

Mr. McKenney joined the law firm, of which he became a partner, soon after graduating from the University of Virginia Law School in 1959. He had already served for three years as a Naval officer and had earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Yale University in 1954. 

He was born on Feb. 28, 1932, in Summit, N.J., to Maurice McKenney and the former Florence Bishop. Growing up in New Jersey, he attended the Pingry School in Basking Ridge.

Mr. McKenney and Helaine (Bobo) Hobby were married in 1962 and settled in Darien, Conn., where they maintained a residence into the 1990s. The family began summering on the East End in the 1960s  in a rented cottage on Flying Point Road in Water Mill before buying a house on Main Street in Wainscott in the 1970s.

While the family loved spending the day at the beach, Mr. McKenney’s recreation was golf. He would join the family briefly at the ocean, then it was off to the links. He was a longtime member of the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club and, before that, of the Bridgehampton Club, where he played golf and the couple entertained guests.

Hobby Coudert recalled yesterday that her parents loved to entertain during the summer, and that she grew up in an atmosphere of music, dancing, and fine food. “Everybody who has written and called has told me he was known for his hospitality and his sense of humor,” Ms. Coudert said. “There were lots of happy times in our house,” she said. He was a superb dancer, she said. The music was usually Big Band style, though every Fourth of July, Mr. McKenney would bring in a Dixieland jazz band. The couple later joined the Devon Yacht Club in Amagansett, not to sail but to entertain. They loved dining with their guests on the club’s deck and watching the sunset, Ms. Hobby said.

After Mr. McKenney retired from his law practice, at the beginning of the new century, the McKenneys decided to “re-shuffle,” selling the house on Main Street and buying one on Sachem’s Path in Wainscott, as well as another in West Palm Beach. They subsequently divided their time between them. 

In addition to his wife of 53 years and his daughter Hobby Coudert, who lives in New York City and Stonington, Conn., Mr. McKenney is survived by two other children, Wensley McKenney of Bedford, N.Y., and Westhampton Beach and Phillip McKenney of West Palm Beach, and by four grandchildren.

 Mr. McKenney was a member of St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Bridgehampton as well as Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Palm Beach, and he was buried in the Wainscott Cemetery following a family graveside service led by the Rev. Timothy Lewis. The family plans a memorial service here this summer. 

Memorial contributions have been suggested to Palm Beach Hospice, c/o Trustbridge, 5300 East Avenue, West Palm Beach, Fla. 33407.

Frederick Bridges Onderdonk, who lived in Amagansett for many years before moving to Baldwinsville in 2008, died of an unexpected illness on Feb. 21 at Longwood Regional Medical Center in Fort Pierce, Fla., surrounded by his family. He was 81 and had been vacationing in Vero Beach. 

Mr. Onderdonk, a tenor, sang in the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church choir in East Hampton for 30 years, starting in the 1970s. A funeral will be held there  at 11 a.m. tomorrow and he will be buried at St. Luke’s Memorial Garden.

“Throughout Fred’s life, his beautiful voice would resonate in the hearts of all he met, for he gave the gift of music generously. You could count on Fred to burst into melody at social Fred to burst into melody at social gatherings, restaurants, or passing pedestrians, and his audience was always appreciative,” his family said.

  Mr. Onderdonk had been a lead soloist and boarding student from the third through eighth grades at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church Choir School in Manhattan, from which he graduated in 1949. He went to Dwight Darrow High School and to Fairleigh Dickinson University. After graduating, he became a singer using the stage name Fred Todd. He sang on radio programs and was spotlighted in a few television shows. His favorite songs to perform were “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” and “A Foggy Day in London Town.”  

After marrying the former Elizabeth Ruth Gordon on Oct. 27, 1957, Mr. Onderdonk became a sales executive. The couple met in the early 1950s on Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett; he was a Maidstone Beach lifeguard at the time. They moved throughout his career, living in Atlanta and Nashville as well as Huntington, but always returned to Amagansett for the summer. His father-in-law, Donald Gordon, who bought land in Amagansett in the 1920s where he built a house, later built another for his daughter and son-in-law. The couple eventually retired to Amagansett, where they lived full time for 30 years. 

