James Albert Christensen of Laurel Trail in Sag Harbor, a 91-year old World War II Veteran, died at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton on Jan. 14, seven weeks after suffering a brain hemorrhage.

    Born on Sept. 25, 1921 in Carrollton, Mich. to the former Iva King and Albert Christensen, Mr. Christensen grew up in Saginaw, Mich., where he graduated from St. Andrew’s High School. While there, he served on the Eucharistic committee, English club, Sodality fellowship, and was a member of the football team.

    Following his graduation, Mr. Christensen worked for a General Motors plant that was converting to make machine guns for the coming war. He joined the Navy in 1942, and went to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center at Great Lakes, Ill., before being sent to the University of Minnesota for further training. His next assignment was at the torpedo testing range on Fort Pond Bay in Montauk. He met his future wife, Leatrice Lorraine Basile, at a dance at the Montauk Manor.

    He was assigned subsequently to the U.S.S. Athene, a cargo ship sailing from Providence, R.I. The Athene provided other naval vessels with vital supplies and landed marines at the battles of the Philippines, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and other Pacific islands.

    When Japan surrendered, Mr. Christensen spent time in Yokosuka, Japan. He received the American Area Ribbon, the Asiatic Pacific Area Ribbon, Philippine Liberation Ribbon, and the World War Two Victory Ribbon. The Athene was awarded two battle stars for World War II service. Mr. Christensen and his older son, James, marched as father and son veterans in Memorial Day parades until his hip surgery three-and-a-half years ago prevented it.

    Mr. and Mrs. Christensen were married in June, 1946 in Christ Episcopal Church in Sag Harbor. They went to live in Saginaw, and later returned to the East End, where Mr. Christensen worked as a glazier for the Riverhead Glass Company for more than 20 years until the business closed. He then worked for Robert E. Otto Glass in Wainscott for more than 25 years.

    Reading and woodworking were hobbies of Mr. Christensen, and he made furnishings for his family, including a two-story dollhouse with furniture for his oldest granddaughter, which now belongs to her daughter. He loved to play the harmonica, and his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren enjoyed listening.

    Mr. Christensen is survived by his wife, Lea, his son James Russell Christensen of Sag Harbor, daughter Toni-Lea Corwin of Southampton, a son, Richard Alan Christensen of Southampton, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Also surviving him are his sisters, Betty Mehl, Donna Furlo, and Shirley Dowd, and his brothers, Jerry Christensen and Larry Christensen, and many nieces and nephews, all of whom live in Michigan. An infant granddaughter and his brother Edward Christensen, and a sister June died before him.

    Mass was said yesterday at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Sag Harbor, officiated by the Rev. Peter Devaraj. Burial was in his wife’s family plot at Oakland Cemetery in Sag Harbor. Memorial donations have been suggested to St. Andrew’s Church, 122 Division Street, Sag Harbor 11963 or the Sag Harbor Ambulance Fund, P.O. Box 2725, Sag Harbor.

    Walter E. Ershow, who flew 23 missions over enemy territory during World War II, died on Jan. 9 at the age of 89. The cause was heart failure, his family said. A part-time resident of East Hampton, he had been in declining health since October.

    Born in Newark, N.J., on Sept. 14, 1923, to David J. Ershowsky and the former Minnie Reinfeld, he grew up in the Weequahic section of the city. He graduated from Weequahic High School and then attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

    He was commissioned as a first lieutenant during the war and served as a radar navigator in a B-17 bomber, better known as the Flying Fortress. He flew missions over North Africa, Italy, Germany, and occupied Europe.

    “He was a wonderful musician,” his wife, Jacqueline Jankoff-Ershow, said Monday. He would entertain his fellow Army Air Forces fliers by playing a guitar between missions.

    After the war, he attended the School of Agriculture at Rutgers College, from which he received a bachelor’s degree in 1948.

    He married the former Helene Denberg, and the couple settled down in West Orange, N.J., raising three children. About 20 years later, the couple divorced, and Mr. Ershow moved to Manhattan.

    He worked as an industrial sales representative, with boatbuilding as a side passion.

