William J. O’Connor died at his Montauk home on April 27 of cancer after a long illness. He was 84.

Known to friends as Teach, Mr. O’Connor retired in 1989 from a career in teaching and moved to Montauk full time in 1992, where he designed and helped build a family house. He also took a job as an irrigation specialist at Montauk Downs, a state golf course, where a bench is to be dedicated to him in a private ceremony.

He was born in the Bronx on Oct. 6, 1933, one of four sons of the former Nora Collins and Henry O’Connor. He grew up in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., and graduated from Dobbs Ferry High School before studying at the University of Miami for two years and then earning a teaching degree from the State University at Albany.

 A scholar of American history, Mr. O’Connor taught at Kakiat Junior High School in Spring Valley, N.Y., commuting from Dobbs Ferry. He was a former chief and a lifelong member of the Odgen Engine Company of the Dobbs Ferry Fire Department and also served as a town trustee.

Mr. O’Connor’s daughters, Allison Mathews of Paradise Valley, Ariz., and Laura Lukmann of Montvale, N.J., survive, as do three grandchildren and a longtime companion, Sallye Vonk of Delray Beach, Fla. His brothers, Hank O’Connor and John O’Connor, both of Montauk, also survive. Another brother, Henry O’Connor, and a son, Kevin Patrick O’Connor, died before him. 

No funeral plans were made, but memorial donations were suggested for the Kevin P. O’Connor Memorial Foundation, P.O. Box 2522, Montauk 11954.

Marie L. Rosso, a teacher and artist who was a longtime Springs resident, died on May 3 at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital after an extended illness. She was 89.

A woman whose family described her as having an adventurous spirit, she had traveled extensively, especially enjoying the art of Turkey, Morocco, and Mexico.

She was born Dec. 31, 1928, in Buffalo, one of eight half brothers and sisters, whom she helped raise and put through college. She received an undergraduate degree at the State University at Buffalo and a master’s in studio art from Ohio State University. She went on to become a teacher at Hunter College Elementary School in New York City. 

A passionate educator, she rose to head its art and music departments, a highlight of her career. She also loved cooking, especially with the renowned chef Pierre Franey and his wife, Betty Franey, who lived in Springs. 

In the 1960s, Ms. Rosso designed and helped build a house on a Three Mile Harbor estuary that became her summer residence. She also pursued several local business interests, at one time owning  a marina, several cottages, and a tennis court on the estuary, off Gann Road. 

Ms. Rosso loved going to the beach, sailing in a boat she called Carpe Diem, and fishing, swimming, and clamming. She was an enthusiastic gardener and loved entertaining at her waterfront house.

After retiring, Ms. Rosso settled at Three Mile Harbor year round and continued to develop her artistic gifts as a painter. She served as president of the East Hampton Artists Alliance and an officer of the Springs Improvement Society. During the winter months, she had vacationed in Cancun, Mexico.

Visitors will be welcomed at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton on Saturday from noon to 1 p.m., with a memorial service to follow there until about 2:15 p.m. Burial at Cedar Lawn Cemetery on Cooper Lane in East Hampton will follow. 

Ms. Rosso’s family has suggested donations in her memory to Guild Hall, 158 Main Street, East Hampton 11937.

Timothy James Egan of Merritt, N.C., died on April 21 at the Vidant Cancer Center in Greenville, N.C. He was 59 and had been ill for 18 months.

Mr. Egan was an athlete who excelled at arm wrestling, a bayman, and an outdoorsman who loved being on the water. He grew up in East Hampton and graduated from East Hampton High School with the class of 1977. Before moving to North Carolina in 2008, he and a friend owned Outlaw Guide Service in East Hampton, which ran guided sea duck and Canada goose hunts throughout the East End. He brought friends to East Hampton and guided them on hunts after moving south.

His family said that he had a deep passion for rugby and softball and that, in addition to being a nationally ranked arm wrestler, he came in fourth at the World Armwrestling Federation Championship in Geneva in 1992.

He was born at Southampton Hospital on Dec. 30, 1958, one of three children of the former Katherine McAree and Henry Eagan, who died before him. His mother, who survives, lives in Lantana, Fla.

