Search for celebrities on Ancestry.com!April 3, 2004
Shaundra Rutledge-Sinnwell
Shaundra Leigh Rutledge-Sinnwell, a mother of three who is remembered for a caring nature, was found dead March 1 in her Petaluma apartment.
The cause of death, while still being determined, wasn't suspicious, authorities said. She was 45.
Rutledge-Sinnwell lived in Sonoma and Marin counties all her life, starting in San Anselmo and Novato where she was a Girl Scout and attended San Marin High School.
She took a year of courses at Indian Valley College in Ignacio.
Rutledge-Sinnwell loved animals, starting with her German shepherd Sabrina and horses her family boarded when she was a child. She also enjoyed the Renaissance Faire at Black Point where she worked when she was a teenager.
She worked much of her life as a waitress and sometimes a cook, at restaurants ranging from the Golden Egg Omelette in Novato to the Pete's Henny Penny's in Petaluma. She also worked as a telephone operator in Santa Rosa.
She had three children -- two who are now adults and one who is 14 -- from two marriages and one long-term relationship.
While she had struggled with alcohol addiction and sometimes homelessness, family members said she was free from addiction for more than five years, attending the Living Faith Church, where she was baptized in November, and living independently in a Buckelew Programs apartment in Petaluma.
She loved flowers, and would take a dying tree from a garbage can to plant it and nurture it back to life, said her father, Charles Rutledge of Petaluma.
"She'd see a need and try to fill it. She was always trying to help," he said.
"She didn't have any problem introducing herself to people," Rutledge said. "She always had a smile on her face, that's how I'll remember her."
In addition to her father and stepmother, Ginger Rutledge of Petaluma, she is survived by her son, John Sabbatini of Novato, and daughters Angel Dwight of Nampa, Idaho and Arial Sinnwell of Cave Junction, Ore.
She also is survived by her sisters, Misty Sturbaum of Nampa, Idaho, Tami Robinette of Eureka, Heather Hernandez of Reno, Gin Iturreria of Pine Grove; and her brothers, Randy Rutledge of Santa Rosa, Shane Hernandez of Reno, Cheyenne Hernandez of Novato and Joe Kreger of Petaluma. Her mother died last year.
Pierre Wirtz
Pierre Henri Wirtz, a French-born winemaker and cabinetmaker who came to the United States after serving in the French Resistance during World War II, died Monday at his home in Santa Rosa. He was 87.
Among his prized possessions is a photo taken with then-general and later President Charles De Gaulle after they had dined together during the war.
He also kept a photo of a desk he had crafted for then-governor and later President Ronald Reagan. The desk was made in the 1960s after Wirtz went to work for Paul Zell Designs in Petaluma.
Born in Jeuxey, France, Wirtz was a soldier during the war first for France and later for the British Army. It was then he met his wife of 64 years, Molly, a British citizen also serving in the army.
Wirtz later was wounded while serving in the French underground.
After the war, he became a master winemaker for G.H. Mumm and Vueve Cliquot champagne makers in France.
In 1959, at age 43, he came to Sonoma County, drawn partly by the challenge of working in the region's burgeoning wine industry.
His son, Dominique Wirtz of Petaluma, recalled it as a "pretty gutsy move. He had five kids and he came over here."
Wirtz worked a half dozen years for the Buena Vista and Sebastiani wineries, then went into custom cabinetry. He retired about 20 years ago.
He was a patient man, whether building his cabinets or preparing exquisite cooking sauces. He enjoyed traveling to Europe and journeying in his motor home around the United States.
He became a U.S. citizen in 1972.
Along with his son and wife, survivors include his four other children, Carole Vialle of Chenay, France; Jacqueline Myers of Trail, Ore.; Kieron Pierre Wirtz of Lower Lake and Sylvain Wirtz of Cloverdale; an adopted son, Juan Pierre Wirtz-Antillon of Santa Rosa; 18 grandchildren, 28 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandson.
Services are at 2 p.m. today at Lafferty & Smith Colonial Chapel.