He was born on Jan. 18, 1935, in Englewood, N.J., to Gertrude Onderdonk and John Clark Onderdonk.  Citing his many lifelong friendships, his family said he was “a loyal, loving friend, and always kept in touch.” 

His wife survives, as do two children, Karen Blakeley of Foxboro, Mass., and Donald Onderdonk of Baldwinsville, and a sister, Sue Bach of Chapel Hill, N.C. Seven grandchildren and many cousins, nephews, and nieces also survive. In addition to his parents, a sister, Beth Walker, and a brother, Jack Onderdonk, died before him.

Memorial donations have been suggested to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation at JDRF.org. 

Elizabeth Siedsma

Elizabeth Ann Siedsma, a lifelong advocate for dogs, cats, and wildlife, died on Feb. 24 at The Springs at Lake Pointe Woods nursing home in Sarasota, Fla. She was 96.

The daughter of James S. Rice and the former Mabel Jones, she was born on April 8, 1919, in Utica, N.Y., and lived for a time in Los Angeles before coming to the East End to be near a daughter. She lived in Sag Harbor for five years and in East Hampton for a decade. 

After moving to Florida, she returned to the East End every summer until a few years ago.

Her daughter, Gail Wroldsen of Sarasota, survives. A son, Gary (Bo) Siedsma, predeceased his mother in 2013, and a brother, Stanley Rice, died a year and a half ago.

A private memorial service will take place at a future date. Memorial donations have been suggested to the Best Friends Animal Society, 5001 Angel Canyon Road, Kanab, Utah 84741, or to a canine rescue organization of the donor’s choice.

John Hudson, a longtime resident of East Hampton who worked as a fisherman in Montauk, died of cancer on Feb. 10 in Virginia Beach, Va., where he had moved in the last year. He was 61 and had been ill for eight months.

He was born in Southampton on Nov. 24, 1954, to James Hudson and the former Lucy Rose, both of whom died before him. He grew up on Town Lane in East Hampton and graduated from East Hampton High School. He was a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.

Mr. Hudson left East Hampton after his mother died, his sister, Della Hudson of Hempstead, said. He moved to Arizona about 12 years ago and remained there for a few years.

Along with fishing and hunting, Mr. Hudson loved motorcycles, his sister said, and owned several Harley-Davidsons. He had worked as a long-distance truck driver for a time and owned his own rig, she said. “He was a very simple person. He was not a person that wanted a whole lot of attention.”

 In addition to Ms. Hudson, three other sisters survive. They are Thomasina Davis of Chesapeake, Va., Juanita Monroe of Havelock, N.C., and Vanessa Wilkes of Virginia Beach. Two nieces and a nephew also survive.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday at 11 a.m. at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Roosevelt, the Rev. Jerome Taylor presiding. Mr. Hudson was cremated, and his ashes are to be scattered in the waters off Montauk.

His family has suggested memorial contributions to the American Cancer Society, P.O. Box 22478, Oklahoma City, Okla., or to donate.cancer.org.

John Horvath, a filmmaker, advertising producer, and house designer who lived in Amagansestt and Sagaponack during the 1970s and ’80s, died at a nursing home in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on Feb. 20 of the complications of Alzheimer’s disease. He was 74.

Mr. Horvath was born in Budapest in 1941, the son of John and Irene Horvath. His father was a noted Hungarian film director who fled the Communist-controlled country after World War II. He had a career of his own in film and in advertising, and a studio in New York City. Among other programs, he worked on the popular television show “Candid Camera.”

Mr. Horvath was married in 1988, and moved with his wife, the former Catalina Jaume, to Palma de Mallorca. There, he was a developer and designer of residential houses.

His wife and their daughters, Irene Blanc-Garin of Berlin and Cata Diaz de Bustamante of Madrid, survive.

