Brian Christopher Raphael Connelly, who had lived in East Hampton in the 1970s and 1980s, died in the Catholic Hospice Inpatient Unit at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Jan. 11, where he received last rites. The cause was complications of Type 2 diabetes. Mr. Connelly was 70.
Salvatore Gulla, an artist who taught for over 30 years at Intermediate School 139 in the Bronx and who came to East Hampton over 25 years ago, died of a heart attack at the 80th Street Residence, an assisted living home in Manhattan, on March 9. He was 90 years old.
Mr. Gulla began painting in 1947, studying at the Art Students League of New York under Reginald Marsh, Morris Kantor, Vaclav Vitlacyl, among others.
He was known as a diverse artist, who explored Cubism and Expressionism and had a classical approach to portraiture. He worked with watercolor and charcoal, was a sculptor, and also expressed himself artistically as a jeweler and a goldsmith.
In 1990, when he had a show of his work at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Laura Hoptman, the curator, wrote that all his works “reflect the surety of an adept hand and the sharpness of observation from a practiced eye.”
His most recent East End exhibition was at the Quogue Gallery. Earlier, his work was shown at galleries in East Hampton, Amagansett, and Greenport.
He was born in a walkup tenement in the South Bronx to Nicholas Gulla and the former Caterina Cilursa on May 10, 1927. His daughter Amanda Gulla said that he was proud of his birthplace, and that whenever he passed the building, “he liked to point at a window and say, ‘That’s where I was born.’ ”
He spent most of his youth in the South Bronx, but also lived for a time in New Jersey. His mother died when he was 8 and his father took him to Calabria, Italy, for a year before returning to the Bronx. He attended Clinton High School there, followed by City College of New York and Columbia University, where he received a teaching degree.
Mr. Gulla met his first wife at about the time he began studying art, in 1947. They married in 1949 and lived in Manhattan, where their first daughter, Katherine Gulla, was born. She now lives in Boston. In 1953, when their daughter Amanda Gulla was born, the family moved to the Bronx. She lives in Manhattan.
In the early 1960s, Mr. Gulla created an organization that came to be known as the South Bronx Community Action Theater. “He believed in lifting kids up,” Amanda Gulla said. The theater would bring in artists from different disciplines from around the world to work with young people and encourage their participation in art. The organization is now part of the Hispanic Access Foundation.
Mr. Gulla’s second wife was Joanne Conforti, who owned a house in Springs and lives in Manhattan. The couple began splitting their time between that house and their apartment in Manhattan. They later purchased a house on Cedar Trail in Northwest Woods. Retired from teaching, Mr. Gulla devoted his time to his art. “He was able to paint full time,” Amanda Gulla said. The East End and East Hampton gave him a rich source of material, and many of his later paintings were East End landscapes, she said.
Besides his daughters, Mr. Gulla is survived by his wife. A memorial will be held for him on May 5 at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. The family has suggested donations in his memory to the Center for Arts Education, 266 West 37th Street, New York 10018, or CenterForArtsEd.org
Francis Joseph McPartlin, a former General Motors executive who was a longtime East End resident, died at his Noyac home on Monday. He was 81 and had cancer.
Mr. McPartlin, who was called Joe, was born in Mount Vernon, N.Y., on Oct. 28, 1936, to Frank McPartlin, a recent immigrant from Scotland who worked as a vacuum cleaner salesman for Sears Roebuck, and the former Madeline Slowey of Sag Harbor. His early years were spent in southern Connecticut, but his family soon moved to Garden Street in Sag Harbor, where he and two younger sisters grew up. Four of their cousins lived next door.
Mr. McPartlin studied business at Iona College, from which he graduated in 1958. He was then stationed with the Army in Germany for two years and later served in the Reserves. He started working for the General Motors Acceptance Corporation, collecting past-due accounts and repossessing cars in the Bronx and Brooklyn in 1961, eventually becoming vice president of leasing at General Motors’ headquarters in Detroit.
It was while delivering newspapers as a young man in Sag Harbor that he met Claudia Guerin, the woman he married in the midst of a February blizzard in 1961. The couple lived in East Northport, where they brought up five children, whom they called “the troops.” They returned to the East End after Mr. McPartlin’s retirement in 1995.
