Marilyn Morris Johnson, a dedicated member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in East Hampton and a former resident of Woodbine Drive in Springs, died on Feb. 11 at the Westhampton Care Center, after an illness. She was 78.

    Ms. Johnson retired in 1996 from a position as New York Methodist Hospital’s chief therapeutic dietician. She had received a bachelor of science degree in food, nutrition, and dietetics from Brooklyn College. From 1970 to 1973, she attended a master’s program in nutrition education at New York University. She was a member of the Beta Beta chapter of Kappa Delta.

    Born on Sept. 29, 1934, in Goose Cove, Newfoundland, she was the daughter of Frederick Morris and the former Helen Hiscock.

    In September 1957 she married Thomas Johnson, who died in 1969.

    For 15 years, Ms. Johnson was a member of the St. Luke’s Altar Guild as well as the church’s Ladies’ Guild, for which she served as secretary until the time of her death.

    She served as an election supervisor for the Suffolk County Board of Elections. A gardener of both indoor and outdoor plants, she also enjoyed traveling, and took a number of trips in the United States, Canada, and throughout Russia, Europe, the Middle East, and England.

    Ms. Johnson was cremated. A service was held yesterday at St. Luke’s, the Rev. Denis Brunelle presiding, and her ashes were interred in the church’s memorial garden. A reception was hosted by the Altar Guild.

    Memorial donations have been suggested to St. Luke’s Church, 18 James Lane, East Hampton 11937.

    Robert Ellsworth Bennett, a locksmith who had worked at many trades as a younger man, died of cancer at home in Springs on Jan. 15. He was 77.

    He was born on July 14, 1935, to Lewis and Lily Wood Bennett on Cedar Street in East Hampton “in the little white house next door to the firehouse, which has since been torn down,” his family wrote. He was a tenth-generation East Hampton Bennett.

    At 14, his father died, leaving Mr. Bennett and his younger sister, Ellen, to care for their mother. His three older brothers, Lewis, Marvin, and Thomas, were already enlisted in the service.

    “[His mother] told him he was the man of the house now and he would have to get a job to help with the expenses,” his wife, Annamae Bennett wrote. To help make ends meet, Mr. Bennett worked at what was formerly Abe Katz’s dairy farm in East Hampton with Ray Neuhause, who picked him up early each morning. Mr. Neahause’s wife, Norma, would cook them breakfast, then Mr. Neuhause would take Mr. Bennett home to prepare for his half day at school. He also did carpentry, painting, and worked for Home Sweet Home Moving and Storage in Wainscott, among other jobs.

    In 1953, he enlisted in the Army and was stationed in Germany, where he worked as a driver for his company’s commander.

    On Dec. 29, 1954, he married the former Annamae Lester from Springs. The couple had four children and were married for 58 years.

    When he returned to Springs in 1956, he worked in carpentry and learned masonry from Reg Bassett, then worked for F.B. Smith Lumber before finally becoming a self-employed carpenter in the 1960s. Soon he added locksmithing to his skills, and in the 1980s switched to strictly lock work under the business name Bob Bennett Locksmith. His son Guy has run the family business since Mr. Bennett’s cancer diagnosis two years ago.

    In his spare time, Mr. Bennett enjoyed beekeeping and tending to his vegetable garden. In earlier days, he enjoyed “playing horseshoes, clamming, garbage can cookouts, and firelighting for crabs,” according to Mrs. Bennett. When he was younger, he played on the Bonac Bulldozers baseball team. He also enjoyed watching westerns, old war movies, and playing his harmonica. “He didn’t like sitcoms or game shows and thought playing around on the computer was a waste of time, probably because he never knew how to turn it on and wasn’t about to learn,” his wife said.

    In addition to his wife, Mr. Bennett is survived by four children, Guy Bennett, Sandra Vatter, and Donna Garrett of Springs and Ronnie Bennett of East Hampton. He also leaves behind six grandchildren, one great-grandson, and numerous nieces and nephews. His brothers and sister, Ellen Miller, died before him.

