Richard F. Jarmain, who had a private dental practice for 30 years and taught at the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine and Stony Brook University, died at home in Montauk of heart failure last Thursday. He was 78.

Dr. Jarmain attended the Columbia dental college as well as the University of Chicago, where he studied dental surgery. He had a winter residence in New Hyde Park and taught an innovative dental inlay procedure at Stony Brook University.

That he would become a dentist was far from expected when he was a child. He was born in Queens on Feb. 29, 1940, to Franklin R. Jarmain, who built Montauk’s Wave Crest motel, and the former Lucille Yacobellis, a piano teacher who taught her son to play and soon realized she had a musical prodigy on her hands. At the age of 5, he performed 20 classical pieces at Carnegie Hall. Throughout his childhood in South Ozone Park and into his adolescent years as a student at St. John’s High School, Dr. Jarmain envisioned a professional career as a pianist. 

According to his brother, Robert Jarmain, at one point their mother was worried about him. He recalled her saying, “You’ll never make a living as a concert pianist,” which prompted him to consider becoming a priest. When she was against his taking  that path, he decided to become a dentist, his brother said.

Dr. Jarmain received a Bachelor of Science degree from Niagara University before enrolling in dental school at Columbia. He married Freya Rosen in March of 1968, and the couple had two sons, whom Dr. Jarmain raised on his own after the marriage ended in the early 1970s. 

After retiring, he focused on writing, publishing four novels and a collection of poems. He was also an adept cook and an accomplished sailor. “The sea was always calling him,” his brother, who lives in Lake Success, said.

Dr. Jarmain also is survived by a sister, Therese Jarmain of Montauk, his sons, Brian Jarmain of Darien, Conn., an attorney, and Sean Jarmain, a doctor, of Mt. Laurel, N.J., and by seven grandchildren. 

The family received visitors at the Fairchild Sons funeral chapel in Manhasset on Monday. A Mass of Christian burial, celebrated by the Rev. William T. Slater, took place yesterday at Notre Dame Catholic Church in New Hyde Park, followed by burial at the Maple Grove Cemetery in Kew Gardens.

 A memorial service is to be held in Montauk at a later date. Memorial contributions have been suggested to the American Diabetes Association, which is in Arlington, Va.

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.

Marian Cooke, a former resident of Montauk, died unexpectedly on Feb. 1 in Steinhatchee, Fla., in an accident in which she was thrown from her husband’s pickup truck while they were transporting furniture to the second-hand shop she started there after having run the Second Story Consignment Shop in Montauk for many years. 

Although she was known on the East End for her eye for antiques and collectibles, she had had an earlier life as a teacher, working with students with disabilities. Her family said that she “began her long and passionate career dedicated to the needs of persons with disabilities, particularly those with Down syndrome,” while still an undergraduate. She was an early adapter, they said, of the philosophy of focusing on people’s abilities rather than their disabilities. She had developed a bond with the disabled younger brother of a high school classmate and remained his friend and mentor until his death some 30 years later.

Marian Cooke was born on Staten Island on Feb. 24, 1954, one of seven children of the former Catherine May and Lawrence Joseph Cooke. She grew up there, but began visiting Montauk as a toddler and began spending summers there when she was 10. She attended Staten Island’s Sacred Heart School during her elementary years and went on to graduate from Notre Dame Academy, a secondary school on Staten Island, in 1972.

Ms. Cooke was an assistant teacher at Staten Island Aid, a nonprofit charitable organization for children with developmental disabilities, and was devoted to her students, her family said. She moved after that to Washington, D.C., where she married her first husband, Rick Tomford, and earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from George Washington University. The marriage ended amicably in divorce.

Several years later she moved to Manchester, Conn., and managed several group homes run by SARAH Inc., an organization that offers services and support systems to children and adults with differing abilities.

In 1995 she returned to Staten Island and was hired by Volunteers of America as a client advocate and caseworker. She was sent to Paris in 2000 to an international forum promoting the right to sexual autonomy among adults with Down syndrome.