Mr. Egan had a son, Timothy Michael, with his first wife, Stephanie Daigle of Montauk, who survives. He was later married to KayLyn Jordan, with whom he had three children. They moved with their children to North Carolina before divorcing. Mr. Egan is survived by his third wife, Michelle Schafer Egan, and his four children, Timothy Michael Eggan of East Hampton, Tyler John Egan of Reelsboro, N.C., and Jordan Frederick Egan and Katlyn Bonnie Egan, both of Grantsboro, N.C., and by two stepdaughters. He also is survived by an uncle, James Mc­Aree of Buffalo Junction, Va., an aunt, Gale McAree Smith of Farmington, a brother, Donald Egan of East Hampton, a sister, Katherine Egan of Lantana, and three nephews, one niece, and two grandchildren.

A graveside service will be held on June 23 at the Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church's cemetery in East Hampton, at a time to be announced, followed by burial at the church cemetery. At 2 p.m. on June 23, a celebration of Mr. Egan’s life will take place at Groundworks, 530 Montauk Highway in East Hampton.

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Correction: An earlier version of this obituary indicated that there would be a funeral Mass for Mr. Egan. No funeral is planned, but there will be a service at the Most Holy Trinity cemetery. The family also neglected to include his first wife, Stephanie Daigle of Montauk, among his survivors. 

Caroline Abrams Griffiths may have stood only 5 foot 3 inches tall, but “her strength and resiliency were readily apparent,” her family wrote. “She was that matriarch of the Griffiths family who could cook boiled cake or shift a manual vehicle better than anyone you may know.” 

Mrs. Griffiths, who died on Feb. 18 at the age of 91, raised seven children in Amagansett and “left a wealth of lessons and memories for her family and friends to enjoy,” they said. 

Born to Abner Morton King and the former Marietta Abrams on April 24, 1926, at the King family homestead on Old Montauk Highway in Amagansett, she was the youngest of 13 children. She attended the Amagansett School, but did not graduate from high school. 

She married “her first love,” James E. Griffiths of Amagansett and Babylon on Oct. 22, 1944, and together they raised six sons and a daughter at an Amagansett house on the same street where she was born. When her husband died of a heart attack in 1976, she took a job as a chambermaid at the Sea Crest Hotel to support herself and her youngest son. 

Although she never remarried, in 1992 she met Edward Welles. They remained a happy couple until his death in March 2007, her family said. Over the years, her family grew to include nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, to whom she was known as Granny Griff. 

Mrs. Griffiths died at her daughter’s, Caroline Kalish’s, house in Bridgehampton “with the love and support of her family,” and her longtime caretaker Eunice Nunus, who was known as Nicey, and her friend Nancy Jones.

She is survived by all seven of her children, Everett Griffiths of Sweden, Lyle Griffiths, John Griffiths, Clark Griffiths, Kerry Griffiths, and Tracy Griffiths of East Hampton, and Ms. Kalish.

A graveside service was held in February at Oak Grove Cemetery in Amagansett. Her family has suggested contributions to East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978 or a charity of choice.

Mae Frances Harden, a nurse at Southampton Hospital for 33 years, died on April 30 at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care in Quiogue after a brief illness. She was 88.

Mrs. Harden, who lived in East Hampton, earned her nursing degree at St. Vincent’s School of Nursing in New York City and, while working as a nurse, went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from the State University at Oneonta and a master’s degree at Long Island University’s C.W. Post College.

At Southampton Hospital, where she began working in 1965, she rose to become the day-shift nursing supervisor and eventually transitioned into the role of patient advocate. She served as president of the Patient Representative Association of New York. 

Mrs. Harden was born on Nov. 18, 1929, in Oradell, N.J., to Francis Eschenbach and the former Anne Barry. She grew up in Yonkers. 

On Dec. 1, 1951, she married William F. Harden. The couple settled in Malvern, where all seven of their children were born. Mrs. Harden began her nursing career at Mercy Hospital in Rockville Centre, where she worked from 1955 to 1965. “In the beginning days, my dad took care of us on the weekend and she took weekend shifts,” said her daughter Eileen Kochanasz of East Hampton. 

When the family moved to East Hampton in 1965, the youngest of her children was 10 months old, and she had the 7 a.m.-to-3 p.m. shift at Southampton Hospital. “Dad would get us off to school and she was home in the afternoon,” Ms. Kochanasz said. 