    Mr. Bennett was cremated and a celebration of life will be held at his house later this spring.

    Donations have been suggested to the Amagansett Ambulance Fund, the Amagansett Ladies Auxiliary, or the Amagansett Fire Department, P.O. Box 50, Amagansett 11930. 

    Brandon Burns Stewart, who found East Hampton a vital extension of his life in the Manhattan art world, died of cancer on Nov. 2 in New York City. He had been sick for two months. He was 58.

    Born in Manhattan, his parents, Jack and Margo Stewart, were both artists, as well as activists for artists. Growing up surrounded by art and artists, he ended up making it his life’s work.

    As a child, he attended the Rudolf Steiner School, then the Hackley School, and went on to college at Case Western Reserve University.

    After his parents divorced, he shared a town house on Manhattan’s East Side with his mother.

    Professionally, Mr. Stewart specialized in urban planning, including work on the redevelopment of the Brooklyn waterfront, before becoming a fine-arts administrator, working with curators and art galleries on the acquisition and management of fine art.

    He also had a passion for protecting the environment, and was involved with the Green Movement.

    In the 1970s, he and his mother purchased a house in East Hampton, which became a focal point for the social scene for many in the arts community. “He loved to entertain in his home,” his cousin Jane Cornman said yesterday.

    He loved East Hampton, particularly in September, after the hustle and bustle of the season had ended.

    He enjoyed walking on the beach.

    To Mr. Stewart and his mother, East Hampton was the extension of their life in the New York art world.

    He is survived by his step-mother, Regina Stewart, as well as many cousins.

    Donations in his name can be made to the Artist Welfare Fund, P.O. Box 1258, New York City 10276.

    A celebration of his life is planned for March.

    Allen Hovey Good, who spent the last 14 summers on Old Orchard Lane in East Hampton, died on Jan. 21 in Naples, Fla., after a short illness. He was 82.

    Mr. Good was born in Newton, Mass., on July 5, 1930, to Herbert and Elizabeth Good. After graduating from high school in Newton, he served in the Army for a year before attending the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1954.

    Mr. Good’s first marriage, to Catherine Campbell, ended in divorce. He married the former Joan Duffey on June 12, 1976, at Christ Church in Summit, N.J. They raised five children in Summit and Short Hills, N.J., including two from his first marriage and two from hers.

    Mr. Good was founder and president of Atlantic National Acquisitions and Mergers, an investment-banking firm in Short Hills. He was very active in that community and the others in which he lived. He was a member of the Short Hills Club, Club Pelican Bay in Naples, and the Society of Colonial Wars in New York and Palm Beach, Fla. Previously, he had been a member of the Mantoloking Yacht Club in Mantoloking, N.J., and the Summit Tennis Club and the Visual Arts Center, both in Summit.

    “He put himself through college, was president of his class, president of his fraternity, ran a business,” his wife recalled. “You had to run to keep up with him.”

    In addition to his wife, he is survived by his daughters, Alison Ross of Wellesley, Mass., and Mary Meyers of Tampa, Fla., and sons, Paul Good of Needham, Mass., Forrester Good of Danville, Calif., and R. Whitney Meyers Jr. of New York City. He is also survived by five grandchildren and a brother, Lincoln Hovey Good of Kennebunk, Me. His sister, Shelley Good, died before him.

    Funeral services in Naples were private. A memorial service will be held in late spring or early summer in East Hampton, his wife said.

    Condolences may be expressed at fullernaples.com.

    Diane Wolkstein, a summer visitor to Springs and world-renowned storyteller, died in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, last Thursday following emergency heart surgery. She was 70.

    Ms. Wolkstein is credited with reviving an interest in storytelling, particularly the folklore of countries familiar and more exotic, as New York City’s official storyteller, a position she held from 1967 to 1971. In the year-round post, she would visit parks and schools and share stories from standard fairy tales as well as those lesser known and gathered from all over the world.

