Leona Needleman was “clear-headed, funny, and relentlessly ethical, with a vast heart whose love she showered on her friends, siblings, children, and grandchildren,” her family wrote on legacy.com. 

Ms. Needleman, a resident of East Hampton for many years before moving to Pompano Beach, Fla., died in Fort Lauderdale on Jan. 31 of lung disease. She was 86.

“After several years of firmly and gracefully managing ongoing compromises to her health, she decided to let down her defenses,” her family wrote. “She died as she had lived: resolutely, with understanding and self-determination.”

Known as Lee, she was born in Brooklyn on Jan. 16, 1932, to Benjamin Malitz and the former Sarah Ginsberg. She grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from Samuel J. Tilden High School in Flatbush. 

“A Dodgers fan who never forgave that team’s departure for Los Angeles, she switched her allegiance to the Mets, whose every move she followed with the eyes of a raptor, and whose every misstep she first catalogued and then accepted with Solomonic forbearance,” her family wrote. 

She was married to Robert Needleman, with whom she had two children. She raised her children in Chappaqua, N.Y., and worked for many years as a school bus driver there. Her husband died in 1976. 

She later moved from Westchester to East Hampton with a partner, Doris Bednar. “Lee and Doris were nearly inseparable, whether at home or in their many joyful travels around the world,” her family wrote. Together for 32 years, they eventually married. Ms. Bednar survives, as do Ms. Needleman’s children, Barry Needleman of Hopkinton, N.H., and Sara Needleman of Portland, Me. She also leaves four grandchildren. 

A service will be held in Florida in late February or early March, with an additional service in New York at a future date. 

The family has suggested donations to the Nature Conservancy’s Long Island chapter at 250 Lawrence Hill Road, Cold Spring Harbor 11724.

William P. Rayner, a watercolorist and travel writer who was the editorial business manager of Condé Nast for 30 years, died in New York City on Jan. 22 at the age of 88. His death was attributed to cardiac arrest, although it has been reported that this was precipitated by an injury that had come during an anniversary trip to France with his wife, Katharine Johnson Rayner.

Mr. Rayner, who was known to friends as Billy, lived on West End Road, near Georgica Pond, in a house of celebrated beauty called Woody House. Together with his wife, he split his time between Woody House and the Upper East Side, wintering in Palm Beach, Fla. Regardless of where he was, his friends said, Mr. Rayner painted every day. His watercolors were exhibited at various galleries, most recently in November at the Chinese Porcelain Company in Manhattan. 

His other beloved occupation was travel. On many trips with his wife, and for his work, he saw the world, visiting such far-flung countries as Bhutan, Syria, Libya, China, Egypt, Cambodia, India, and Russia. 

“I started traveling extensively when I was around 30 years old,” he told The East Hampton Star in 2013, “both for Condé Nast and on my own account.” His memories of these voyages were published that year in a two-book set, “Notes and Sketches: Travel Journals of William P. Rayner.” 

In a 2001 article in the Palm Beach Daily News, when his paintings were in a Florida exhibition, he explained that he had, at first, begun to paint because it was a more accurate way of memory-keeping than simply taking diary notes. “I could remember things I’d seen more accurately,” he said. “I could almost smell the things by looking at the paintings.” 

After Mr. Rayner’s death, Edwina Sandys, a British artist and sculptor, extolled his virtues as an artist, telling The Palm Beach Daily News, “He was a very good artist. Watercolor is a most difficult medium. You’ve got to be brave and fluid, which he was.”

Mr. Rayner also wrote a book of essays, “Wise Women: Singular Lives that Helped Shape our Century,” which was published in 1983. 

He was born to Emily and Archibald Rayner on Feb. 21, 1929, in Washington, D.C., and was educated at the Taft School in Watertown, Conn., and the University of Virginia.

He grew up surrounded by art. His mother was a social figure in Palm Beach from the 1940s to 1960s, as well as a director of the Worth Avenue Gallery there. The woman he married, Katharine Rayner, is the daughter of Anne Cox Chambers, who is listed as one of Forbes magazine’s 500 wealthiest Americans. His aunt was Betty Parsons, a New York art dealer with whom he spent many summers on the East End and through whom he met leading artists such as Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. It was Parsons who introduced him to the idea of keeping a visual diary. (“Her diaries were strictly painting,” he told The Star. “At first, mine were watercolor-driven; then I began to make notes — I was a writer, after all — and then started to paste things in.”)