Mrs. Harden “was an optimistic person with a wonderful sense of humor,” her family wrote. “She touched so many lives and helped so many people as a nurse and later in her career as the patient advocate at Southampton Hospital,” they recalled. “If you sought Mae’s help, she would be diligent in her efforts to find answers for whatever the problem was.” 

She also did her part to help people outside the hospital setting, serving as chairwoman for a time of the East Hampton Catastrophic Illness Fund.

“Mae was devoted to her children and her grandchildren,” her family wrote. She organized family trips, made every holiday special, and was famous for her theme parties. For one, Ms. Kochanasz recalled, she gave everyone a couple of yards of fabric and had them come to the party in a costume or outfit incorporating the fabric. “She was fun like that.” 

Mrs. Harden loved golf and was a member of the South Fork Country Club in Amagansett for many years. Later, she would often play with her nurse friends at the public course in Sag Harbor and take an annual golf trip to Ocean City, Md. She enjoyed travel and counted Alaska, Switzerland, Russia, Germany, Ireland, and England among her many destinations. A cousin, Noreen Radigan of Bayport, was her traveling companion. 

She also enjoyed reading and was a member of the Red Hat Society.

Her husband died in 1996. She is survived by all seven children: Eileen Kochanasz and Raymond Harden of East Hampton, Jean Lia of Springs, Bill Harden of Lubbock, Tex., Kathleen Lester of Hampton Bays, Tom Harden of Calverton, and Paul Harden of Madison, Va.

She also leaves 15 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. 

Visiting hours were held last Thursday at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. A funeral Mass was said on Friday at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton, with burial following at the church cemetery on Cedar Street. The Rev. Peter Garry officiated. 

The family has suggested donations to East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978. 

Steven Paul Marcus of Montauk and Manhattan, a literary critic and a former dean of Columbia College, died on April 25 at New York-Presbyterian Hospital at the age of 89. His death, from cardiac arrest, resulted from an infection following a successful operation for a broken hip. 

Mr. Marcus was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Academy of Literary Studies and a specialist in 19th-century literature and culture. He was well known for a book he published in 1965, “Dickens: From Pickwick to Dombey.” It has been suggested that his psychologically oriented criticism, especially of Dickens, may have grown out of co-editing an abridged version of Ernest Jones’s three-volume biography of Sigmund Freud in 1961 with Lionel Trilling, with whom he had studied as a Columbia undergraduate.

After teaching briefly at Indiana University and City College of New York, Mr. Marcus won a fellowship to Cambridge University, where he did research for his doctoral dissertation on Dickens and from which he published his first literary criticism in the Partisan Review and Commentary.

In addition to his book on Dickens, he was the author of “The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid-19th Century England” and “Freud and the Culture of Psychoanalysis: Studies in the Transition From Victorian Humanism to Modernity,” among others.

He began teaching at Columbia in 1956 and had won Fulbright, Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Mellon grants, among others, before being made an associate  professor there in 1963 and then a full professor of English in 1967. He served twice as chairman of its department of English and comparative literature and was a principal investigator in the Columbia Project on Conflicts in Values and Health Care. He also was a founder of the National Humanities Center, an independent institute operating from North Carolina.

Mr. Marcus was born in the Bronx on Dec. 13, 1928, to the former Adeline Gordon and Nathan Marcus. 

He attended William Howard Taft High School, and graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx when he was 15. He won tuition-free scholarships to Harvard and Columbia, choosing Columbia and living at home to save money. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1948 and wrote his master’s thesis on Henry James.

Mr. Marcus served for two years in the Army, mainly in Greenland. In 1966 he married Gertrud Lenzer, a German sociologist, who survives. Their son, John Nathaniel Marcus, a violinist, also survives, as does a grandson. The couple heard about how lovely Montauk was from friends and bought a house overlooking Fort Pond Bay in 1999. There, his wife said, he enjoyed reading and birdwatching, and ice hockey, football, and movies on television.

 Mr. Marcus was named dean of Columbia College in 1993 and vice president for arts and sciences, a dual role, from which he resigned in 1995 to return to teaching. In 2004, he retired, becoming the George Delacorte professor emeritus in the humanities. During his long career, Mr. Marcus wrote many books, was respected as an unconventional critic, and especially admired as a teacher and mentor.

