Obituaries

Kenneth J. Bialkin, one of the leading corporate lawyers of his generation and the chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations from 1984 to 1986, during which time the conference was instrumental in winning freedom for Soviet Jews before the collapse of the Iron Curtain, died of a stroke on Aug. 23 in Manhattan.

Barbara Ann Watson, a real estate agent and entrepreneur, died of congestive heart failure on July 27 at home on Gibson Island, Md. The East Hampton Village summer resident, who had a house at Pudding Hill, was 81 and had been ill for three years.

Mary Ella Reutershan, whose lifelong political associations, both national and local, began during World War II when she was a confidential secretary to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, died on Aug. 14 at the age of 98 at Peconic Landing, the retirement community in Greenport.

Mary Lee Abbott, a noted American painter and art teacher who was one of the few women artists in the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and ’50s, died on Friday at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care on Quiogue after a brief illness.

Richard Rosenthal, a longtime advocate for people with disabilities and the former chairman of East Hampton Town’s Anti-Bias Task Force, died of complications from pneumonia on Aug. 17 at home in East Hampton. He was 93.

Arthur Carl Thommen, a longtime history teacher in the Sayville school district, died of congestive heart failure on July 17 at home in Moneta, Va. The East Hampton native was 76, and had been ill for 15 months.

Athos Zacharias, a Springs painter and longtime fixture on the East End art scene, whose long and notable career was launched during the prime of Abstract Expressionism, died of kidney failure on Aug. 18 at the Kanas Center for Hospice Care in Westhampton Beach.

Cristina Isabel Albronda, who was born in Cuba and later moved to Montauk, where, her family said, she “found her piece of heaven on earth,” died of cancer on Feb. 8. She was 68 years old, and had been ill for less than a year.

Daniel Otto died at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center on Aug. 3, after a week on life support.

Henry William Breyer III, the owner of a high-end fishing tackle company, died on July 24 at home in Palm Beach, Fla. The former East Hampton resident was 88 and had been in declining health for several months, his family said.

James Russell Tompkins, a lawyer and businessman who founded the First Suffolk Mortgage Company, died of cardiac and pulmonary failure on Aug. 18 at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. The longtime East Hampton resident was 88.

Jeanne Comey Owen, whose volunteer work on behalf of children spanned more than five decades in Vero Beach, Fla., East Hampton, and elsewhere on Long Island, died of pneumonia on June 11 in hospice care in Vero Beach. A resident of East Hampton until 1998, she was 94.

Paula Trachtman, an author, editor, teacher, and activist with a singular talent for bringing people together, died of a heart attack in her sleep on Friday, less than a week shy of her 88th birthday.

Robert Ullman, a theatrical press agent who promoted more than 150 productions, including “A Chorus Line,” which he took from development to a Pulitzer Prize, died on July 31 in Bay Shore.

A celebration of the life of Barbara Renkens Oeffner will be held on Aug. 25 at 2 p.m. at the East Hampton Methodist Church. Mrs. Oeffner, who grew up in East Hampton and graduated from high school here, died on Jan. 24. She lived in Moore Haven, Fla., but visited family here every year.

John David Hands of Springs, a commercial fisherman who worked for decades up and down the Eastern Seaboard, died on Aug. 7 at East End Hospice.

Mary Ella Reutershan Richard, a former East Hampton and Amagansett resident and community leader, died yesterday at Peconic Landing in Greenport.

Ms. Richard was politically active from the 1960s onward, including serving on the East Hampton Town Board. She was a preservation advocate and activist as well, organizing blood drives and pressing for services for the town’s older residents.

A memorial service is to be announced. An obituary will appear in a future issue.

Robert Edmund Wilson III, a professional sailor and yacht broker, died of heart failure and complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder at his home in Beaufort, N.C., on July 21. The former Amagansett resident, who was 73, had been ill for three years.

In any inventory of the most influential documentary filmmakers, certain names inevitably appear: Dziga Vertov, Robert Flaherty, Marcel Ophuls, Frederick Wiseman, Michael Apted, Errol Morris, Albert and David Maysles, and the Maysles’ contemporary and onetime associate, D.A. Pennebaker.     

A funeral Mass for Daniel Otto will be said on Saturday at noon at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton.

Ines Angelica Wildner-Fox, a former teacher at the Montauk School who started the school’s English as a foreign language program and co-founded the hamlet’s food pantry, died of pulmonary fibrosis on July 17 at Hope Hospice in Lehigh Acres, Fla.     

Services will be held on Saturday for Jhony Chumi-Rodas, who died in a car crash in Flanders on Sunday night.

Barbara Curran, a retired teacher of English at Lehman College in the Bronx who helped the school found a campus in Hiroshima, died of pneumonia on July 14 at her home in Jensen Beach, Fla. The longtime summer resident of Wainscott was 85.

Brian J. King of East Hampton, a self-employed handyman who could fix almost any broken-down bicycle or lawnmower, died of cardiac arrest on Pantigo Road in East Hampton Village on July 22, while driving his truck. He was 68, and had been diagnosed with cancer three months before.

Family and friends of Audra Schutte Balcuns will gather for a celebration of her life at the American Legion Hall in Amagansett on Saturday. The reception will be from 2 to 5 p.m., and those who knew her have been invited to drop in anytime, her brother, Patrick Schutte, said.

A celebration of the life of Maureen Wikane will be held on Sunday from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center in East Hampton, where she was the administrative director. Ms. Wikane, who was 71, died of pancreatic cancer on June 18.

Frederick W. Ritz, a lifelong resident of Bridgehampton who owned a tree service company and an insurance company and volunteered with the local ambulance corps, died of complications of a stroke on July 18 at Quiogue’s Kanas Center for Hospice Care. He was 85.

A celebration and remembrance of the life of Raymond Marisette that was to take place on July 21 will instead take place this Sunday at 5 p.m. at the Dock restaurant in Montauk. Mr. Marisette, who was known as Cheech, died on July 21, 2018. On Sunday his ashes will be spread on the roots of a tree that will be planted, and there will be a Budweiser toast in his honor.

George L. Kaplan, a decorated veteran and civil engineer who worked on the New York State Pavilion for the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens, died on July 7 at MorseLife senior care facility in West Palm Beach, Fla. The resident of Amagansett and West Palm Beach was 95 and had cancer.

Jarvis James Slade, a part-time resident of Middle Lane in East Hampton Village and a retired investment banker and venture investor, died yesterday at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City of complications of a stroke. He was 93.