The family prefers memorial contributions to Heartland Hospice, 2455 Bennett Valley Road, Suite B-214, Santa Rosa 95405.
Col. Aaron Bank, 'Father of the Green Berets'
Retired Army Col. Aaron Bank, who led a number of daring missions during World War II but was best known for his postwar role in organizing and serving as the first commander of the Army's elite Special Forces, has died. He was 101.
Bank, who was known as "the father of the Green Berets," died Thursday of natural causes at his home in an assisted-living facility in Dana Point, said his son-in-law, Bruce Ballantine.
During World War II, Bank was a special-operations officer for the Office of Strategic Services, the top-secret government agency formed to gather intelligence and organize resistance forces behind enemy lines.
The OSS, forerunner of the CIA, was disbanded soon after the war.
But Bank and others were convinced the Army should have a permanent unit whose mission would be to conduct unconventional operations.
In 1951, the chief of the Army's Psychological Warfare staff, who had been impressed by OSS special operations during the war, instructed Bank to staff and obtain approval for the creation of an OSS-style operational group.
In 1952, after Bank and other key staff members had made their case, the Army approved 2,300 spaces for men in a Special Forces unit -- the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) -- at Fort Bragg, N.C.
"I wanted none but the best," Bank said in a 1968 interview with the Los Angeles Times. "First, they had to be double volunteers; that is, they had to volunteer for parachuting and behind-enemy-lines duties, which takes a special flair, a special type of personality. We had to work up all the manuals and training procedures for demolition, sabotage, new and different ways of handling weapons."
But most important, Bank said, "We had to teach them the classic aim and purpose of their service -- the organizing of civilian natives into guerrilla forces in enemy-held territory."
Bank later wrote a memorandum suggesting that Special Forces soldiers be allowed to wear berets as a mark of distinction. He listed three possible colors for the berets: purple, wine-red or green. But the Army didn't allow distinctive headgear at the time and the idea was turned down.
It wasn't until 1962, four years after Bank retired from the military, that President John F. Kennedy authorized Army Special Forces to wear berets. Kennedy, Bank later said, "picked the green because he was an Irishman."
Today there are about 7,700 soldiers in five active-duty and two National Guard Special Forces groups.
At Fort Bragg, which is still the home of the Green Berets, Bank is considered a military icon.
"Colonel Aaron Bank is a legend within the Special Forces community," Maj. Robert Gowan, spokesman for the Army Special Forces Command, said Thursday.
Born in New York City, Bank began working summers in his teens as a lifeguard and swimming teacher. He liked the work so much, he later said, that by the late 1920s it had become something of a career.
He was in and out of Europe over the next decade and learned to speak French and German fluently. In the late 1930s, sensing the inevitability of war, he returned home and joined the Army. By the time the United States entered the war, Bank had been commissioned a second lieutenant.
In 1943, the 40-year-old Bank was serving as a tactical training officer to a railroad battalion stationed at Camp Polk, La., when he saw a bulletin announcing that volunteers with foreign-language capabilities would be interviewed for "special assignments."
Once in the OSS, he said, he began a long training course that taught him "to do all the things that regular branches of the service frowned on" -- guerrilla warfare, sabotage, espionage, escape and evasion tactics.
He also learned parachuting. As commander of one of the three-man teams that dropped into southern France before the Allied Mediterranean invasion in August 1944, he and his men posed as civilians and helped French Resistance leaders organize a guerrilla force that blew up bridges, power lines and railroad tracks, and ambushed German columns.
In December 1944, Bank received what he considered the most extraordinary assignment of his career: to recruit and train 170 anti-Nazi German prisoners of war and defectors who would parachute with him into the Austrian Alps, where they would pose as a German mountain-infantry company.
The primary goal of the top-secret mission, dubbed Iron Cross, was to capture high-ranking Nazi leaders, including Adolf Hitler, who were expected to seek refuge in the area as the war in Europe neared an end.