Some on the East End, her family said, may remember Ms. Cooke as the caseworker who brought clients on day trips by ferry from Connecticut to Montauk, but many more here came to know her as a “purveyor of fine stuff of all varieties, from shabby chic to antiques, from junk jewelry to diamonds and pearls.” Her wares at Second Story Consignment ran the gamut from fur coats to handmade lamps. She found her goods at estate sales, garage sales, auctions, and flea markets. According to a story about her that appeared in The Star in 2006, she always took care to offer a fair price to the seller when she found an underpriced treasure at, say, one of the rummage sales run by the Montauk Community Church. She ran the shop, which overlooked Montauk Harbor, from May until November between 2003 and 2015.

During that period, Ms. Cooke spent winters in the Bahamas with her second husband, Norman Clark, whom she had met in 2003 at the Montauk Yacht Club, when he was there on a fishing trip. They retired to Steinhatchee in 2016, and she took her treasures with her and opened a new shop, the Corner Store. 

Her six siblings survive her: Michael G. Cooke of Montauk, Mary Cooke of Washington, D.C., and Montauk, Owen T. Cooke of Chatham, N.J., and Montauk, Jean Cooke-Byrne of Durham, N.C., Lawrence Cooke of Montauk, and Elizabeth Cooke of Niceville, Fla. She is survived by four nephews and two nieces, as well.

In addition to caring for people with disabilities and hunting for second-hand treasures, her other two passions were the music of Barbra Streisand — she played Streisand’s music in her shop, frequently singing along — and an affinity for firefighters. Two of her brothers, her former husband, two cousins, one nephew, and many friends were firefighters, and she shared with them a “can do” attitude, her family said.

The family will hold a memorial service at 11 a.m. on April 28 at the Montauk Community Church. The Rev. Bill Hoffmann will preside. Ms. Cooke was cremated; her family said that her ashes would remain in Montauk. Memorial donations have been suggested for emergency medical services at the Montauk Fire Department, 12 Flamingo Ave., Montauk 11954.

Donald L. Hunting, whose credentials as an active member of the East Hampton community read almost like a catalog of good citizenship, died on Monday at Southampton Hospital at the age of 90. His family said he had been in declining health.

In an autobiographical essay, Mr. Hunting said he “stepped off the train in East Hampton in May 1944 to work in the front office of the Sea Spray Inn,” on the oceanfront just east of Main Beach. He was 16. He did not know at the time that one of his distant forebears was the youngest brother of East Hampton’s second minister, Nathaniel Huntting, but having spent summers here with his mother and siblings, he knew that he wanted the job. Over the years, he wrote, “a father-son relationship matured” with Arnold Bayley, the owner of the inn, “which lasted until the latter died in 1970.”

 Mr. Hunting did not have a typical childhood. He was born in Philadelphia on Nov. 19, 1927, one of four children of the former Marie Murphy and Russell Hunting. His father decamped, and Donald went to work at a young age to support his mother, brothers, and sister. He eventually finished his senior year at East Hampton High School. 

Mr. Hunting served in the Army in 1946 and 1947 in a clerical post. He then went to work in the New York office of Nabisco and, over the next six years, earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from New York University. He lived during the week in Bronxville, N.Y., with his mother and siblings, and spent all his weekends and holidays working at the Sea Spray.

Mr. Hunting married the former Marilyn Neuhauser of New York City, whom he had met when they both worked at Nabisco, at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Manhattan. The reception was at his “old stomping ground,” the Waldorf. The Huntings moved to East Hampton and brought up their sons here: David Hunting, now of Rochester, and Paul Hunting, who died in 2009. Marilyn Neuhauser Hunting died in 2007.

  During the winter of 1953-54, Mr. Hunting worked at the Brazilian Court Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla., for Elliot Bishop, who had managed the Montauk Manor and the Seven Ponds Inn on the South Fork. That year, Mr. Hunting decided to lease the Hedges Inn, behind Town Pond on East Hampton’s Main Street, and he ran it that summer. Just as he was negotiating for the following year, however, he was made an offer by Mr. Bayley and went back to the Sea Spray. 

Mr. Hunting left the Sea Spray in 1964 to buy the 1770 House in East Hampton, running its two dining rooms and tap room for several years. The family lived at the Circle, while he eventually returned to the accounting profession, establishing the firm of Hunting, Rose, and Wingate, which was operated for 30 years. 