    She went on to help found Bank Street College’s graduate storytelling program and was a visiting teacher of mythology at New York University for 18 years. She was the author of 23 books for adults and children.

    Ms. Wolkstein was born on Nov. 11, 1942, in Newark, N.J., to Henry and Ruth Wolkstein, and grew up in Maplewood, N.J. She graduated from Smith College and received a master’s degree in education at Bank Street.

    After leaving her post as storyteller for the city, she continued to tell stories every summer for four decades at the statue of Hans Christian Andersen in Central Park. She was known for the depth of research she employed to bring classic stories into her repertoire. Her radio show, “Stories From Many Lands,” was broadcast on WNYC, a public radio station in the city, from 1968 to 1980.

    In Haiti, she sat on porches and visited late-night gatherings to hear and record the stories told there. She titled the resulting collection “The Magic Orange Tree.” Aboriginal storytellers helped her with Australian tales, and she worked with Noah Kramer, a well-known archeologist, to retell the Sumerian epic “Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth.”

    Ms. Wolkstein, who was divorced, is survived by a daughter, Rachel Zucker, three grandsons, her mother, and two brothers, Martin and Gary Wolkstein.

    A service was held on Sunday at the New York Insight Meditation Center. A second service is planned for the summer or fall. Donations have been suggested to Partners in Health at donate.pih.org, or the Tzu Chi Foundation, 1100 South Valley Center Avenue, San Dimas, Calif. 91773.

    Richard L. Sharpe, a part-time Amagansett resident who had a long career on the business side of the radio industry, died on Jan. 1 in Locust Valley, where he also had a house. He was 72. The cause was a heart attack, his family said.

    Mr. Sharpe began his career as an advertising salesman before moving into national sales for large radio groups. He later ran a New York City radio representation company.

    More recently he began brokering deals to buy and sell stations, said his son, Michael Sharpe. One transaction in which he was instrumental was the 2011 sale of a media group that included Riverhead-based WRCN-FM.

    “He knew everybody,” one of his clients wrote to Mr. Sharpe’s colleagues after hearing of his death. “Going with him to the [National Association of Broadcasters convention] was so much fun. I couldn’t walk the convention floor with him without stopping 20 times to have him introduce me to some broadcasting giant.”

    He and his wife, Sheila, were enthusiastic golfers and members of the South Fork County Club for more than 25 years. Mr. Sharpe also enjoyed traveling, watching sports, and spending time with his grandchildren. The Sharpes, who married on July 25, 1964, were 30-year summer residents of Meeting House Lane.

    Mr. Sharpe was born in Detroit on April 6, 1940, to George Sharpe and the former Grace Reina. He grew up in Manhasset and attended the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut.

    He was a member of Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton and St. Dominic’s Catholic Church in Oyster Bay, where the Rev. Gerry Gordon officiated at a funeral service on Jan. 5. Burial followed at Mount St. Mary’s Cemetery in Flushing.

    In addition to his wife and son, who lives in Richmond, Va., Mr. Sharpe leaves three daughters, Kimberly Farren and Courtney Hollett, also of Richmond, and Alison Moore of Amagansett and New York. He is also survived by a brother, George Sharpe of Vero Beach, Fla., and 10 grandchildren.

    The family has suggested memorial donations to the Hereditary Neuropathy Foundation c/o Courtney Hollett, P.O. Box 1922, Midlothian, Va. 23113.

    Asked in 2011 how she felt about turning 100, Elsie Garretson of East Hampton told The East Hampton Star, “I really don’t feel any different. You just go with the years, you keep breathing and living until God says, ‘Come on Elsie, you’ve spent enough time on earth.’ ”

    She had been “a great worrier,” she said. “Then I realized one day, why do you worry? Nothing comes from it. Try to take things in stride. Ride with the waves.”

    A people person with the gift of gab, Mrs. Garretson loved music and dancing, enjoyed reading, was skilled at most any game of cards, and kept her mind sharp doing crossword puzzles and watching “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune.” She had been a member of the East Hampton Ladies Village Improvement Society since 1969, volunteering for decades at the desk of the society’s Bargain Books store, and she sang in the choir at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church for many years.