The Rayners’ garden at Woody House, which is nestled among the ocean dunes at Georgica Pond, was described as a magical oasis by Vogue magazine in 2016. Architectural Digest, last year, said that the loveliness of the house, peppered with exotic antiques and textiles from the couple’s travels, had reached “near-mythical stature.”

On the South Fork, Mr. Rayner will be remembered as a champion of good causes. He was the president of the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons for 10 years and on the board of the Parrish Art Museum. He also was a member of the boards of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Henry Street Settlement in New York City and the Rhode Island School of Design.

Audrey Gruss, a friend and Southampton resident, said Mr. Rayner always was “a joy to be around. He had a great sense of humor, but always in a gentle way and at no one’s expense.” 

A funeral service was held last Thursday at St. James Episcopal Church in Manhattan.

After a successful career as a telecommunications sales executive, Maurice Eugene Curran retired to the South Fork, where he had summered as a child, and took up beekeeping. 

He was “passionate about doing his part” to help “the planet heal,” wrote his girlfriend, Bridget Brosseau, and he understood the importance of honeybees in that equation. 

“His love for beekeeping expanded, and he placed hives on many friends’ properties,” sharing his knowledge with all these “intern beekeepers,” Ms. Brosseau said. He had considered selling the honey and had hoped to take a teaching hive with plexiglass windows to schools, as well. 

“He was also a connoisseur of teas from around the world and loved to match his different honey harvests with different teas,” Ms. Brosseau said.

Mr. Curran died in his sleep on Dec. 21 in Westchester County. The cause has not been determined. He was 60. 

Known as Moe, he had been an entrepreneur from his early years. Among his many endeavors was working as a seafood broker between New York City and the East End, but at Cortel Business Systems, a telecommunications company in New York City, he had a career. He created a new division at Cortel for which he recruited recent college graduates, teaching them how to succeed in the New York City business world. What began with just four employees grew to include some two dozen. 

Mr. Curran married Virginia Best on April 21, 1995. The couple brought up their four children in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., where Mr. Curran served on the Pocantico Hills School Board from 2007 to 2010. Robert Balog, the president of the school board during Mr. Curran’s tenure, described him as “clear and forceful in his commitment to make the school better.” Another former board president, John Conrad, described him as “sincere, intelligent, principled, straightforward, and, most of all, courageous.”

Mr. Curran had a quick wit, “a great sense of humor, and an infectious smile,” Ms. Brosseau wrote. He was “well read and was known for his kind nature, always looking for a chance to help others when an opportunity was presented.” 

He loved waterskiing, snowboarding, riding his bicycle, and cruising on his many Harley-Davidson motorcycles, among other outdoor activities. He enjoyed cooking healthy meals, with fish and East End bay scallops among his favorite ingredients. 

Mr. Curran was born in New York City on Jan. 8, 1957, to Maurice and Barbara Curran. He grew up in Inwood in Nassau County and spent summers in Wainscott as a boy. His fond memories of the area drew him back after his divorce. He and Ms. Brosseau lived in Springs. 

In addition to Ms. Brosseau, he is survived by his children, Maurice Clark Curran and Kayla Curran of New York City and Tyler Curran and Patrick Curran of Westchester County, and by his mother, who lives in Florida. He leaves two sisters, Kim Curran of Westchester County and Kate Curran of Florida, a brother, Matthew Curran of Florida, and a grandson. 

A funeral was held at Emanuel Lutheran Church in Pleasantville, N.Y., on Dec. 30. His ashes will be buried at Wainscott Cemetery alongside those of his father and two sisters who died before him, Bess and Jamie. 

A memorial celebration will be held in the summer at the beach in Wainscott.

Christopher Louis Russo, who was the East Hampton Town highway superintendent for 18 years and had been chief of the Amagansett Fire Department and a founder of its ambulance company, died of congestive heart failure at home in Amagansett on Jan. 31, a few days before his 76th birthday. 

Mr. Russo’s family said his reputation for honesty and doing what was right helped him become East Hampton Town’s top vote-getter, wining election as highway superintendent nine times.

He had first come to the South Fork from New Jersey with his family, who summered in Amagansett. As a boy, he learned to sail at the Devon Yacht Club and to garden with his grandfather. He became a full-time resident after marrying and changing careers, leaving a position with ARA Slater, later Aramark, a firm that provided services to the hospitality industry as well as public institutions, and starting Hampton Landscaping.

As a private contractor, he specialized in snow removal, with responsibility for state and county roads as well as East Hampton Airport, and he was a speaker at an international conference on snow. Fishing replaced sailing as an avocation, along with gardening and cooking.