Had the operation gone through and had they been successful in capturing Hitler, Bank told the Times in 1987, "the war would have been over overnight." But in April 1945 -- after three months of training in France -- the mission was scrubbed.
"I never cried in my life, but I damn near cried when they told me it was aborted," Bank said in a 1993 Times interview.
Bank said he had heard two versions of why the mission was canceled. "One was that the American 7th Army was ready to crack into the Inn Valley. And it was a short time later that they did." And because many of the Germans on the mission were pro-communist, he said, he heard that "the State Department didn't want to drop a big team of party Communists into Austria toward the latter part of the war."
Hitler, it turned out, was in Berlin at the time; he committed suicide on April 30, 1945.
After the aborted Iron Cross mission, Bank was parachuted into the jungles of Indochina to search for Japanese POW camps. His team located 165 French internees at three different locations in the Vientiane area of Laos.
Bank, who also served in the Korean War, retired from the Army in 1958 and moved to San Clemente.
In 1972, at age 70, he began working full time as chief of security at a private oceanfront community in Capistrano Beach, a job he held until he was 85.
Extremely fit and vigorous most of his life, the 5-foot-8, 140-odd-pound Bank swam around the San Clemente pier every day until he was 74. He then took to running 40 minutes a day on the hilly streets near his home.
Over the years, Bank wrote two books: "From OSS to Green Berets: The Birth of Special Forces" (Presidio Press, 1987); and "Knights Cross" (Birch Lane Press, 1993), a novel co-written with E.M. Nathanson, author of "The Dirty Dozen."
"Knights Cross" is based, in part, on Bank's real-life exploits with the aborted Iron Cross mission, but the novel has a twist: The mission to capture Hitler is not aborted and Bank's fictional alter ego succeeds in capturing the German leader.
"I think of Aaron as a national treasure," Nathanson told the Times. "He was a gracious gentleman and a dedicated warrior. There would seem to be a conflict between those two phrases, but they went together very well with him."
Bank is survived by his wife, Catherine; their two daughters, Linda Ballantine of Dana Point, and Alexandra Elliott of Anaheim; and a granddaughter.
April 1, 2004
Doris Lunardi
Doris Ramona Lunardi loved fishing, hunting and taking regular trips to the family cabin.
She was an avid gardener, and kept a large flower garden and fish pond.
There was golfing, too, gambling trips to Reno, travel, volunteering for community organizations and, of course, children and grandchildren.
But over the two years since she was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, Lunardi lost the ability to do the things that she loved.
"Doris was suffering," her friend Sarah Thomas said. "She was just so active, and I think that was one of the things that was so hard for her to accept."
Lunardi died Sunday at age 73, surrounded by her family at her Occidental home.
Born in San Francisco, Lunardi, formerly Gonnella, was raised in Occidental from the age of 7, and remained a fixture in the community through childhood, motherhood and more than 54 years of marriage to her husband, Joe Lunardi.
They met in grammar school at Meeker School, and started dating when Doris invited her future husband to the senior prom at Tomales High shortly after he returned from a stint with the Navy during World War II.
They raised a daughter and twin boys.
Lunardi also worked in the office of the electrical contracting firm they shared until her retirement. She earlier held jobs as assistant postmistress in Occidental and at Santa Rosa's White House Department Store, her husband said.
But the couple had ample time to enjoy outdoor hobbies, going often to their cabin in Shasta County and heading to Modoc County to hunt deer.
Friends said Lunardi was known for her loving, generous personality. She loved handing out baskets or boxes of fruit, vegetables or flowers she'd grown, and crocheted afghans by the dozens for local nursing homes and hospitals.
She was past president of the Occidental Fire Department board of directors, past treasurer of the St. Philip's Ladies Guild, past president of the American Legion Auxiliary, and an active volunteer for the Graton Community Club and American Cancer Society.
"She did a lot for people that nobody ever knew about," friend Pauline Koverman said. "She wasn't the kind of person who would boast or brag about what she did."
