Obituaries

Renee Schilhab Bullock, who had been a journalist, landscape designer, musician, and documentary filmmaker, died of liver and peritoneal cancer at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., on June 14.

A graveside service for Renee Schilhab Bullock will be held at Cedar Lawn Cemetery on Cooper Lane in East Hampton on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. The Very Rev. Denis C. Brunelle of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in East Hampton will give remarks. 

Arthur J. Cortes, who owned and operated Halfback Charters in Montauk for 30 years, died from a fall at his home adjacent to Montauk Downs State Park on May 28. He was 74.

Sportfishing and the ocean were Mr. Cortes’s passions, and he worked on many Long Island charter boats before moving to Montauk in 1991, because “that was where the fish were,” as he put it on the Halfback Charters website. He owned the company, which operated from a 39-foot Hatteras Express, from that year until his death.

Connie Dembia of Wainscott and Ramsey, N.J., died on May 20 at home in Ramsey at the age of 98. Her family wrote that she had not been ill, “just very, very old.”

 Her interests and accomplishments were varied, from reading and sewing to politics, social issues, and social justice. As a child growing up in Brooklyn, where she was born Carmela Di Paola on Dec. 11, 1921, she was a champion handball player, and all through her life loved dancing. 

Diana D. Plitt of East Hampton, a painter, watercolorist, and sketch artist who was a past president of the Artists Alliance of East Hampton, died in Southampton on June 4. She was 83.

In 1955, when she was 18 and still Diana Deutsch, her cousin Margaret Guissinger nominated her for the Miss America beauty pageant, and she was crowned Miss New York State. She went on to study at the Pratt Institute in Manhattan, the beginning of a distinguished career in the arts.

Donald T. McDonald, a retired East Hampton High School science teacher, died on June 10 from kidney cancer at home in East Hampton, surrounded by family. He was 90.

Mr. McDonald was born in a house on Church Street in East Hampton Village on April 2, 1930, to Zena Petitpas McDonald and Elmer McDonald. He was the youngest of four brothers who came of age during the Depression. 

Mark Humphrey of the Mark Humphrey Gallery in Southampton died last Thursday of complications of cancer at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care in Quiogue. He was 71.

Ruth D'Eon, who made custom draperies and upholstery at the former Diamond's furniture store in East Hampton, died of a stroke on Saturday at the Peconic Bay Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation facility in Riverhead. She was 91 and had been ill for a week.

Born on Dec. 3, 1928, in East Hampton to Thomas Dedato and the former Lena Sonberg, she grew up here and earned an associate's degree at the New York School of Interior Design.

Vincent Christopher Carillo, the owner of Liars' Saloon and Offshore Sports Marina in Montauk, died at home in that hamlet on May 26. He was 80.

Beverly B. Smith of Amagansett and Manhattan died at Lenox Hill Hospital there on May 23. She was 86 and had taken ill with pancreatitis two and a half weeks prior to her death.

A summer resident of Amagansett since 1958, Mrs. Smith had been coming to the East End for many years to visit family members in Southampton. She married Roger Smith in 1956 and in 1960 they bought the same house they had first rented in 1958. Mr. Smith died in 1980.

Gerald Thomas Stanley, who owned and operated Stanley and Son residential refuse service and G.T. Stanley cesspool service in East Hampton, died on May 26 in Canandaigua, N.Y. He was 95.

Isabel Margaret Rickard Spear died at home in East Hampton on May 30, with her daughters, Min Spear Hefner and Kay Spear Gibson, at her bedside. She was 96.

Born on March 1, 1924, in Sherborne in the county of Dorset, England, to Mabel and Reginald Rickard, she was one of six children. As a young girl she attended Lord Digby's School.

Johanna E. Veiga of East Hampton died at home of respiratory failure on May 24, surrounded by her extended family and her companion of 45 years, Carol Ann Crasson.

Christopher Louis Ehring, a former executive director of LTV, East Hampton’s public access television station, died of metastatic penile cancer at home in West Barnstable, Mass., on May 8. The longtime Springs resident was 73, and had been ill for 11 weeks. 

Isaac Carter Sr., a former Suffolk County deputy sheriff who lived on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton, died of cardiac arrest at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital on May 7. Mr. Carter, who had been ill for three years, was 81.

Jake Rajs, of whom Reader’s Digest magazine said, “Not since Ansel Adams . . . has a photographer so glorified the American landscape,” died of cancer on May 25 at the home of his sister, Frances Wagner, in Scotch Plains, N.J. He was 68 and had been ill for five months.

Isaac Carter, a former Suffolk County deputy sheriff who was known as Ike, died in Southampton on May 7. Mr. Carter was 81. A full obituary will appear in an upcoming issue. 

William Kevin Eggers, 77, a producer and the president and founder of several record labels, including Poppy Records and Tomato Records, died at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital on May 20.

Ann Marie Thorsen of Amagansett, a dental hygienist who worked at several Long Island dental practices, died of a stroke on May 3 at Stony Brook University Hospital. She was 86.

Jeanette Dawn Scott-Glinka, who grew up in Montauk and worked for many years at Herb’s Market and Gaviola’s Montauk Market, died at home on March 7 in Conway, S.C., where she had moved a few years ago.

Abraham Julius Reckson, who spent his entire law enforcement career with the Greenburgh Police Department in Westchester County, died at home in East Hampton on April 23. He was 75.

Irene Lister Thomas, a Sag Harbor native who loved to knit and care for the cats in her neighborhood, died on April 13 at the Woodcrest Rehabilitation and Residential Health Care Center in Flushing, Queens. She was 99.

Jaquelin Taylor Robertson, an architect and urban designer whose ancestors included the presidents James Madison and Zachary Taylor, died on May 9 at home in East Hampton. He was 88.

Maria Polushkin Robbins, the author of more than 30 cookbooks and children’s books, died at home in Springs on May 5. She was 77.

Sondra Fox Nones of Manhattan and Red Dirt Road in Amagansett died at home in Amagansett with family members both nearby and via FaceTime from Madrid. She was 86.

Susan Kosche of Wilton, Conn., a longtime vacation-home owner in East Hampton, died of complications of Covid-19 on April 28 at the Waveny Care Center in New Canaan, Conn. She was 80.

Elise Quimby, who went by Weezie, died on May 3 at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., according to The Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia, her hometown newspaper. She was 85.

Carl Hribar, an architect who practiced in New York City and Sag Harbor, died of respiratory arrest at Stony Brook University Hospital on April 26. He was 77.

Corey Jay Bennett, who grew up in Springs and attended East Hampton High School, died of a drug overdose on April 27 in Florence Township, N.J. He was 30, and his last known place of residence was Long Beach, Calif.

Cyril R. Fitzsimons, an Irish barkeep whose duneside roadhouse on the Napeague stretch lives on in memory as an emblem of carefree summers past — when the rum flowed and sunburned people sang along to the sweet pulse of a steel-pan band — died on April 24 from complications of Covid-19.