    Mrs. Garretson died at home near Three Mile Harbor last Thursday with her children by her side. A service was held on Monday at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church. The Rev. Dr. Thomas Schacher officiated. She was buried at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton.

    She was born in Brooklyn on July 22, 1911, to Gustav Ferdinand Seaburg (Sjoberg) and the former Mimmie Cecilia Larson, Swedish immigrants who met in New York. She grew up and went to school in Brooklyn, part of a vibrant Swedish-American community there. She sang and played violin from a young age, and as a teenager traveled with a Swedish youth group to her parents’ native country, where she performed for the king. When she was 20, she told The Star, she returned to Sweden for a month to play violin while a friend accompanied her on the piano.

    She skipped two grades in grammar school and graduated early from high school, then went on to college to become a teacher. When the college closed, she went to work instead in personnel at the Con Edison Company in Brooklyn. The company had a full orchestra and Mrs. Garretson became the first woman to play violin with the company. She had a “strong alto voice,” Mr. Schacher said in the service Monday, and belonged to several choruses. She also taught herself to play piano.

    On Sept. 12, 1936, she married Herbert Schenk Garretson in Brooklyn. The couple raised their three children in Malverne, with summers and weekends spent in various rented cottages near Three Mile Harbor starting in 1942. They bought their own place and became year-round residents around 1975.

    In addition to singing with the Presbyterian Church choir, Mrs. Garretson was a deacon and member of the church’s women’s association. She was a member of the Springs chapter of AARP, and served first as its secretary and later as its president, a position she held for four years. With the L.V.I.S., which honored her at a special party in 2011, she also was co-chairwoman of the Country Store at the 1969 fair. She volunteered at the society’s bookstore until she was 96 and drove and lived on her own until she was 97.

    Mrs. Garretson is survived by her children, John Garretson and Jane G. Kiembock of East Hampton and Susan Winkler of Springs. She also leaves seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Her husband died before her, as did her sisters, Mildred Garretson and Elna Mae Garretson.  

    Claude Simon Sarfati, who owned the Huntting Inn in East Hampton for a season and managed the Bridgehampton Club for six years, died after a brief illness on Sunday at his house in East Hampton, three days short of his 83rd birthday.

    Born in Oran in French colonial Algeria in 1930 to Jacob Sarfati and the former Rachael Cohen, he was forced by the Vichy government’s anti-Semitic policies to leave school in the third grade. He often said that the landing of the United States Army’s Ninth Division in North Africa on Nov. 9, 1942, saved him and his family from the Nazis. He was part of the cheering crowds that greeted the G.I.s. When he was 13, the Army put Mr. Sarfati to work as an interpreter. He spoke five languages fluently.

    After the war, he joined the French paratroopers, making his first jump at 16 years old. He emigrated from France to the United States in 1958, becoming a citizen the following year.

    Mr. Sarfati worked for a time as a bartender at Howard Johnson’s in Times Square, where he met Elizabeth Eblen. They liked each other, but Mr. Sarfati married Jeanine Prouteau not long after. Living in Queens, he rode the subway to his job in Manhattan, where he first tended bar at the Century Association and then became maitre d’ hotel and sommelier in the main dining room of the Yale Club.

    He had been divorced when, by chance, he and Ms. Eblen met again on a New York street. They married in May 1977. Wanting to leave the city, the couple bought a restaurant called the Seafood Shanty in Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard, but sold it after three years, still searching for an ideal location. They hit upon East Hampton. It was 1979, and the Huntting Inn was for sale.

    They bought the inn, and a house on Dayton Lane as well, but resold the inn within a year and returned to Manhattan, this time for a five-year sojourn. Mr. Sarfati purchased a French restaurant, the Cafe du Soir, and began a tradition of having all living members of the Ninth Division dine there every Nov. 9, in honor of the day Algeria was liberated. It became a tradition for many former soldiers, among whom his shrimp dish was said to be a favorite. He was eventually named an honorary life member of the Ninth Division. Wanting to spend his time with his wife in East Hampton, he sold the restaurant and became manager of the Bridgehampton Club.