In addition to her husband, Lunardi is survived by daughter, Jolene Corcoran of Occidental; sons, Ron Lunardi and Ray Lunardi, both of Occidental; seven grandchildren; a niece; and numerous cousins.
Friends may visit from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today at Parent-Sorensen Mortuary in Sebastopol. A vigil service will take place at 7 tonight at St. Philip the Apostle Catholic Church in Occidental.
A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 11 a.m. Friday at St. Philips, with entombment at the Druid's Cemetery.
Memorial donations can be made to the Occidental Fire Department, P.O. Box 157, Occidental 95465, or St. Philip's Church Building Fund, P.O. Box 339, Occidental 95465.
Art James, 74
MINNEAPOLIS -- Art James, who was an announcer or host for a dozen TV game shows over three decades, including "Concentration" and "Family Feud Challenge," has died. He was 74.
James, who lived in Chaska, Minn., died Sunday in Palm Springs, his former wife, Sandra Pietron, said Wednesday. Pietron, also of Chaska, said James was stricken by a sudden illness and the cause of death was not known.
James worked as an announcer on "Concentration," which ran from 1958 to 1973 and was NBC's longest-running game show.
"One of the gentlemen from his Army days was an executive with NBC and asked Art to audition for this new game show, 'Concentration,' with Hugh Downs, who needed an announcer," said his first wife, Jane Hamilton.
"He was nervous as a cat, but he got it," said Hamilton, who lives in Los Angeles.
James also worked on shows including "Say When," "Face the Music" and "Blank Check" before he started his own company, Art James Productions, in the 1990s. The company teaches public speaking and stages game shows that are designed to teach job skills.
Born Arthur Efimchick on Oct. 15, 1929, in Dearborn, Mich., James attended Wayne State University, where he studied business.
He worked as an announcer for the Armed Forces Network while he was stationed in Germany after World War II.
March 14, 2004
Barbara McMahon
Memorial services for Barbara Louise Hardin McMahon, wife of the late Sonoma County Judge Alexander J. McMahon, will be today in Sonoma.
She was 78 when she died Feb. 28 at her home.
McMahon was born in Willits and grew up in Petaluma where she graduated from Petaluma High School. She received a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Southern California.
Her late husband had a long legal career in the Sonoma Valley, beginning as a civil attorney and then as attorney for the city of Sonoma. The couple first settled in Sonoma in 1949 in a small house on family property at Four Corners, now occupied by Friedman's Hardware.
In 1966, he was appointed municipal judge over southern Sonoma County, a position he held until his death in 1976.
She returned to school and earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology from Sonoma State University. She also spent many years as a volunteer at St. Francis Solano School and its support organizations.
Her son, Bud McMahon, a Sonoma County deputy district attorney, recalled his mother as being keenly interested in linguistics and in American politics.
She was also an accomplished oil painter, seamstress and avid reader.
In addition to her son Bud McMahon of Sonoma, she is survived by daughter Jeanne Bolin of Lincoln, Neb.; sons Chris McMahon of San Francisco and Tom McMahon of Oro Valley, Ariz.; and eight grandchildren.
Friends are invited to gather at the family home in Sonoma at 1 p.m. today.
The family prefers no flowers and suggests contributions in Barbara McMahon's name to the donor's favorite charity.
Spencer Flournoy memorial service
A memorial service will be Monday for Spencer Flournoy, the president and founder of the Sonoma County Taxpayers Association.
Flournoy, who retired to Sonoma County in 1983 after a long career that included military service and senior executive positions with Occidental Petroleum Corp., died Thursday of complications from heart surgery. He was 80.
In addition to running the taxpayers association, Flournoy was a member of the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Burbank Center for the Arts' board of directors.
Services will be at 1 p.m. Monday at St. Patrick's Episcopal Church, 9000 Sonoma Highway, Kenwood.
Ruth Ellington Boatwright, sister of Duke Ellington
Ruth Ellington Boatwright, Duke Ellington's only sibling, who for many years took care of his business affairs, died March 6 in New York. She was 88.