Tony Bullock, who was town supervisor during some of Mr. Russo’s tenure as highway superintendent, remembered him fondly when learning of his death. “Chris clearly loved the job. He could operate any piece of equipment in the yard as well as or better than any member of his team. He dreamed of heavy snow and hurricanes so he could work around the clock. He had a bumper sticker on his pickup that said ‘Think Snow.’ His tough exterior masked his core sense of generosity and kindness. The tuna will sleep a little easier, but we will miss him a lot,” Mr. Bullock said.

He was born on Feb. 5, 1942, and grew up in Upper Montclair, N.J. He attended Montclair Academy and Lakemont Academy in Glen Falls, N.Y., where, as a senior, he was honored as a Harvard Scholar. He majored in hotel ­ administration at Cornell University.

He and Diane D. Klinger were married in 1967 and settled in Amagansett. Fishing, in Gardiner’s Bay and offshore at Montauk, often on his boat Sea Beaste, became the norm, along with weekly trips for tuna as well as clamming and oystering regardless of the weather. He continued to cultivate a large garden, giving away cucumbers and other crops, and was known for producing gourmet meals.

Bullmastiffs were an integral part of Mr. Russo’s life. He received his first dog from David Rockefeller and had a 10-month-old bullmastiff puppy at the time of his death. Memorial donations were suggested to the American Bullmastiff Association, c/o Virginia Rowland, P.O. Box 300, Templeton, Mass. 01468.

Visiting hours will be held at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. tomorrow, with a memorial service on Saturday at 11 a.m. at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in East Hampton.

Mr. Russo is survived by his wife of 50 years and eight nieces and nephews.

A service for Miriam Oxenhorn of Sag Harbor, who died on Jan. 21 at the age of 81, will be held today at 11 a.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. Burial will follow at Green River Cemetery in Springs. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

Services are to be announced by the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton for Christopher L. Russo, a former East Hampton Town highway superintendent who died at home in Amagansett yesterday at age 75. 

Mr. Russo became highway superintendent in 1990 and served in that elected post for 18 years.

Details about his funeral arrangements and an obituary for him will appear in a future issue.

An obituary in last week’s paper for William J. Fleming omitted the organizations to which his family had suggested donations. They are: the Long Island chapter of the Nature Conservancy, P.O. Box 5125, East Hampton 11937; the Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 West 22nd Street, New York 10011 or irishrep.org; the Thomas Moran Trust, 101 Main Street, East Hampton 11937; Yellowstone National Park at yellowstone.org, or a charity of choice.

In 1957, as a young woman of 19, Mary Rooney immigrated to the United States, where she settled in New York City and enjoyed everything it had to offer, her family said, while returning home to western Ireland during the summer.  Ms. Conaty died on Sunday at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care in Quiogue, having being admitted a week earlier. 

She was born on June 20, 1938, in County Leitrim to James and Anne Rooney and attended Mercy College, a Catholic girls secondary school in Sligo, Ireland. She worked at various secretarial jobs in New York City, including at Met Life, an insurance company, where  she met Terence C. Conaty. They were married on May 25, 1963, and had five children.

Ms. Conaty, her husband, and their young children moved to Ronkonkoma in 1972, and later to Babylon. Her husband was a high school teacher and she worked as a caretaker of preschool children and the elderly.  In 1994, after their children had left for college or entered the workplace, the couple moved to East Hampton.

Family was always important to Ms. Conaty, as was traveling. Although she and her husband, who survives, traveled extensively, through Europe, Hawaii, and Asia, her favorite place to spend summers was with her family in Ireland. She made many friends in East Hampton and could be found most mornings with them and her neighbors of 20 or more years  at the Golden Pear Cafe on Newtown Lane in the village where they convened for coffee.

Ms. Conaty was an active member of the East Hampton Irish-American Club as well as Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton, for which she volunteered. Her family said she adored her grandchildren and spent much of her time “caring for and spoiling them.”

In addition to her husband, she is survived by her children: Carmel Conaty of Severna Park, Md., Tricia Conaty of San Diego,  Siobhan Conaty of Wynnewood, Pa., Terence Conaty of Nashville,  and Kieran Conaty of Edgewater, Md.  Her siblings, Terence Rooney and Kathleen Egan of Sligo, Seamus Rooney of Fairfield, Conn., Anne O’Brien of Eastbourne, U.K., and Michael Rooney of Wappingers Falls, N.Y.,  also survive, as do six grandchildren and dozens of nieces and nephews. 

Visiting hours are to be held today from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton, with a funeral Mass at Most Holy Trinity Church at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow, followed by burial at the church cemetery.