John Glover Girdler, a summer resident of Montauk, died in his sleep on Feb. 10 at an assisted living facility in Seattle. He was 74 and had Parkinson’s disease.

During summers, Mr. Girdler fished off Montauk Point and kept the Arabella, a 36-foot Downeast lobster boat custom-designed by Wayne Beal, at the Montauk Marine Basin. For 15 years, from May until September, he lived on the boat, returning to his home in Charlottesville, Va., as the weather cooled. During winters, he skied in the mountains of Colorado. 

Mr. Girdler was born on April 13, 1941, in Greenwich, Conn., the fourth son of Reynolds Tracy Girdler and the former Barbara Kitchel.

An enthusiastic reader, he studied English literature at the University of Virginia. During the 1960s, Mr. Girdler lived in Bridgehampton, later settling in Albemarle County, Va. 

Mr. Girdler is survived by three children: Erin Binney Girdler of Kalamazoo, Mich., Andrew Lewis Girdler of Seattle, and Catherine Ann Spina of Groton, Conn. Three brothers, Reynolds Girdler Jr. of Old Greenwich, Conn., Allan Girdler of Rainbow, Calif., and Lewis Girdler of Boston, also survive him. He leaves three grandchildren. 

His family will disperse his ashes in the sea during a private ceremony this summer.

Donations in Mr. Girdler’s memory have been suggested to the Billfish Foundation, 5100 North Federal Highway, Suite 200, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 33308.

Mary Huntting Rattray, who died Monday morning at home on Old Stone Highway in Springs after a long decline precipitated by a stroke some years ago, loved nothing more than to walk the cliffs of Montauk, retracing journeys she had made as a small girl on motoring expeditions with her grandfather, in his Model T, when roads were few and wild grapes were many. Like most children of East Hampton families with roots stretching all the way back to the mid-17th century — in her case, the Edwardses and Hunttings — she had been raised with an awareness of and fascination with deep history.

One of her favorite stories to recount, in her later years, was the memory of her wizened great-grandmother, Adelia Conklin Edwards, sitting by the fire in Amagansett singing popular campaign tunes from the Civil War. She liked to describe how her great-uncle, Daniel Huntting, had decided to become a cowboy after watching Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, in their thousands, make their way on horseback down Main Street. Ms. Rattray could navigate the otherwise all-but-abandoned footpaths of Northwest Woods and Point Woods without a map, long before the arrival of hiking blazes and mountain bikes. 

She also remembered well the lost bohemia of the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s.  

As a young woman at the close of World War II, she had run away from the life of a respectable young lady from “Upstreet” East Hampton, to settle in France, where she lived for 12 years. When not off on one of her frequent hitchhiking forays (some of them barefoot) to Dubrovnik or the Greek islands, she was occupied for a time collating field reports in an American intelligence-gathering agency in Paris. That employment ended, however, when she, among many other expatriate American artists and nonconformists, was expelled from France at the request of the United States during a postwar attempt to cleanse government agencies of ne’er-do-wells and security risks. Ms. Rattray’s unpardonable offense — which made her unsuitable to work in intelligence, even at a relatively lowly level — was to have been engaged in a lesbian relationship with a Frenchwoman.

Another favorite story of Ms. Rattray’s was how she waited nervously in a hallway for her fateful interview at the American Embassy in Paris, and the indelible image of the novelist James Baldwin emerging from his own interview and silently flashing her the thumbs-down sign, indicating he was also being expelled. Ms. Rattray, who had arrived in the country in a stripped-down, third-class cabin on a ship that had been used in troop-convoy and had only recently been returned to civilian service, was sent home in a first-class cabin aboard the Queen Mary, at the expense of the American government, dining in state in the grand salon, chatting with British aristocrats in the ship’s library, and relishing the irony. She made her way back to France in short order. 