    On March 5, 1971, he met Jacqueline Jankoff. “It was a blind date. We met for lunch,” she said. When she went back to work, she told her co-workers, “He is the most interesting man I have ever met.” They were married eight years later, in July 1979.

    With an apartment on Manhattan’s West Side, the couple began spending summers in East Hampton, where Mr. Ershow could pursue his love of the ocean. At first they stayed at Sammy’s Beach, then for several years on Schellinger Road before they bought a house on Montauk Boulevard.

    Ms. Jankoff-Ershow recalled a defining moment. “I said to him, ‘You like boats. Why don’t you do what you love?’ ”

    He did, indeed, love boats, enjoying carving half-hull models as well as building the real thing. “We had a lot of runabouts,” his wife remembered, adding that Mr. Ershow would repair boats of all shapes and sizes, working for marinas as well as privately.

    He was a member of the East End Classic Boat Society, the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in East Hampton, and the Second Bomb Group Association. He was an expert sailor and fisherman, piloting boats north to Maine and south to North Carolina.

    Besides Ms. Jankoff-Ershow, he is survived by his three children, Abby Ershow of Columbia, Md., Linda Ershow-Levenberg of Elizabeth, N.J., and Don Ershow of Roseland, N.J. A brother, Barrett Ershow of Burlington, Vt., and nine grandchildren also survive.

    A service was held on Jan. 13, led by Rabbi Ben Goldstein. Mr. Ershow was buried at B’nai Abraham Memorial Park in Union, N.J., with full military honors.

    Donations in his memory can be made to Doctors Without Borders, P.O. Box 5030, Hagerstown, Md., 21741, or Smile Train, P.O. Box 96231, Washington, D.C., 20090.

    Ethyl C. Comerford, formerly of Noyac, a teacher at the Most Holy Trinity School in East Hampton for many years, died on Jan. 8 at the Fairview, a nursing home in Groton, Conn., where she had lived for the past nine months. Ms. Comerford was 92.

    Born on Jan. 14, 1920, in Astoria, Queens, to Joseph Masheck and Rose Cermak, she received a bachelor’s degree from what was formerly known as St. Joseph’s College for Women in Brooklyn. After graduating, she worked first as a secretary at Universal Pictures and later as an executive secretary at the Kimberly-Clark Corporation.

    On Sept. 8, 1956, she married Peter Comerford in Astoria. The two made a life together in Flushing until his retirement. In 1965, the couple moved to Sag Harbor with their two children, Peter J. and Rosemary. Mrs. Comerford started a second career as an elementary school teacher at Most Holy Trinity School in East Hampton, where she taught for 19 years. Meanwhile, she worked toward a master’s degree in elementary education at Southampton College, focusing on reading.

    Mrs. Comerford was an active member of the Sag Harbor Columbiettes, the Ladies Village Improvement Society in Sag Harbor, and St. Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church, where she later directed its religious education program after retiring from the classroom in 1985.

    As a writer, she wrote occasional school columns for The East Hampton Star as well as pieces on life in Noyac for The Sag Harbor Express.

    In 2005, she moved into an apartment attached to her daughter’s house in Old Lyme, Conn. Once there, she frequently participated in the morning-prayer group at Christ the King Church, where she became a communicant. Mrs. Comerford also kept busy with cooking, crocheting, swimming, and spending time with friends and family.

    Mrs. Comerford is survived by her son, Peter J. Comerford of Portsmouth, R.I., her daughter, Rosemary Reid, of Old Lyme, and by three granddaughters and a grandson. Her husband of 40 years died before her, as did her brother, Joseph Mashek, and five grandchildren.

    Funeral services were held at Christ the King Church in Connecticut, followed by burial at St. Andrew’s Cemetery in Sag Harbor. Donations can be made to the Fairview Nursing Home, a not-for-profit, at 235 Lestertown Road #1, Groton, Conn. 06340.

    Robert Bruce Anderson Sr., a World War II veteran and descendant of one of East Hampton’s founding families, the Fithians, died on Friday at Southampton Hospital. He was 90 and had lived on Cooper Lane in East Hampton for most of his life.

    He was born on the family homestead on Indian Wells Highway in Amagansett on Jan. 9, 1923, one of 10 children of Herbert Keith Anderson and the former Sybil Rae Fithian. He attended grade school in Amagansett and graduated in East Hampton High School’s class of 1940.