As someone who loved to be outdoors, Mr. McPartlin kept active during retirement by golfing, working in the yard, and going to the beach. Mrs. McPartlin died in 1999 after 38 years of marriage. After her death, he and Patricia Manzi, a woman his family described as the “second love of his life,” were together for 17 years. His family said they enjoyed traveling in this country and abroad and had many adventures. A devout Catholic, Mr. McPartlin was a member of St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Sag Harbor and served on its finance committee.
He is survived by his children, Cathy McPartlin Beaumont of Andover, Mass., Michael McPartlin of North Andover, Mass., Jim McPartlin of Mooresville, N.C., and Claudia McPartlin Weihler of Royal Oak, Mich. His son Stephen McPartlin died before him, as did his sister Eileen. His sister, Marie Brenner of Sag Harbor, survives, as do six grandchildren.
Visiting hours will be today from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in Sag Harbor. A funeral Mass, celebrated by the Rev. Peter Devaraj, will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m. at St. Andrew’s Church, followed by burial in the church cemetery. The family has suggested memorial donations to St. Andrew’s Church, 122 Division Street, Sag Harbor 11963.
David Peter McMahon, a fisherman, carpenter, businessman, and longtime resident of Montauk, died of a stroke on Feb. 7 at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care in Quiogue. He was 87.
“He was a fisherman by trade, but spent most of his spare time working with the Montauk Fire Department,” said his daughter Annette Snyder of East Hampton. He had been a volunteer firefighter for many years.
Mr. McMahon was born on June 17, 1930, in East Hampton to Thomas and Augusta McMahon. He grew up on Osborne Lane and graduated from East Hampton High School. While most of his family remained in East Hampton, Mr. McMahon moved to Montauk, where he started fishing with his father-in-law. He managed the Star Island Yacht Club in Montauk and for several years owned the Snowflake, a restaurant in East Hampton that is now Bostwick’s Chowder House.
Along with serving as a volunteer fireman, Mr. McMahon loved boating, building, and working around the house, his daughter said. He was a longtime member of St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk.
He and the former Marie Pitts were married on Oct. 4, 1949. She died in 2000.
In addition to Ms. Snyder, another daughter, Nancy Snyder of Montauk, survives, as do two grandsons. A third daughter died before him.
A wake took place on Feb. 13 at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton, and a funeral Mass was said the next day at St. Therese of Lisieux. Mr. McMahon was buried at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Cemetery in East Hampton.
A native of East Hampton, and the last surviving member of the second generation of the East End branch of the DiSunno family, Betty Cartwright DiSunno of Bluff Road, Amagansett, died on Jan. 5. She was 89.
She was born Betty Cartwright in Southampton on April 16, 1928, to the former Beatrice Ruppel and William Cartwright, and grew up in East Hampton, attending East Hampton schools. However, she spent much of her youth with her grandmother in Sag Harbor, and on Shelter Island, where her grandfather was a bayman and her great-grandfather was once the highway superintendent, in the days when horses and buggies were the primary form of transport.
During World War II, Mrs. DiSunno worked at the Bulova Watchcase factory in Sag Harbor, assembling timing devices for military munitions. Shortly after the war, she met Joseph DiSunno, a returning war veteran, who lived in Amagansett. They married in 1946 and raised six children.
Mrs. DiSunno loved scouring the woods for old bottles and combing the shoreline for beach glass and other flotsam-and-jetsam treasures. She often took her friends and her children, and, later, her grandchildren, on her gathering adventures. Her children and nieces recalled that when she took them to the beach at Albert’s Landing or the Nature Trail in East Hampton Village, she would often play hide and seek with the neighborhood kids, bringing along old blankets so they could make tents.
She was known to have a special connection to animals and once coaxed a runaway parakeet out of a tree; she took him home and named him Herbie. She spent hours teaching Herbie to speak, and the bird acquired a vocabulary of more than 100 words. He even learned how to whistle the tune of the advertising jingle for P.C. Richard and Sons: “I’d rather buy at P.C.!”