In the late 1950s, Ms. Rattray worked as an abstract painter, and had a few solo shows in Paris and in New York. She also filed occasional human-interest reports from France — titled “Letter From Paris” — for this newspaper, and was a stringer for a few other New York papers. On her eventual return to the States, at the end of the 1950s, she continued to surround herself with poets, Abstract-Expressionists, jazz musicians, and assorted writers. 

She opened a clothing and repurposed-vintage-jewelry shop on St. Mark’s Place called the Queen of Diamonds, which was —as The New York Times noted in an article in 1961 —  the very first boutique on that street, then a dangerous “low rent area” outside the safe confines of Greenwich Village. In the early 1970s, she opened an outpost of the Queen of Diamonds in Provincetown, Mass., where John Waters, the movie director (a.k.a. the Pope of Trash) became her shop assistant, rooting through bales of vintage clothing for costumes worn by his band of merry moviemaking friends.

Here in East Hampton, Ms. Rattray may be best remembered for her store Promised Land, which opened in the 1970s at the Amagansett Farmers Market before moving to a storefront on Newtown Lane; for decades, it served a faithful and aging clientele, long after its Indian-cotton dresses and Art Nouveau brass earrings had stopped looking quite so radical. She ran Promised Land alongside her daughter, Cleo Kanovitz Cook, who survives her, as do two grandsons, Billy and Winston Cook, all of Southampton. Ms. Rattray’s marriage to the photo-realist artist Howard Kanovitz ended in divorce.

Mary Huntting Rattray was born to Jeannette Edwards Rattray and Arnold Rattray — who was then editor, but not yet owner-publisher, of The East Hampton Star — on Jan. 21, 1927. She left East Hampton as a teenager, when she was sent to Stuart Hall boarding school in Virginia for having been caught once too often consorting after dark with soldiers and sailors from the military base in Montauk. As a young woman, she was frequently accompanied on her adventures in bohemia by her youngest brother, David G. Rattray, the late poet, composer, and translator. Her other brother, Everett T. Rattray, also died before her.

Her closest friends, until the end of her life, were all fellow travelers in nonconformity. These included the abstract painter Robert Harms of Southampton; Marijane Meaker (a.k.a. M.E. Kerr), the novelist and short-story writer; Clarice Rivers, whose longtime husband, the late painter Larry Rivers, played saxophone in a bebop band with Mr. Kanovitz on trombone, and the late Patsy Southgate and Joe LeSueur of Springs.

In the last months of her life, Ms. Rattray looked back with retrospective delight on her many transatlantic crossings, most especially, but also on innumerable pleasure trips with her daughter to India, Yugoslavia, Italy, and, of course, France. 

Her many journeys by sea — from her grandfather’s bunker steamer at the old Promised Land fish factory on Napeague to the Cunard liners to small ferries in Istria — were frequently on her mind, as dementia took hold over the last weeks, and she drifted in time and place.

“I must get up from this chair and move myself along soon,” she told a family visitor two weeks ago. “Unless you are going to carry me out to the boat?”

Alice Shira Caputo, a lifelong resident of Sag Harbor and a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Red Hat Society, died on Feb. 18 at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton after a long illness. She was 77. 

She will be most remembered, and missed, for her strength, her family said, as well as her ready smile, loving heart, and quick wit. 

Ms. Caputo was born in Sag Harbor on Feb. 2, 1939, to John Willer and the former Ruth King, and grew up there, attending Pierson High School. She and Gino Elio Caputo were married on May 15, 1960. Mr. Caputo survives. 

Ms. Caputo worked at the King Kullen supermarket in Bridgehampton for 15 years, and also kept the books for her husband’s business, Caputo Plumbing and Heating. “Though she held a few other jobs,” her family wrote, “she took most joy in raising her children.” She enjoyed traveling with her husband, antiquing, and crafts such as pottery, crochet, stained glass, and assembling photo albums, the family said.