    Mr. Anderson was studying engineering at both the University of Nebraska and the University of South Dakota when the United States entered World War II. He enlisted in 1943 having already received training in the schools’ Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, and was assigned to the First Infantry Division, which was known as the Big Red One. When the war ended Mr. Anderson served as a security guard during the Nuremberg war crimes trials in Germany. He left the Army in 1946.

    In 1957, he married the former Delores Fanning, a distant cousin who was also a descendant of the Fithian family. Mrs. Anderson died before him.

    Two years after the couple married, Mr. Anderson began a career managing the Golden Eagle art supply and paint store in East Hampton. He retired in 2003 at the age of 79. He enjoyed his regular customers and counted the former Beatle Paul McCartney among them. In the 1960s and ’70s he painted and hung wallpaper for many families in East Hampton.

    The Andersons had five children, Patricia Doyle of Phoenix, Az., Sandra Welsh of Edwardsville, Ill., Susan Grimes of Montauk, April Mason of Cape Cod, and Robert B. Anderson Jr. of East Hampton, all of whom survive.

    He is also survived by his sisters, Ruth McDonald of Florida, Jean Snow of Massachusetts, and Charlotte Tosch of Canada, and nine grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.

    His siblings Marion Smith, Herbert Anderson Jr., George Anderson, Marjorie McGuire, Joan Strong, and Paul Anderson died before him.

    His family said that Mr. Anderson considered his greatest accomplishment raising five children who he was very proud of. He was a Giants, Mets, and Knicks fan, but most of all he loved to cheer on the East Hampton High School Bonackers sports teams whenever possible, they said.

    Mr. Anderson will be buried today at 1 p.m. at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton. Memorial contributions have been suggested to Fighting Chance, a counseling center for cancer patients, 34 Bay Street, Sag Harbor 11963, or to Southampton Hospital, 240 Meeting House Lane, Southampton 11968.

    Robert Harold Levenson, who was as famous for his taglines in the golden age of advertising as he was for his roses in East Hampton, died in New York City on Jan. 16. He was 83 and had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

    Mr. Levenson was eulogized in print and blogs in the last week by the advertising industry as a visionary and a generous mentor who told copywriters to imagine they were writing a letter and describing something to an intelligent friend who knew less about the product than they did.

    He came of age in his field during the time fictionalized on television’s “Mad Men.” He was elected to the Copywriters Hall of Fame in 1972 and won every major award in the advertising industry several times, according to his family.

    In a career spanning most of the last half of the 20th century, primarily at Doyle Dane Bernbach, he rose from copywriter to creative director to chairman of its international operations over 26 years. A friend of Bill Bernbach, one of the founders of the agency, Mr. Levenson wrote “Bill Bernbach’s Book: A History of Advertising That Changed the History of Advertising” in 1987.

    His most memorable campaigns include work for El Al airlines with a tag line “My Son, the pilot,” the Volkswagen Beetle, and the jingle: “Everybody doesn’t like something, but nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.” He also was in charge of a highway safety campaign for Mobil called “We Want You to Live.”

    Mr. Levenson also was a friend of The East Hampton Star, writing and contributing a full page advertisement in 2007, “Welcome to the Neighborhood.”    His caricature on the wall at the former Della Femina restaurant on North Main Street in East Hampton was one of many drawn by his second wife, the late Kathe Tanous, with whom he lived in East Hampton. Until moving to East Hampton in 1986, he had lived in New Rochelle, N.Y., and in New York City. His most recent address was in Bokeelia, Fla., where he lived on an island, which his family said was very dear to him.

    Mr. Levenson was born to William and Frieda Levenson on Nov. 23, 1929, in the Bronx and was raised there. He had an undergraduate and graduate degree in English from New York University and had served in the United States Air Force.

    He worked at Doyle Dane Bernbach from 1959 to 1985. He also held positions at Saatchi and Saatchi and at Scali, McCabe, Sloves, according to The New York Times.

    He is survived by his wife, Anna Jane Warshaw. His marriage to Elaine Berk, with whom he had two sons, Keith Levenson of Pound Ridge, N.Y., and Seth Levenson of Park City, Utah, ended in divorce. He is survived by his sons, a stepdaughter, Katherine Warshaw-Reid, and a step-granddaughter.