 A service for him was held on April 29 at Riverside Memorial Chapel in Manhattan. Donations in Mr. Marcus’s name have been suggested for the Children’s Study Center at Brooklyn College, 2900 Bedford Avenue, 3104 James Hall, Brooklyn 11210.

A memorial gathering is being planned for the fall at the Morningside campus of Columbia by some of his former students, who are now professors there and at other universities.

Judith Leiber, known around the world for her bejeweled and whimsical handbags, and her husband, Gerson Leiber, a noted abstract painter, died at home in Springs on Saturday.

Their deaths came only hours apart, according to Ken Yardley of Yardley and Pino Funeral Home, which is handling arrangements. They were 97.

Mr. Leiber, who died first, was found early Saturday. His wife passed away just a few hours later.

The couple were married for 72 years. They had owned a house in Springs since the mid-1950s. On their Old Stone Highway property, they created the Leiber Museum, where they showcased Ms. Leiber's evening bags and Mr. Leiber's art and gardens that were open to the public.

A private joint graveside service will be held on Monday. 

Ms. Leiber, a native of Budapest, Hungary, founded her handbag company in 1963, and began making small evening clutches adorned with Swarovski crystals and metal, called minaudières, in 1967. Their designs were based on familiar objects or the  shape of animals, such as ladybugs or pigs, or foods, like watermelon and cupcakes.



One of Judith Leiber's 3,000 minaudières                                        The Leiber Collection

They would become haute couture. On the shoulders or in the palms of women on the red carpet, inaugurations, and coronations, they were considered pieces of art, coveted by fashionistas, celebrities, royalty, and First Ladies. Queen Elizabeth, Greta Garbo, and Oprah Winfrey were photographed with them, and the bags were featured on television, in shows, such as "Sex in the City."

Ms. Leiber sold her company in 1993 and retired from designing five years later at 77. 

Mr. Leiber’s paintings and drawings are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian.

The former Judith Peto met Mr. Leiber, an American soldier stationed in Hungary during World War II. They settled in Brooklyn, his hometown. 

"Of their many generous gifts, they recently donated a 19th-century etching press to the Thomas Moran house," said Terry Wallace, an East Hampton gallery owner who arranged for the donation. "They will be greatly missed by all of us."

This is a developing story.

The family of Mae Harden of East Hampton, who died on Tuesday, will receive visitors today from 3:30 to 7 p.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. 

A funeral Mass will be said tomorrow at 11 a.m. at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton. Ms. Harden was 88. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

“Sweetheart, it’s time to leave,” Gerson Leiber said to Judith Leiber, his wife of 72 years, late Friday night. By 5 a.m. on Saturday he was gone, and she died shortly afterward, at 10:30, according to Jeffrey Sussman, a longtime friend and biographer of the couple.

“They died within five hours of each other,” he said on Monday of the couple known to friends as Gus and Judy. “It was the end to a perfect love story.”

Judith Leiber was a famed handbag designer whose creations were carried by celebrities, dignitaries, and royalty. Her husband was an artist known for both abstract and representational modernist paintings. Unlike most married couples of their era in Springs, where they spent time when they weren’t in New York City and where they died, his career took a back seat to her work.

“In 1963 he told her ‘you have to start your own business,’ ” Mr. Sussman recalled. “You should not be working for schnooks; you should be recognized for your artistic talents.” Mr. Sussman added that Mr. Leiber would carry boxes of his wife’s handbags on city buses himself to get them to the stores. “He could not have been more proud of her. He thought he married a genius.”

Ms. Leiber’s day and evening bags, for which she designed metal minaudieres in the shape of animals, vegetables, eggs, and other objects drenched in Swarovski crystals, were carried by the likes of Greta Garbo, Oprah Winfrey, Mamie Eisenhower, Diana Ross, Carrie Bradshaw, and Hillary Clinton. Carrying a Leiber bag to a presidential inauguration was an informal tradition among many first ladies.

In 2008, the couple opened a small state-of-the-art museum on their Springs property, calling it the Leiber Collection. It held each of their works as well as objects they had collected on their travels and the Chinese ceramics they liked to acquire. Much of the ceramic collection was sold at Sotheby’s this year. 