Mrs. DiSunno was also a member of the Ladies Auxiliary of East Hampton’s American Legion Post 419, in Amagansett. Her friends played an important role in her life, among them Shirley Anderson, whom she had known since childhood, and Elaine Jones and Mary Curles. According to these friends, she will be best remembered for her beautiful smile, her infectious laugh, and for always being available for those in need.
She is survived by her daughters, Lynn DiSunno and Marie Lombardi of East Hampton and Denise DiSunno of Sebastian, Fla., and her sons, Joseph W. DiSunno and James DiSunno of East Hampton; six grandchildren and one great grandchild also survive. Her husband, Joseph DiSunno, and her son Leonard DiSunno died before her.
In keeping with her love of children and animals, the family has suggested memorial donations to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, Tenn. 38105. or to the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center, 228 West Montauk Highway, Hampton Bays 11946.
A celebration of Mrs. DiSunno’s life will be held at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton on April 7 from 10 a.m. to noon, with a graveside memorial service to follow at the Most Holy Trinity Cemetery on Cedar Street in East Hampton.
Residents may recall Claire Ann Hooton as a stylish figure walking sometimes decrepit-looking, dogs on Main Street in East Hampton. She loved animals and had adopted many older, otherwise apparently unwanted, canines over the years from the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons.
Ms. Hooton was 90 when she died at home on Jackson Street, East Hampton, on March 13, having been in declining health for several years. She had led a graceful and creative life.
She studied the meditative Chinese martial art tai chi ch’üan under the tutelage of Cheng Man-ch’ing, who brought the practice from Zhejiang Province, China, to Manhattan in 1964 and taught Yang-style short form tai chi from his landmark studio in Chinatown in the 1960s and 1970s. Ms. Hooton became the first tai chi instructor certified by the New York State Board of Education, in the 1980s, and taught tai chi at Columbia University, the Princeton Adult School, to adults at the Ross School, and the Stuyvesant Adult Center, as well as instructing private clients.
She was the author of a series of books and videos on tai chi, including beginner’s and intermediate guides published in the 1990s under the title “The Method T’ai Chi,” and a video called “T’ai Chi for Beginners: 10 Minutes to Health and Fitness.”
She was also active in the 1980s as a campaigner against nuclear power, coauthoring, for instance, an Op-Ed article in The New York Times in 1982 that cautioned about the dangers of the transport of nuclear waste by land.
Claire Ann Krich was born on Feb. 4, 1928, in Newark N.J., one of two daughters of the former Ruth Weil and Max Krich, who ran a lighting company. Her sister, Edith Krich Comins, died before her. She grew up in Holmdel, N.J., graduating from Columbia High School in nearby Maplewood and then studying theater at Antioch College in Ohio.
After college, Ms. Hooton moved to New York City where she pursued a career on the stage. She was the understudy for Audrey Hepburn in “Gigi” on Broadway in 1951, and a member of the Actors Studio, famous for its instruction in method acting.
She lived for a couple of decades on Grove Street in Greenwich Village and spent summers in East Hampton before eventually moving here year round.
She married Bruce Duff Hooton, an art critic and editor, in 1957. They had a son, Hart Hooton of Manhattan, who survives. The marriage ended in divorce in 1960.
On July 12, 2007, Ms. Hooton married David Myers of East Hampton, a writer she had been living with for at least 20 years. He died on Oct. 26, 2012.
Ms. Hooton was also an artist, working in sculpture and drawing, and her work was exhibited at several East End galleries.
In addition to her son, three stepchildren survive: Coco Myers and Gunnar Myers of East Hampton, and David Myers of the North Fork. Two grandchildren and four step-grandchildren also survive.
Ms. Hooton was cremated. The family is planning a memorial for the fall. Donations have been suggested for ARF, P.O. Box 901, Wainscott 11975.
Pearl Howard Leone of Osborne Lane, who came to East Hampton in 1943 to marry her first husband, David Howard, died of cardiopulmonary arrest on March 12 at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton. She had had dementia for five years. Ms. Leone was 95.