     The family has suggested memorial contributions to his step-granddaughter’s education fund: Kyra Wilkowski, 76 White Birch Road, Pound Ridge, N.Y. 10576. A memorial service will be held at a later date.

    Mary Michell Kernell, 87,  who came to Amagansett in the early 1980s by way of Beverly Hills, New York City,  Port Washington, and the village of Sands Point in Nassau County, and whose family described her as savvy, extremely well read, kind, and strikingly beautiful, died on Jan. 14 at Southampton Hospital following a brief illness.

    One of her daughters, Georgette Bruenner of Glen Head, said this week, “From the time I was a little girl I knew that my mother was not like the others — Port Washington mothers just didn’t look like she did! My friends all said she was so young and glamorous. Everyone always wanted to be at our house. She made rearing six kids look easy.”

    “She loved sports, particularly baseball, and on summer nights after dinner she’d gather all the kids together to play. We lived on a steep hill, so if the ball got by the catcher, it rolled all the way down to Plandome Road. Baseball’s still my favorite sport.”

    Born on Sept. 9, 1925, Ms. Kernell and her parents and two brothers lived comfortably in Beverly Hills until the Depression, when they moved into a small apartment on Hollywood Boulevard and began renting their house to a stream of movie people. 

    “She loved Beverly Hills High School,” said Ms. Bruenner. “She was an original 90210 girl. We used to tease her about that.”

    After attending the University of Oregon and  the University of California at Los Angeles, she was married at 20, following World War Two, to Joseph Kernell, a navy lieutenant commander who had captained a P.T. boat in the Solomon Islands, and been a buddy of Jack Kennedy’s.

    “My mother and father had known each other for a long time through my father’s sister, Peggy,” said another daughter, Kitty Stewart of Sea Cliff. “When she heard Walter Winchell say on the radio that my Dad was squiring around Lili Damita, a beautiful French actress who had been divorced from Errol Flynn, she wrote him a letter asking why he was hanging around with an old bag like Lili Damita when he could be dating a cute young thing like her.” The argument ultimately proved persuasive.

    Ms. Kernell crossed the country for their wedding on the Super Chief and the Twentieth Century Limited. She found the Super Chief elegant, but on boarding the Twentieth Century Limited in Chicago she was blown away. “Welcome to the East,” a porter said, with aplomb.

    The Kernells lived first in the city and then in Port Washington and Sands Point. They divorced after many years of marriage, by which time their six children were grown, but remained friends.    Chris Lee, a son of one of Ms. Kernell’s best friends, Virginia Lee — her sole rival in the beauty department at Beverly Hills High School — once said that while some people painted great paintings and some wrote great books, Ms. Kernell had helped him to understand that the greatest gift was to be able to create a beautiful day, for oneself and for others.

    “One of the things I loved most about my grandmother,” said Johnna Norris of Carlsbad, Calif., “was her compassion for other people. She had a way of creating a very warm, loving, and respectful environment for everyone around her. At the same time, she was very honest and did not sugarcoat anything. I also adored her wicked sense of humor. I’ve been thinking this past week about the sound of her laughter. . . . We laughed a lot.”

    Surviving are her children, Ms. Stewart, Ms. Bruenner, Mary Graves of Springs, James Kernell of Ronkonkoma, Joseph Kernell Jr. of New York City, and John Kernell of Springs, six grandchildren, and eight great-grandhildren.

    A celebration for family and friends will be held at a future date

    Robert Bennett of Neck Path, Amagansett, died on Tuesday at the age of 77. A celebration of his life will be announced for a date in the late spring, his wife, Anna Mae Bennett, said. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

    Mary Kernell, a longtime resident of Amagansett, died early Tuesday morning at Southampton Hospital. She was 87 years old.

    A full obituary will appear in next week’s Star.

    William G. Field, who started Field Appliance Service in East Hampton with his daughter and son, died on Jan. 7, in Ellenton, Fla., after an automobile accident. He was 80.

    Mr. Field was born in Springs on April 22, 1932, to William H. Field and the former Concetta Alberti, and was “an original Bonacker,” his family said.