The family has suggested memorial donations to the Angel Fuel Fund, Most Holy Trinity Church, 57 Buell Lane, East Hampton 11937.

Melvin Tublin, who had a house in Springs for over 40 years, died at home in Brooklyn on Jan. 13. He was 90. 

He was born to Benjamin Tublin and the former Rose Low on Sept. 23, 1927, in Brooklyn. He grew up there, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point in 1949. 

While at the academy, he served as a merchant marine on ships in waters around the world. After graduation, he became an officer on the S.S. Robin Kettering, a cargo ship sailing in the waters off South and East Africa. He also served as a captain in the United States Naval Reserve for 30 years.

The sea was one of two passions in his professional life: the law was the other. In 1953, he graduated from Georgetown Law School and four years later co-founded the law firm of Poles, Tublin, Patestides & Stratakis, now known as Poles, Tublin, Stratakis & Gonzalez. In doing so, he managed to merge his two passions. On the law firm’s web site, it proclaims a 60-year commitment to “its handling of admiralty cases, ship finance transactions,” and international transactions and litigation. Besides owning an office building in Manhattan’s financial district, the firm also has a strong working relationship with a law firm in Piraeus, Greece, to help facilitate its various international maritime activities. 

Mr. Tublin, along with the three founding members of the firm, John Poles, Michael Patestides and Chris Stratakis, were more than just partners. They remained close friends throughout their lives. 

In 1966, he married the former Eileen Wells. Six years later, the couple bought their house on Water Hole Road, keeping it until 2014.

Throughout his life, Mr. Tublin remained was active at his alma mater. “He was president of the Merchant Marine Academy’s alumni association from 1957 until 1961, and a member of its board of directors, and served as an adjunct professor,” his family wrote. He received the Meritorious Alumni Service Award in 1964, Outstanding Professional Achievement Award in 1984, Kings Pointer of the Year in 1986, and the Distinguished Service Award in 1997. 

He served on the congressman’s selection committee for Kings Point appointees and was appointed to the school’s academic advisory board. He was also an organizer and financial supporter of the Kings Point Sailing Program. In November, Mr. Tublin was inducted into the Merchant Marine Academy Hall of Distinguished Graduates. 

He was a dedicated fisherman, sailor, gardener, and storyteller. Besides his wife, who still lives in Brooklyn, he is survived by two daughters, Sharon Tublin of Brooklyn and Pamela Tublin Cook of Miami, and by his siblings, Rita Blinderman of Levittown and Seymor Tublin of Hawaii. 

A service in his honor was held at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point on Jan. 18, after which he was buried at Calverton National Cemetery.

Donations have been suggested to the United States Merchant Marine Academy Alumni Association and Foundation, 300 Steamboat Road, Kings Point, N.Y. 11024.

George Knoblach of Montauk, an accomplished photographer and pioneering spearfisherman, died on Jan. 24 at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton. He was 92. 

He served in the Navy during World War II and honed his photographic skills while overseas. After his discharge, he contracted polio and was paralyzed and confined for a time to an iron lung. 

“His recovery was slow until his mother decided that water, and swimming, might be therapeutic. She was right,” Russell Drumm wrote in a 2015 article in The East Hampton Star. Mr. Knoblach regained his strength and full mobility. He became an expert swimmer and diver, “a fish,” according to Martin Pedersen, a longtime friend and fellow spearfisherman.

Early in his photography career, Mr. Knoblach was an assistant to James and Kathryn Abbe and worked with Fernand Fonssagrives and Howell T. Conant Sr., who was known for his portraits of Grace Kelly. In the late 1950s, Mr. Knoblach worked as an industrial and underwater photographer for the Collins Submarine Pipeline Company, a job that took him around the world and for which he developed new underwater photographic techniques and equipment. 

Toward the end of his career he was an instructor at Pratt Institute. Former students continued to visit him long after he had retired, his friends said.

Mr. Knoblach was a member of the Long Island Dolphins spearfishing club and, according to the 2015 Star article, “usually ended the season as ‘high hook,’ or high spear in this case.” 

Mr. Knoblach was born on July 9, 1925, in Queens to George Knoblach and the former Mary Ann Schneider. He began coming to Montauk as a child and settled there full time after his retirement. 

As his health deteriorated, he was cared for by a large group of friends, including Patrick and Geraldine Forde, Paul and Carolyn Henneforth, Joseph and Lori Gerardiello, and Arna and Mr. Pedersen. 

His brothers, Herbert and Jack Knoblach, died before him. He is survived by three nieces. 

Mr. Knoblach was cremated. His ashes will be spread during a private gathering on the beach in the spring.