Obituaries

Jean Fischer, an animal rights activist and well-known member of the Montauk community, died on May 18 at Southampton Hospital.

Jeremiah Edward Joseph Desmond, a dentist who had lived in Montauk for 40 years, died at Southampton Hospital on Sunday.

Leona Smith, a resident of the Windmill Village II complex in East Hampton, died on May 24 at the age of 84.

Services for Tyler Valcich, who died on Monday at the age of 20, will begin on Sunday.

Virginia R. Erario, a homemaker who was a foster mother to some 25 babies awaiting adoption even as she was raising her own children, died of congestive heart failure at home in Montauk on May 17. She was 91.

Mrs. Erario worked for Catholic Charities in South Ozone Park, Queens, where the family then lived, caring for the children of unwed mothers. She took care of about two dozen infants until they were 6 months old, sometimes until they were 2, said her daughter Virginia Sayers of Montauk. “She gave a lot of love,” Ms. Sayers said. “She treated them like her own kids.”

William Rockliff Claxton III, a surfer and lifeguard who loved adventure and his red 1961 MGA sports car, died on April 22 at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

    A memorial gathering for Robert Dash, the founder of the Madoo Conservancy in Sagaponack, who died in September, will be held there on Sunday at 5 p.m. Several of Mr. Dash’s friends will speak, and afterward clams and Bloody Marys will be served in his honor. Those attending have been asked to let Alejandro Saralegui, the conservancy director, know in advance by phoning the Madoo office or emailing [email protected].

Jason Henry Pollak, a competitive surfer and practitioner of jujitsu who founded an organization that encouraged young people to offer their time to help those less fortunate, died at Southampton Hospital following an accident. He was the passenger in a car that crashed into a tree on Flying Point Road in Southampton, just down the road from the house where he was living, on April 19. He was 24.

    Myron B. Levy of Atlanta, a former East Hampton resident who had helped run Hren’s Nursery here, a business in his late wife’s family, died of a heart attack on May 12 in New Mexico, where he was vacationing. He was 81.

    Mr. Levy, who was known as Mike, loved working, his family said, and had no plans to retire. He had worked in commercial and residential real estate, and most recently in sales and marketing with contractors doing home modifications to accommodate the disabled and elderly.

    Richard Maxwell Dunn, a teacher, scholar, and banker who taught at the Ross School and East Hampton High School, died of pancreatic cancer on Friday in New York City. He was 70 and had been ill for 15 months.

    Mr. Dunn, who lived full time in Springs since 2003, followed an unusual career path. He received a B.A. from Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. in French literature from Yale University. From 1969 to 1974, he was a French professor of the University of Chicago.

    Victoria Kingsley, a psychologist with a practice in East Hampton, died on May 19 in Buffalo, not long after being diagnosed with small-cell cancer. She was 73. Dr. Kingsley saw patients for many years in New York. After leaving the city, she established a full-time practice here, working out of her residence in Northwest Woods. As longtime patients learned of her sudden illness they flooded her with calls of support and encouragement, her son said.

Albert Edwards Bennett, who was born on Cedar Street in East Hampton and lived all his life there except for Army service in World War II, died at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton on April 30, just shy of his 88th birthday. He had leukemia and colon cancer, said his neighbor and friend Robert Jones.

Edmund L. Downes was a huge Nascar fan. He loved watching it on television, and he used to have season tickets to the Dover International Speedway in Delaware, where he would take his family to watch his all-time favorite driver, the late Dale Earnhardt Sr.

Mr. Downes, a retired carpenter, died at home on Jesse Halsey Lane in Sag Harbor on May 4 at the age of 73. His family buried him with his favorite Nascar baseball hat and a hammer.

Eleanor Dickinson Baker, who was born in Third House, one of three colonial-era buildings on Montauk, died on May 1 at Southampton Hospital. She was 95 and had fallen two weeks earlier.

One of five children, Mrs. Baker was born on Dec. 21, 1918, to Frank Dickinson and the former Loretta Kelly. She grew up in the hamlet, attending the Montauk School and graduating from East Hampton High School.

    A memorial gathering for Eleanor Leaver, who died on Feb. 16 at the age of 93, will take place at Ashawagh Hall in Springs on May 25 from 5 to 7 p.m. Ms. Leaver, a pen-and-ink illustrator and artist who was known as Chip, lived in Springs for 43 years.