Ms. Leone, who loved to dance, met Mr. Howard when he was in the Navy at a dancehall in Erie, Pa., where she had gone with her boyfriend to whom she was engaged. Shortly after that chance encounter, Mr. Howard sent her a box of Valentine’s Day candy with an engagement ring in it. The rest, as they say, was history. The couple married in October 1943 and had a daughter, Dorothea H. Jaycox of East Hampton, who survives. Mr. Howard, who died in 1969, ran Howard’s Seafood on Gann Road, off Three Mile Harbor Road.
Ms. Leone was married again, in 1975, to John Leone, a big-band jazz musician and veteran of World War II who had played with the U.S. Coast Guard Band during the war. Fittingly, she and Mr. Leone went out dancing a lot, too, her daughter said.
Ms. Leone was a familiar face around town, enjoying daily walks and working at Howard’s Seafood, at Rowe’s drug store at the corner of Newtown Lane and Main Street, and at Park Place Liquors, among other shops. She also was a Girl Scout leader for 12 years, heading up a troop that included her daughter and her daughter’s friends.
Ms. Leone’s family back in Pennsylvania were of Russian descent, and she was raised as a member of a Russian Orthodox Old Believers church in Erie, Pa.
Pearl Gauriloff Howard Leone was born on May 16, 1922, in Ellsworth, Pa., one of 10 children, five boys and five girls, of the former Anna Panamerova and Maxim Gauriloff, who worked for Bethlehem Steel. She grew up in Ellsworth and graduated from Ellsworth High School.
In addition to her daughter, her sister, Anita Delopitro of Erie, and many nieces and nephews survive. Her other siblings died before her. Two grandchildren, three great-children, and one great-great-grandchild survive as well.
Ms. Leone was cremated and her ashes buried at Cedar Lawn Cemetery. Pastor Denise Allen of the East Hampton Methodist Church led a graveside service there on Sunday.
Memorial donations have been suggested for the East Hampton Ambulance Association, 1 Cedar Street, East Hampton 11937.
Robert William Deichert of East Hampton and Bronxville, N.Y., died last Thursday at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx. He was 92 and had been in failing health for the last two months.
Mr. Deichert had an inquisitive mind and a knack for mechanics. He held a master’s degree in electrical engineering and, in addition to teaching at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., he held three patents for an innovative television-recording system called the Electronicam, which was developed during his time at Allen B. DuMont Laboratories. His family said that among his best memories were visits to the set of the early television comedy “The Honeymooners,” where the Electronicam was used for live filming.
In 1960, he began his long career as an executive at Philips Electronic Instruments. His position with Philips sent him as a deal-making emissary to Saudi Arabia, Japan, China, and other far-flung countries. It was at Philips that he met his bride-to-be, Beverly Shilhan; she worked for the company’s chief financial officer. They married in 1973.
It was through his wife that he forged a connection to East Hampton: She had camped as a child with her family at Hither Hills State Park in Montauk. After Mr. Deichert’s retirement from Philips in 1994, the couple moved full time to East Hampton. During his years on the South Fork, he served on the board of East End Hospice for 15 years and was a member of the Service Corps of Retired Executives. Mr. Deichert also volunteered regularly at the Ladies Village Improvement Society’s annual summer fair and at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.
Robert William Deichert was born on Nov. 30, 1925, in Union City, N.J., to the former Edna Hons and William Deichert.
One of the highlights of his young life growing up in Jersey City, N.J., his family said, was delivering telegrams on his bicycle, especially when he had one for Frank Sinatra. He was valedictorian of his eighth-grade class, was a boy scout, and was active in the Lutheran Church, at one time even considering becoming a clergyman.
As a boy he spent summers with his maternal grandmother at the boarding house she ran in an upstate New York town called Callicoon, near the Delaware River, where his parents had met. He maintained such strong ties to Callicoon that as an adult he built two houses there, and each winter would take his children there to find and cut down a family Christmas tree. Among his favorite outdoor pursuits were deer hunting with the Hillside Hunting Club and beekeeping.
For almost two years at the end of World War II, he served in the Navy on the U.S.S. Prairie, a Dixie-class destroyer tender, on which he worked with radio, sonar, and radar. Despite serving during wartime, according to his family, he used to joke that the only battle he participated in was on Market Street, San Francisco, on V-J Day.