    “We wanted an East Hampton life, smalltown,” Mrs. Sarfati said on Monday. “We loved to walk on the beach.” Her husband was a great reader and a very good cook, she said. “He loved to shop for food.” Music and singing were also a big part of his life. He could sing “Carmen” in its entirety, she said. In the city, Mr. Sarfati was a member of the Abravanel Lodge of Masons.

    In addition to Mrs. Sarfati, he leaves three children from his first marriage, a son, Dominique Sarfati, who lives in Virginia, and two daughters, Myriam Sarfati of Queens and Jacqueline Single of Pleasant Hill, Calif. Two grandchildren survive as does a sister, Yvonne Levy of Israel. According to Jewish tradition, he was buried the day after he died, with a graveside service at the Chevra Kadisha Cemetery in Sag Harbor.

    The family has suggested memorial donations for the Animal Rescue Fund, 90 Daniel’s Hole Road, Wainscott 11973; East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978, or Temple Adas Israel, P.O. Box 1378, Sag Harbor 11963.

    William Martin Stahl, M.D., a surgeon and professor of medicine who was considered a master teacher by his peers and legions of students and residents whom he trained, died at home in Larchmont, N.Y., on Dec. 22, at the age of 90. His family described his death as natural and peaceful.

    Dr. Stahl was a scientist, whose medical publications numbered in the hundreds, a physician who had dedicated himself to quality care for the poor, and a lifelong musician. In Montauk, where he bought property 45 years ago, he loved the ocean and swam as often as possible. He also had enjoyed surfcasting.

    He was born on Nov. 6, 1922, in Danbury, Conn., to William M. Stahl and the former Isabel Sarah Walker, and knew from the time he was 12 that he wanted to be a doctor like his father. He attended Dartmouth College and Harvard Medical School, graduating from each in three years under an accelerated program. He was then commissioned as a captain in the Army Medical Corps and stationed on the Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands under the United States Atomic Energy Commission. There, he became the only doctor for nearly 1,000 men and directed a mobile surgical hospital.

    Returning to civilian life in 1952, Dr. Stahl did his residency at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. He then had a surgical practice in Danbury and went on to become an associate professor and vice chairman of surgery at the Vermont Medical School. In 1966, he joined the faculty of the New York University Medical School. From then until his retirement in 1997, he was engaged as a professor or director of surgery at several New York City institutions, including New York Medical College, Metropolitan Hospital, and Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center. According to his family, his early work at Bellevue “opened his eyes to what was possible and seeded his desire to teach and conduct research.”

    In Montauk, Dr. Stahl first lived adjacent to Gurney’s Inn on the bluffs. He and his first wife, Alice Miller, then bought a large, wild tract on the ocean, south of Deep Hollow Ranch. Moving their three small structures there was said to be quite an endeavor, with a three-quarters-of-a-mile-long road having to be cut through the brush and utility lines lifted to allow the buildings to pass along Old Montauk Highway. Some of the property was used by Deep Hollow Ranch for grazing, but the tract was eventually divided. One parcel, between the Stahls’ and the Warhol Estate, was donated to the Nature Conservancy. In more recent years, Dr. Stahl sold that property and moved back to Old Montauk Highway, with a house at Davis Drive that also has an ocean view. His family plans a memorial gathering there in early summer.

    Greg Donahue of East Hampton, who met Dr. Stahl in Montauk in the early 1970s and said they would stop to have “nice chats” for the next 30 years, remarked that he was an honorable and delightful man. “Just to think of Bill puts a smile on my face,” he said.

    Dr. Stahl played the clarinet and sang in a band at Dartmouth College called Barbary Coast. He later played clarinet with the Hudson Valley Wind Symphony and soprano sax with the Westchester Saxophone Quartet. His true love, his family said, was the tenor sax, which he played for 15 years with the Wednesday Night Big Band.