Before their deaths, the couple began a foundation to assure that the museum would continue after they were gone. Patti Kenner, a close friend and a foundation trustee, said the building would be retained, continuing its annual summer exhibition program, as would the property’s sculpture garden. The garden was a passion of Mr. Leiber, who designed its “intricately patterned world of hedges and reillage,” according to the museum’s website. 

There are no immediate plans to sell the house, but Mr. Sussman said it was Mr. Gerson’s wish that the property, exclusive of the sculpture garden, be sold and the money used to maintain the museum and garden. 

“They had no children. The handbags and the artwork were their children, and the museum is their gift to the community,” Ms. Kenner said.

Mr. Sussman said the couple were “kind and generous to everyone around them. He helped indigent artists and she helped people of limited means succeed in fashion,” with a scholarship she established at the Fashion Institute of Technology. He supported Bar Ilan University in Israel and donated his own and other works to the high school he attended in Titusville, Pa.

Ms. Leiber was born Judith Marianne Peto in Budapest on Jan. 11, 1921, to Emil and Helen Peto. She grew up in Hungary and attended Kings College in London with thoughts of becoming a chemist and face cream impresario. Returning to Budapest after the outbreak of World War II, she entered an artisan guild, working her way up to become the first woman handbag apprentice and designer in Hungary. Her family was saved from the concentration camps during the war by sewing military uniforms. At the time, Ms. Leiber also made handbags at home using scraps of found materials.

Ms. Kenner, who is planning a documentary on the couple, said they met just after Hitler’s defeat. Mr. Leiber was a United States Army Signal Corps sergeant and was with a friend in Budapest when one of Ms. Leiber’s friends who was walking with her approached them to say hello. “He fell in love on the street of Budapest the minute he saw Judy. They both loved opera, and he invited her to the opera the day they met,” Ms. Kenner said.

They married in 1946 and settled in Brooklyn, where Mr. Leiber was born. Ms. Leiber began working for a succession of manufacturers until going into business, and, in 1963, she rented a small Manhattan loft. The company eventually occupied a 25,000-square-foot space in the West 30s and became prosperous, with purses selling for prices ranging from the hundreds to thousands of dollars. 

The first beaded handbag was the result of a happy accident. A metal purse Ms. Leiber planned as a gift arrived scratched, so she hid the marks with beads. Her other handbags are marked by unusual materials: Art Deco-influenced hardware, wood, Lucite, and seashells, to name a few. She was inspired by modern artists and the Asian art she collected, resulting in bags that resembled paintings by her husband, Sonia Delaunay, and Mondrian, and minaudieres in the shape of foo dogs and Chinese firecrackers. She retired in 2004.

Mr. Leiber was born in Brooklyn on Nov. 12, 1921, to Rebecca and William Leiber, a junk dealer. The family moved to Titusville, where he grew up. Before joining the military, he worked at a series of odd jobs, ending up at a newspaper. In the Army, he became a radio operator and served in North Africa and Naples before arriving in Hungary.

It was Ms. Leiber who encouraged him to pursue a dream to be an artist. He began taking art classes in Budapest and then enrolled in the Art Students League on the G.I. Bill when they arrived in New York. He continued studying at the Brooklyn Museum School of Art. He then opened a studio in the West Village for his paintings and graphic art and became an instructor, eventually showing his art at a series of gallery and museum exhibitions. 

In recent years, the couple’s work has been showcased in their museum and in shows such as a 2014 exhibition of Mr. Leiber’s late paintings at Carter Burden Gallery in Manhattan and her bags at the Museum of Art and Design last year. Their work also was in a joint exhibition at the Long Island Museum at Stony Brook last year.

A private service was held on Monday at Shaarey Pardes Accabonac Grove in Springs, where they were buried in the same plot at the suggestion of Ms. Kenner. “They are buried together — one grave, separate caskets — which is just what they would have wanted.” A celebration of their lives will take place at their museum this summer, which will have a memorial show “with as many of Judy’s bags and Gus’s artwork as possible.”

A memorial service and viewing for Marie L. Rosso of Springs, who died last Thursday, are planned for Saturday at Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. The viewing is to take place from noon to 1 p.m., with the service immediately follwing until about 2:15 p.m. Burial will follow at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton.

Ms. Rosso, a teacher and artist, was 89. A full obituary will appear in a future issue.