During the decades that Mr. Hunting lived in East Hampton, he served in many civic-minded positions, including as director and president of the Chamber of Commerce; as vestryman and treasurer of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church; as director and treasurer of the East Hampton Historical Society, of which he remained an emeritus trustee; as an assistant Cub Scout leader; as vice president of the PTA; and as a member of the Lions Club, the Circle Association, the community preservation fund advisory board, and the East Hampton Town Senior Citizens’ Nutrition Center council.

On top of all this, he was also on the advisory board of the East Hampton Library and served as assistant to the library’s board of managers. When Thomas Twomey died, he served a few terms as treasurer and president of the library, as well.

Mr. Hunting is survived by his son and a grandson. His brothers, Russell Hunting of Southington, Conn., and Richard Hunting of Hawthorne, N.Y., died before him. His sister, Sister Theresette Hunting of Englewood Cliffs, N.J., also survives. 

The family will receive visitors on Sunday at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. On Monday at 11 a.m., a service will be held at the funeral home, with a graveside service to follow at East Hampton’s Cedar Lawn Cemetery. The Rev. Mary Martin of Rochester, his daughter-in-law's sister, will preside. Memorial donations have been suggested to the East Hampton Library, 159 Main Street, East Hampton 11937.

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Correction: An earlier version of this obituary incorrectly identified the Rev. Mary Martin as Donald L. Hunting's daughter-in-law. 

Barbara Wersba, a Sag Harbor resident who was the author of more than two dozen books for young people and the founder of the Bookman Press, died on Sunday at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, N.J. She was 85.

Ms. Wersba was the only child of a Russian-Jewish father and a Kentucky Baptist mother, Robert Wersba and the former Josephine Quarles. Growing up, she wanted to be a musician, or a dancer, or a poet, thinking that any one of these professions would lift her out of what she believed to be a sad life.

“I grew up in almost total solitude,” she once said. “I thought I was lonely when I was simply a loner — and spent much of my childhood daydreaming, writing poems, and creating dramas for my dolls.”

When she was 11 years old, in answer to a family friend’s inquiry, she impulsively declared her intent to be an actress and soon landed a part in a local play. Though she eventually decided she didn’t actually like acting, she stuck with it because it gave her purpose and helped her not to feel alone.

Ms. Wersba continued acting throughout college and then professionally, until she fell ill in 1960 and was forced into a lengthy recovery. On the advice of a friend, she turned to writing. The result was her first book for children, “The Boy Who Loved the Sea,” which was published in 1961.

Her breakthrough came in 1968, with the publication of “The Dream Watcher,” a novel. She adapted it for the theater when her childhood idol, the actress Eva Le Gallienne, read the book and wished to play the role of the elderly woman in the story. It opened at the White Barn Theatre in Connecticut in 1975.

Two of Ms. Wersba’s most popular novels were “Tunes for a Small Harmonica: A Novel,” released in 1976 and a National Book Award nominee, and “The Carnival of My Mind,” released in 1982.

In addition to her more than two dozen novels for children, teens, and young adults, she reviewed children’s literature for The New York Times, wrote theater and television scripts, and taught writing. She founded the Bookman Press in 1994.

Born in Chicago on Aug. 19, 1932, Ms. Wersba moved with her family to California. After her parents’ divorce, she moved with her mother to New York City, and later to Sag Harbor. 

She will be buried in a family plot at Oakland Cemetery in Sag Harbor tomorrow at 11 a.m.

The death has been reported of William B. Fritchman of Brick Kiln Road in Bridgehampton on Jan. 31. He was 95 years old and died at home.

Mr. Fritchman had lived in Bridgehampton for about 50 years, according to a friend, Manuela Lago. A pianist and piano teacher, he had graduated from and received a master’s degree at the Juilliard School, having moved to New York City before enrolling.

  He was born in Akron, Ohio, on Oct. 29, 1922, to James B. Fritchman and the former Dorothy Rankin. He was cremated, and there was a private ceremony.