In addition to her husband of 55 years, she is survived by two daughters, Regina Caputo of Riverhead and Tina Miano of Sag Harbor, and a son, Gino Caputo of East Hampton. She also leaves five siblings, who are Laura Willer, Kay Jean Jung, and John Willer, all of Michigan; Patricia Shaw of Amagansett, and Gordon Lyon. Ten grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and 42 nieces and nephews survive as well. A daughter, Terri Moley, died before her, as did a sister and a brother. 

Visitation took place on Feb. 21 at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in Sag Harbor. A funeral Mass was offered at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Sag Harbor the following day, followed by burial in the church cemetery. 

He was a motorcycle racer and a peace activist, an artist and a businessman. 

Robert Curtis, known Bob, a leather designer who set up shops and sold his wares across the East End, died on Feb. 10 from complications related to a 2011 motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed. He was 73 and had been in hospice care at the Stone Creek Health and Rehabilitation Center in Asheville, N.C. 

Born in Danville, Ill., on Jan. 29, 1943, to Dr. John S. Curtis and the former Elizabeth Taylor, he moved to Madison, Wis., when he was 5.

He graduated from West High School and went on to study art at the University of Wisconsin. 

Mr. Curtis was an ardent opponent of the Vietnam War and was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

When it came time to report to the draft board, he managed to avoid conscription in a manner reminiscent of Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant,” or perhaps the 1969 counterculture film “Easy Rider.” According to his wife, Mary Clare Galvin, who lives in the house the couple purchased in 2006 in Burnsville, N.C., when he was interviewed at the selective service office, he said, “You don’t want to give a guy like me a gun.” The officer agreed.

In 1968, he was on the move, first living in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, then in Chicago. While living in the Second City, he began working with leather. After mastering his craft, he moved to New York, setting up a shop on West 10th Street in Greenwich Village. That soon led to shops on the East End. 

In 1968, Mr. Curtis arrived in Sag Harbor, where he shared a house for quite some time with John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful. 

He later bought a house in Clearwater Beach in Springs, where he lived for many years.

Mr. Curtis designed leather goods that were sold to leading stores in New York City and around the country. He opened Animal Crackers on Job’s Lane in Southampton, and in 1972, he opened Havana 1919 in an old house on Amagansett Main Street. He got the name for the store from the inscription on the back of an old photograph.

He had a shop on Park Place in East Hampton for a time and for many years ran a store at 47 Newtown Lane, which operated as Robert Curtis Fine Leather, Billy Martin’s, and East Hampton Leather. 

His clientele ran the gamut from Bonackers to rock stars. He designed for the Rolling Stones, sold goods to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and designed items for Billy Joel and Joseph Yurman. 

He met Ms. Galvin at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett in 2004. They took to each other immediately. 

“He loved the ocean,” she remembered, and would go sailing every weekend.

He had always enjoyed racing motorcycles. It was his Zen, his wife said.

For years, he was a familiar figure at the Bridgehampton Race Circuit, which closed in 1998. He had many cycles, but his favorite was a 1978 Norton that he doted on, keeping it looking brand new.

In 2006, the couple retired to a 10-acre property they bought in North Carolina, and he was called to the motorcycle tracks in the Asheville area. He volunteered at local prisons, talking to inmates about the virtues of living a drug and alcohol-free life. 

The couple married in 2010. Mr. Curtis was involved in an accident on the racetrack the following year. Though he would never walk again, he never lost his loving spirit, his wife said.

“I’m so grateful to have had this experience,” Ms. Galvin said. “The last five years were spectacular, in ways I can not explain.”

Besides his wife, he is survived by a sister, Barbara McDonnell of Savoy, Ill., and a brother, John Curtis of Appleton, Wis. 

Jeremiah Raymond Lester, a potato farmer and master carpenter, died at Southampton Hospital on Monday following a short illness. He was 94. 

Throughout his life, Mr. Lester, who was born on the Lester homestead on Skimhampton Road and lived in East Hampton all of his life, enjoyed many old-time Bonac pursuits including woodworking, clamming, duck hunting with his American water spaniels, and picking beach plums, cranberries, and wild blueberries from his secret spots. 