    Dr. Stahl is survived by his wife, Patricia Maloney, and their children, Matyas Stahl and Elizabet Stahl, of Larchmont and Montauk. Also surviving are his children from his first marriage, William M. (Skip) Stahl III of Portland, Me., Katherine A. Stahl of Washington, D.C., and Springs, Sarah Jaffe Turnbull of Bridgehampton, and Elizabeth Stahl Parkinson of Phoenix. A brother, Frederick A. Stahl of Boston, also survives, as do seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. In addition to his first wife, Dr. Stahl was predeceased by his second wife, Mary Elizabeth Stahl, and by a son, Jonathan Stahl.

    Susan Alling Miller, a summer resident of Amagansett for many years, died in her sleep at home in Stamford, Conn., on Jan. 17. She was 85.

    Born Helen Susan Alling in Newark, N.J., on Dec. 21, 1927, she was the oldest daughter of Dr. Frederic A. Alling and Helen Stearly. Her maternal grandfather was the Rt. Rev. Wilson Stearly, the fourth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark.

    In the 1930s, her family moved to Montclair, N.J., where she lived for most of her life. The family spent summers on Buzzards Bay, Mass., and in Quiogue.

    Mrs. Miller attended the Kimberley School (now part of Montclair Kimberley Academy), where she graduated in 1945. Her family described her as pretty, vivacious, intelligent, outspoken, and with a ready laugh, and said she made many lifelong friends.

    She played the piano and sang, appearing once in a school production of “Iolanthe” that left her with an abiding fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan. At Vassar, she majored in political science and also sang with the Gold Dusters, graduating in 1949. She was a loyal member of her class and participated actively in her 60th reunion.

    In 1950 she married Paul R. Miller Jr., who was known as Tony, also from Montclair, where they lived from 1952 to 1971.

    After getting a certificate at Montclair State, Mrs. Miller worked briefly as a teacher. Although she stopped teaching to concentrate on raising four children, she never lost her interest in education. She was appointed to the Montclair Board of Education and served as its vice president during the tumultuous years of social change in the 1960s. Her passion for education and civil rights never left her.

    In 1971, after she and her husband moved to Weston, Mass., she went back to school, earning a master’s degree at Boston College in 1974. She then became a high school counselor, concentrating on college counseling, at the Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Mass., and later at Weston High School.

    In 1984, the family moved back to New York City, where she worked in the admissions department at Columbia University and at the United Nations International School. After her husband died in 1991, she continued to volunteer her talents, counseling students at Martin Luther King High School and individually in the city.

    She and Mr. Miller entertained often in Montclair and at their summer house on Furthereast Lane in Amagansett. While in Amagansett she attended summer services at St. Thomas Episcopal Chapel.

    Later in life, when she moved to the Edgehill retirement community in Stamford, she remained active, serving on the Residents Council and never losing her interest in current affairs and social justice. She was a member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Riverside, Conn.

    Mrs. Miller loved life, family, and friends. Her lifelong love of music never diminished; she regularly attended the opera in Manhattan and classical music concerts there and in Greenwich, Conn. The night she died, she had attended a New York Philharmonic concert with George Davis, whom she considered a dear friend,.

    Ms. Miller is survived by a brother, Fred Miller of Marblehead, Mass., and a sister, Stearly Alling Holt, of Knoxville, Iowa. Her youngest brother, Wilson Miller, died in October.

    Also surviving are four children, Fred Miller of Port Washington, Darcy Miller Powers of Mount Vernon, N.Y., Daniel Miller of New York City, and Paul Miller of Takoma Park, Md. She leaves five grandchildren.

    A service will be held for her at 11 a.m. on Saturday at St. Paul’s Church, 200 Riverside Avenue in Riverside. The family has suggested donations in her name to the Annual Fund for Scholarships at Vassar College, Box 725, 124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie, N.Y. 12604, or to the Greenwich Chamber Players, P.O. Box 35, Greenwich, Conn. 06836.