Her son Michael James said she had been sick for some time.
Ruth Dorothea Ellington was born July 2, 1915, in Washington.
Her first memory of her brother, who was 16 years older, was hearing him perform on the radio.
In 1930, Duke Ellington, by then highly successful, summoned his sister and parents from Washington to live with him in an apartment in Harlem.
"He was the only brother I had, and I was his only sister," Boatwright said in an interview with Ebony in 1999. "He took care of me from the time I was 12, and he's still taking care of me."
Ellington died in 1974; Boatwright oversaw his copyrights, contracts and other business matters for many years afterward.
In 1991, she sold a large number of his musical scores and manuscripts to the Smithsonian Institution. In 1995, she sold 51 percent of Tempo Music, the company that owns most of Ellington's compositions, to a New York publisher.
Boatwright graduated from Columbia University in 1939 with a degree in biology, planning to teach. She then went to Europe to learn languages and write a thesis comparing the teaching of biology in Paris and New York. She stayed with Josephine Baker, the singer and her brother's friend.
In 1941, Ellington formed Tempo Music to oversee his interests and named his sister president. He also bought her a four-story house where she maintained his trophy room of medals and honors.
In the 1950s she was host of a radio interview program in New York.
She was active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and was a founder of the jazz ministry of St. Peter's Lutheran Church in New York, where Ellington was a friend of the first designated jazz pastor, the Rev. John Garcia Gensel.
Her first marriage, to Daniel James, a journalist and political scientist, ended in divorce. Her second husband, McHenry Boatwright, an operatic baritone, died in 1994.
She is survived by her sons Michael and Stephen James, both of New York.
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, pianist and composer
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, a composer, conductor and pianist who combined styles from the classics to jazz to create sonatas, concertos and symphonies as well as scores for movies and television, died Tuesday in Chicago. He was 71.
The cause was cancer, said Rosita Sands, director of the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College Chicago, where Perkinson was artistic director of the performance program.
His career took him from the concert halls of Europe to the jazz combo of the drummer Max Roach, and he did arranging for Marvin Gaye, Harry Belafonte and Melvin Van Peebles, among many others.
Perkinson, known as Perk, was a co-founder and musical director of the Symphony of the New World in New York, and was its acting music director during the 1972-73 season.
At various times he was composer in residence or music director for the Negro Ensemble Co., the Alvin Ailey Dance Company and the Dance Theater of Harlem and for productions of the American Theater Lab, among others. He was guest conductor with many orchestras.
Perkinson called composition "written improvisation." Bernard Holland wrote in a review in the New York Times in 1988 that his "String Quartet No. 1" "identified with some precision the compatibilities of French impressionism and jazz."
The International Dictionary of Black Composers says he explored "the extremities of the sound spectrum," using odd metrical signatures and other methods, and notes that he placed "widely spaced accompaniments against closely woven voices a la Stravinsky."
Perkinson was born on June 14, 1932, in Manhattan, and was named for Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a black British composer and conductor who gained recognition in the 1890s.
After graduating from the High School of Music and Art, where he shared the LaGuardia Prize in Music with the soprano Reri Grist, Perkinson attended New York University.
He then transferred to the Manhattan School of Music, where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees, studying with Hugh Ross, a prominent choral director, who introduced him to Stravinsky and other musical luminaries. Perkinson also sang as a baritone soloist in New York churches.
He taught at Brooklyn College from 1959 to 1962 and was director of the Brooklyn Community Symphony Orchestra, an affiliate of the school's music department. In the summers he studied orchestral conducting at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. In the mid-1960s he played in the Max Roach Quartet and later worked with Roach as an arranger and conductor.
His film scores include "A Warm December," a 1973 movie starring and directed by Sidney Poitier. His classical compositions have been recorded by the Chicago Sinfonietta, the flutist Harold Jones and others.
Perkinson is survived by his daughter, Joette Thompson, of Kansas City, Mo.; his sister, Beverly Perkinson Thomas of Houston; and two grandchildren.