Leonard R. Mott, a lifelong resident of East Hampton who lived on Austin Road for the last 40 years, died on April 15 at Southampton Hospital.

Mr. Mott was a lover of the outdoors, of reading, and of sports, said his daughter, MaryBeth Fisher of East Hampton, and a big fan of the New York teams: the Giants, the Knicks, the Rangers, and the once-Brooklyn, now Los Angeles, Dodgers. He retired from long service to the Town of Riverhead, where he was a sewage plant operator, in 1981.

Marie Edwards Burkhardt, who was the last of her generation of Amagansett Edwardses, died on May 7 of pneumonia at Sentara Princess Anne Hospital in Virginia Beach. She was 99.

Mrs. Edwards came from a family that was among the first colonists to arrive in what would become East Hampton Town. Her father, Herbert N. Edwards, who was born in 1870, was a fisherman and whaler who took part in the last whale chases here and was East Hampton Town supervisor for two terms in the 1920s and ’30s.

Mary Johnston Evans, who had a successful career in business and was once honored as one of the 200 top corporate women by BusinessWeek magazine, died of complications of Alzheimer’s disease on May 5 at the Greens at Cannondale, an assisted-living facility in Wilton, Conn. She was 84 and had lived in East Hampton and New York City.

Remembered as smart, witty, and charming, Mrs. Evans was said to be one of the most successful women of her generation, one who inspired many women to take leadership positions in their communities and in business.

Mary Klassa, who lived in Montauk as a girl and attended South Fork schools, died on April 3 at Garden City Hospital in Michigan following a stroke. She was 64.

She was born Mary Alice McGuire on June 29, 1949, at Southampton Hospital, to William McGuire and the former Eva Holmes.

Mary Frances Steinberg, a former East Hampton resident and East Hampton Star employee, died on April 27 at home on Staten Island. The family said she died of natural causes. She was 80.

A native of Manhattan, where she grew up on the Upper West Side, Ms. Steinberg was born on April 26, 1934, to Michael McCarthy and the former Mary Arrigan. In 1965 she married Harold Steinberg, a former co-owner and executive of Chelsea House publishers. He died in 1999.

Molly Jo Miller, the former owner of an East Hampton antiques shop, died at home in East Hampton on May 3 at the age of 76. She had had heart problems for several months, her family said.

Mrs. Miller, who was known as M.J., and her husband, Walter (Pete) Miller, became part-time East End residents after buying a house in 1972. They moved here permanently in 1989, and she ran Circle Antiques on Main Street, beginning that year, for about a decade. She was a proud member of the Ladies Auxiliary of American Legion Post 419 in Amagansett.

A memorial service for Otis G. Pike, who represented the First Congressional District from 1960 to 1978 and died on Jan. 20, will be held at the First Congregational Church of Riverhead, at 103 First Street, on May 24 at 10:30 a.m.

Visiting hours will be next Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Reginald H. Tuthill Funeral Home, 406 East Main Street in Riverhead, and on Friday, May 23, from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. The public will be welcomed.

    The family of Phyllis and Richard Madan, East Hampton residents who died in November and January, respectively, both at 85, have announced that a memorial gathering for them will be held at 46 Maple Lane in East Hampton on June 7. Friends have been invited to stop by from 4 to 8 p.m. to share a story and lift a glass of champagne in the couple’s honor.

Anthony Drexel Duke, who as founder of the former Boys Harbor camp on Three Mile Harbor in East Hampton was a model and benefactor to generations of inner-city children, died at home in Gainesville, Fla., on April 30.

Christopher A. Cosich, a well-known bodybuilder and strength and fitness coach, died at home in Amagansett on April 21. He was 47 years old.

Eileen M. Buquicchio, who was 88, died at home on Middle Highway in East Hampton on Friday. She had suffered a series of strokes over the last seven months and died in her sleep.

Karin Terjesen Anderson, 45, of East Hampton, died at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City on April 28.

According to family legend, Mary Laura Bistrian was born on the kitchen table in the Cozzen’s house on Cozzen’s Lane in Amagansett. It was June 14, 1919, in the days when children were born at home.

Melville Straus, a longtime champion of Guild Hall as its chairman and a distinguished and successful businessman, died after a long illness with brain cancer on Thursday in New York City. Mr. Straus, who was known as Mickey, was 75.

Nancy Mulford Swank, a descendant of the Amagansett Mulford family, died of a heart attack on April 25 in Chapel Hill, N.C., where she had lived since 1979. She was 80.