A lifelong member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in East Hampton and an active member of the East Hampton Fire Department for 35 years, Mr. Lester was also a 50-year member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternal organization. He served as the group’s Noble Grand for the Hampton Lodge, and as district deputy for the I.O.O.F. Suffolk district. 

Mr. Lester graduated with honors from East Hampton High School in 1939 and joined the family potato-farming business. In 1957, he started a career as a carpenter. When he retired from carpentry, he took up baking, and was well known for the homemade pies he whipped up for family gatherings, church covered-dish suppers, and fund-raising events.

A son of Raymond M. Lester and Ethel Guyer Lester, he was a direct descendant of both the Round Swamp Lesters and the Pantigo Lesters, two families with long local roots. He was born at home on Oct. 28, 1921. On May 19, 1946, he married Mary Louise Elley, also of East Hampton. 

Mrs. Lester survives. Mr. Lester is also survived by a daughter, Margaret L. DiCorleto of Tennessee; a son, Jerry (Jay) R. Lester of New Jersey, and two grandchildren. A sister, Mary L. Byrnes of East Hampton, also survives. A brother, Samuel G. Lester, died before him.

A private graveside service was to take place this morning at 11, at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton, the Rev. Denis Brunelle officiating. The family has suggested memorial donations to the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, 1 Cedar Street, East Hampton 11937. 

The Rev. Francis B. Creamer Jr., who was the rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in East Hampton for nearly 20 years, died on Sunday at home in Waldoboro, Me., of pancreatic cancer. He was 79 years old.

During his tenure at St. Luke’s, Mr. Creamer was credited with the restoration of its historic building and fostering binding relationships between year-round and summer residents. Mr. Creamer, who was called Fritz, supported the civil rights movement for the rest of his life, after joining the 1965 Freedom March in Alabama from Selma to Montgomery with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In a letter to The Star in 1979 and a sermon at the time, he said, “respect for human rights cannot be taught in the schools and churches alone, it must begin at home.”

“Everyone knew Fritz for his charm, wit, and sense of humor. He was a gifted preacher, generous, and compassionate to all, a true servant of God,” his family wrote.

He was born on Feb. 24, 1937, in Detroit to the Rev. Francis B. Creamer Sr. and the former Margaret Welch Gates. He grew up there and attended the Detroit University School before moving to Lewiston, Pa., where he graduated from high school in 1954. He attended Trinity College, earning a degree in English in 1958.

Before going into the ministry, Mr. Creamer took a job in New York City as a junior executive with CBS television. He soon met his wife, the former Ann Wilkins Lichty, to whom he was married in 1959.

Mr. Creamer joined the National Guard in 1960, serving on active duty for six months. He then enrolled in the Berkeley Divinity School, from which he received a master’s degree. He delivered the student commencement address in 1963 and was awarded a fellowship to the University of Toronto’s Trinity College. 

First ordained as a deacon at Christ Church Cathedral in Hartford, Conn., Mr. Creamer was ordained into the priesthood and appointed curate at St. James Church in West Hartford, Conn., in 1964. 

Before becoming the rector of St. Luke’s Church in 1978, he had been the rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in New London, N.H., where he taught for a semester at Colby Junior College. He had previously been the assistant rector of the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City.

Mr. Creamer retired from St. Luke’s in 1996 and he and his wife moved to South Royalton, Vt. Then, in 2001, they moved to Waldoboro, where he became a trustee of the Waldoboro Public Library and a member of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in nearby Newcastle, Me.

In addition to Mrs. Creamer, Mr. Creamer is survived by a daughter, Elizabeth Figler of Duxbury, Mass., a son, Nathaniel Creamer of Baltimore, and five grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. at St. Andrew’s Church in Newcastle. Memorial donations have been suggested to St. Luke's Episcopal Church, 18 James Lane, East Hampton 11937. Condolences may be shared online by visiting the funeral home website stronghancock.com.