    After graduating from East Hampton High School in 1950, Mr. Field, who was called Bill, served in the 8th Calvary Regiment of the 1st Calvary Division during the Korean War. Later wounded in action, he finished out his enlistment with the 101st Airborne Division.

    Mr. Field married Phyllis Bovie of East Hampton, with whom he had three children. Their marriage ended in divorce. He later married the former Barbara Wils of Sag Harbor.

    Mr. Field worked for Sears as a major appliance technician and after retiring, started his own appliance repair business with his daughter Susan Lee Field and son, William F. Field, who continues to run the business. His daughter Lori Ann died before him.

    Mr. Field retired and moved to Florida 17 years ago. He was also retired from the Army National Guard as 1st Sergeant of Company F in Riverhead. At the time of his death, he had been the commander of the American Legion Kirby Stewart Post 24 in Bradenton, Fla., for more than three years.

    In addition to his wife, who lives in Florida, he is survived by his daughter, Susan Lee Field of Naples, Fla., and his son, William F. Field of East Hampton. He also leaves two grandsons, two great-grandsons, and a sister, Gertrude Creaser of Florida.

    A memorial service was held at the American Legion Post in Bradenton on Friday. An inurnment service with full military honors will be held at the Sarasota National Cemetery on Jan. 28. A memorial at the American Legion Post 419 in Amagansett will be held at a later date.

    Donations can be made on his behalf to Veterans Relief Fund c/o Kirby Stewart Post 24, 2000 75th Street West, Bradenton, Fla. 34201.

    Myron Shulman, an architect who designed houses that embraced the openness and light of the East End, died on Jan. 7 at his house on Sarah’s Lane in Amagansett of Parkinson’s disease. He was 72 and had been in declining health for 13 years.

    Known to his friends as Bud, he was born in Newark to Murray Shulman and the former Augusta Charry on Feb. 17, 1937. Growing up in the Weequahic section of the city, he graduated from Weequahic High School, then attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s School of Architecture.

    He worked in Manhattan for a long time, with one of his favorite projects being Lincoln Square Synagogue, which opened in 1970.

    During the mid-1970s, he moved to the East End and began designing houses, starting in Springs. Soon he was designing houses in Southampton and throughout East Hampton Town.

    He met his future wife, Michelle Labbat, at that time.

    “His architectural aesthetic included not only contemporary, but also traditional design,” Ms. Shulman wrote recently. “All of his homes were one of a kind and were noted for their incredible light.”

    He built so many of the houses on Beverly Road in Springs that it was nicknamed “Bud’s Alley,” she said.

    Speaking on the phone yesterday, Ms. Shulman said her husband was a hands-on architect, drawing each plan himself, never using a computer. “He was often at Riverhead Lumber, choosing each 2-by-4 plank of wood himself.”

    The two were married in 1989.

    In an e-mail, Mr. Shulman’s stepson, Marc Kenny, recalled Mr. Shulman’s fond love of intellectual discussion, whether the topic was history, art, or spirituality.

    His wife said that he enjoyed talking about their born religions, hers being Catholicism, his being Judaism.

    “Jesus was Jewish,” he liked to remind people.

    He had a sense of humor, Mr. Kenny recalled. “He never met a corny joke he didn’t love.”

    “He loved walking on the beach,” Ms. Shulman said. “He was very solitary. His true love was designing for his clients.”

    But his mind was always on design aesthetics. Laughing, Ms. Shulman said that she would caution him when they went visiting friends by saying, “Please do not embarrass me by redesigning their house while they are there!”

    “He’d never be late to the table when pancakes were being served,” Mr. Kenny said.

    Besides his wife and Mr. Kenny, who lives in Pasadena, Calif., Mr. Shulman is survived by two sisters, Ellen Petty of Minneapolis, and Betty Jersperson of Farmington, Me., and three other stepchildren, Lisa Bass of Southampton, Stephen Kenny of East Hampton, and Bryan Kenny of Los Angeles.

    A memorial service will be held in early summer at his house.

    The family asks that memorial donations in his honor be made to East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978, or to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, Grand Central Station, P.O. Box 4777, New York 10163-4777.