As a registered nurse, Ann Marie Moylan was always eager to provide nurturing care to the sick, whether in one of the management positions she held at Southampton Hospital and other health care facilities, or simply as a loving aunt who ladled out chicken noodle soup for an ailing niece. 

After graduating from Pierson High School, the lifelong resident of Sag Harbor earned a bachelor of science degree in nursing from the College of New Rochelle and later a master’s degree in nursing administration from New York University.  

Her most recent job was as a consultant for the medical records company Allscripts, but much of Ms. Moylan’s early career was focused on hospital care. Her first job was as a nurse manager of the pulmonary unit at New York Hospital. She then worked as a nurse manager at Southampton Hospital before becoming the director of nursing at St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center in Smithtown. It was at St. Catherine’s that Ms. Moylan died of complications from esophageal cancer on Feb. 16. She was 53. 

Born on Aug. 9, 1964, in Southampton to William Harry Moylan and the former Ruth Ward, Ms. Moylan was a member of the Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Society, the American Association of Nurse Executives, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, and the American Nursing Informatics Association. She “wanted to make a difference in health care and she did just that, going to great lengths to achieve her goals, advocating for patients and lobbying that all nurses receive a bachelor’s degree, because she wanted the best for everyone,” her family wrote.

She never married but she was a fixture in the lives of the three daughters of her surviving sister, Theresa M. Samot. “It didn’t take much for the nurse in Ann to come out,” said her niece Colleen Samot in the eulogy she gave at the funeral Mass at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Sag Harbor. She played many pivotal roles in the family. When Colleen and her sisters, Kathleen and Mary, were growing up, “Ann would be a clown for our birthdays, a magician when we got older, and Santa Claus on Christmas morning,” recalled Colleen. 

Ms. Moylan was an active member of the St. Andrew’s community whose strong faith informed all that she did, her family said. 

Visiting hours were held at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in Sag Harbor on Feb. 18. The next day, the Rev. Peter Devaraj officiated at the funeral ceremony and burial at St. Andrew’s Cemetery. The family has suggested donations to Cormaria Retreat House in Sag Harbor.

Ruth Marie Harkins, an Amagansett native who had been living in Fort Myers Beach, Fla., since retiring from the United States Postal Service, died on Feb. 21 at Joanne’s House at Hope Hospice in Bonita Springs, Fla. She was 90 and had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Mrs. Harkins met her husband-to-be, Harold J. Harkins, then a New York State trooper, at the Montauk Post Office, where she worked and her father was postmaster. She and Mr. Harkins, who survives, married in August 1955. They lived and brought up four children in Brewster, N.Y., Okemos, Mich., and Columbus, Ohio. 

Her children, all of whom survive, said their father was “the true love of her life” and that their parents enjoyed their retirement in Fort Myers Beach, in particular the beach and family vacations. Their mother loved holidays and celebrating birthdays and anniversaries, they said, and was enthusiastic about lighthouses, seagulls, and a certain way of wearing custom T-shirts and suspenders. As a more than 40-year post office employee, she honored the American flag, they said. She was active in the Catholic Church, having been a member of St. Therese of Lisieux in Montauk. After retirement, she and her husband often brought their children to Montauk to visit her parents.

Ruth Marie Harkins was born on Sept. 1, 1927, in Amagansett, one of seven children of Theodore and Beatrice Santacroce Cook of Montauk. She graduated from East Hampton High School and went to work for the Postal Service in 1943, retiring in 1991. 

Her children are Edward Harkins of Santiago, Chile, Theodore Harkins of Los Angeles, Lori Whitney of San Francisco, and Lisa Fell of Newport, Ky. Her younger brother, John Cook of Fort Worth, Tex., is the only one of the seven siblings who survives. 

In addition to Mr. Cook and her husband and children, dozens of nieces and nephews and six grandchildren survive.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on March 16 at 11 a.m. at the Church of the Ascension in Fort Myers Beach, followed by the burial of Mrs. Harkins’s ashes in the church’s memorial garden. Donations have been suggested for Church of the Ascension, 6025 Estero Boulevard, Fort Myers Beach, Fla. 33931, or Hope Hospice, 27200 Imperial Parkway, Bonita Springs, Fla. 34135