After the war’s end, Mr. Deichert earned his bachelor’s degree from Pratt Institute, and went on to Stevens in Hoboken, earning his master’s in 1950.
During much of his career, Mr. Deichert and his family lived in Bronxville, where he was active in the vestry of Christ Church. Once he had retired from Philips, he returned to the classroom, teaching business courses at Fairfield University in Connecticut. Later, here on the East End, his days were filled with his volunteer work and with saltwater activities, including clamming, fishing, and sailing.
In addition to his wife, Beverly Deichert, he is survived by a daughter, Wendy Deichert Tyra, who lives outside Boston, a son, Robert William Deichert Jr. of Bronxville, and six grandchildren, who “brought him immense pride,” his family said. A celebration of his life will be held at Christ Church in Bronxville on March 18 at 2 p.m. His ashes will be buried there in a private ceremony.
Frank N. Tuma, one of Montauk’s early charter fishing captains and a business leader and real estate broker, died on Friday at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. He was 93.
Mr. Tuma was born into a fishing family on April 29, 1924. His father, Frank J. Tuma, started the first charter boat business in Montauk after coming to the hamlet with the Coast Guard during World War I. His mother was the former Hilda C. Baker of East Hampton and had insisted that her son be born in Brooklyn where some of her relatives lived. Three days later, the young family arrived in Montauk.
He attended elementary school there, graduated from the East Hampton School, and enrolled at Colgate University.
In a 1995 interview, Mr. Tuma recalled that he first began working as a mate aboard fishing boats when he was on the eighth grade, mostly rod-and-reel “pin-hooking” for porgies. Later he was on the crew of various powerboats, including the Seer, owned by Harry Bellis Hess, a department store magnate, and the Shadow K, which belonged to Carl Fisher, the developer of much of Montauk during the 1920s.
Mr. Tuma had only completed a year at Colgate when the United States entered World War II. He joined the Navy, attending officers training school at Cornell University, and serving for three and a half years commanding a landing craft in the Mediterranean. He left the Navy in 1946 with the rank of lieutenant and graduated from Colgate the following year.
After college, he worked briefly in New York City for the International Business Machines Corporation. Returning to Montauk and marrying the former Marion Walker, he had a boat built for charter fishing, the Gannet, and before long was busy taking out passengers for a variety of seasonal fish. Mr. Tuma went to work as a salesman for the Montauk Beach Company in 1952. In the mid-1950s, the company was sold, renamed AllState Properties, and Mr. Tuma was appointed to oversee its operations at the Surf Club, the Montauk Manor, the Montauk Yacht Club, and the Montauk Water Company. His father had started Tuma’s Dock on Lake Montauk and a tackle shop on the hamlet’s main road, and after his father’s death, in 1961, he took over the family charter fishing business and dockside bait-and-tackle operation.
With AllState, he was involved in deals that included the sale of the Circle in downtown Montauk to Suffolk County and Montauk Downs Golf Course to the State of New York, as well as the sale of the Montauk Airport land and more than 1,000 acres that became Montauk County Park. He sold Tuma’s Dock in the early 1990s, opening the Tuma Real Estate Agency on Montauk Main Street, which his daughter eventually ran. He left the successor firm to AllState in 2001.
In Montauk, Mr. Tuma was a member of the Lions Club, the chamber of commerce, and the Fire Department and its ambulance company. He was the grand marshal of the Friends of Erin’s St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1987 and was honored in 2017 by the Friends of Erin and East Hampton Kiwanis Club as “Fishing Legend of the Year.” He had been elected as an East Hampton Town Trustee and Montauk Fire Department commissioner and was a member of the Southampton Golf Club since 1962.
Mr. Tuma is survived by his children, Frank Tuma of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and Lexa Dispirito of Montauk, and by three grandchildren. A sister, Vivian Darenberg, died before him, as did his wife.
A funeral Mass for him was said on Tuesday at St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk. Memorial donations have been suggested to the Montauk Fire Department, 12 Flamingo Avenue, Montauk 11954, or the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, P.O. Box 901, Wainscott 11975.
Pearl Howard Leone of Osborne Lane in East Hampton died on Monday at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton. She was 95 and had been in failing health. A full obituary will appear in a future issue.