Search for celebrities on Ancestry.com!July 30, 2003
Mary Tamayo
Mary Tamayo, whose family-owned restaurant burgeoned into one of the country's most successful Latino-owned businesses, La Tortilla Factory, died Monday of stomach cancer in her Santa Rosa home. She was 85.
Quile Uboldi
Quile Uboldi, a lifelong Kenwood resident and vineyard owner whose grapes helped sustain Sonoma County's jug wine business before the area's transformation to a premium wine industry, died Friday in his home of complications from pneumonia. He was 98.
Born in 1905 in a small building in Kenwood on what is now the site of the Kunde Winery, Uboldi spent most of his life surrounded by vineyards.
He owned 13-acres of vines on Lawndale Road, where he pruned and cultivated his old-fashioned grapes, including alicante bouschet and sauvignon vert. For more than 30 years, he sold his crop to the then-neighboring Pagani Brothers Winery.
After local wineries made the switch from jug to premium wines, however, Uboldi's business suffered. Despite claiming he was too old to start over, with the help of his family, he eventually revamped most of his crops.
"I'm too old ... I'll just bulldoze the vines and plant pasture for my sheep and cows," Uboldi told The Press Democrat for a story in 1986.
Today, his family continues to maintain the property and has six acres of Uboldi's original vines.
"There was times when the grape prices have gone down and he just continued to care for them (the grapes) regardless," said his son, Robert.
"He just enjoyed growing things," he said. "They had chickens and prunes and walnuts. He was just a real farmer."
Except for a stint in the Army during World War II, when he was stationed in New Orleans, he spent all of his life in Kenwood. While in Louisiana, he met Margaret Landry, who became his wife of 58 years. The couple had two sons.
Uboldi also was a former member of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau and the Kenwood Volunteer Fire Department.
In addition to his son Robert of Kenwood, Uboldi is survived by another son, Kenneth, also of Kenwood, and three grandchildren.
A funeral service will take place today at 10 a.m. at Lafferty & Smith Colonial Chapel, 4321 Sonoma Highway, Santa Rosa.
Donations in his honor may be made to Heartland Hospice, 2455 Bennett Valley Road, Santa Rosa 95404 or to the charity of the donor's choice.
July 29, 2003
Sally Holloway
Sally Toby Holloway loved jazz and for years she helped turn others on to her passion by producing the Russian River Jazz Festival.
Holloway, 70, died July 15 in Monterey after battling cancer for one year. She lived in Sonoma County about 10 years and in that time ran a successful health care consulting company and worked to build up the jazz festival on the banks of the Russian River.
"It went from stagnation to absolute brilliance over the years she produced it," said longtime companion Thom Buckner.
Under her influence of about eight years, the festival eventually included such jazz greats as Bobby Hutcherson and John Handy.
"She really helped put that thing on the map and raise it to another level," said close friend Nancy Banker of Oakland.
The festival ran for about 25 years and grew to attract up to 5,000 fans annually to Johnson's Beach in Guerneville.
Holloway, the daughter of Russian immigrants, was born and raised in Chicago.
She earned a bachelor's degree in history and a master's degree in public health. While in Chicago she directed the nurse education and training program at the University of Chicago Hospitals and became a lobbyist for the American Hospital Association.
In 1981, she moved to California and settled in Sonoma County, starting her health care consulting business.
She didn't know anyone, so got involved in the jazz festival as a way to meet others with a similar interest, Banker said.
In about 1990, Holloway moved to the Bay Area, where she and Banker merged their health care consulting businesses.
Holloway and Buckner loved to travel and recently toured the country and Mexico in a motor home. The couple also produced other jazz festivals in the Bay Area, he said.
She is survived by her daughters, Dawn Stromsborg of Duluth, Minn., and Joan Mayo of Monterey; brother Allan Mirkin of Wisconsin; and six grandchildren.
A "final bash for Sally" will be Aug. 24 at the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, 311 Mirada Road, Half Moon Bay. More information is available at www.bachddsoc.org.
Memorial contributions may be made to Hospice of the Central Coast, 100 Barnet Segal Lane, Monterey 93940.
Norma McClure, 'The Mack' star
PALMDALE -- Actress Norma McClure, who appeared in the 1973 blaxploitation comedy "The Mack," has died of congestive heart failure, her sister said Monday. She was 69.
She died Saturday night at her home in Palmdale, Carol Johnson said.
McClure had been working to revive her career and was designing dolls she planned to give to Iraqi children. She also started a food giveaway program for the needy in Berkeley in the 1960s, her sister said.
"We'd like to remember her for her charity, her creativity," Johnson said. "She helped a lot of people."
McClure was best known for "The Mack," which also featured Richard Pryor. One of her scenes was reprised for "True Romance," a 1993 film scripted by Quentin Tarantino, a blaxploitation aficionado.
She was also an active supporter of the Black Panthers and the group's co-founder, Huey Newton, Johnson said.
She is survived by four children, nine grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, seven sisters and a brother.
Sen. Vance Hartke, Indiana populist
Washington -- Former Sen. Vance Hartke, a liberal Indiana Democrat whose staunch opposition to the Vietnam War put him at odds with President Lyndon B. Johnson, died Sunday from heart failure. He was 84.
Hartke, who set up a law practice in Falls Church, Va., after he was defeated for re-election in 1976, died in a suburban Virginia hospital after being rushed there Saturday with chest pains, said his son, Jan. He had undergone open-heart surgery three years earlier.
Hartke was the mayor of Evansville, Ind., when he was first elected to the Senate in 1958. He was soon befriended by Johnson, the party's majority leader, who awarded him choice assignments on the powerful Finance and Commerce committees.
After winning re-election to a second term six years later, Hartke used his committee posts to advance Johnson's Great Society agenda, helping craft legislation creating student loan programs and new veterans benefits.
"In the late 1950s and the 1960s, he was one of the strongest voices for Medicare," retired Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., recalled Monday. "He took a real lead on that (despite) a lot of opposition in the state of Indiana. He was not afraid to take a tough, controversial stand."
Hartke used his chairmanship of Commerce's transportation subcommittee to make automakers equip cars with seat belts and other safety equipment, and helped establish Amtrak and Conrail. He also was instrumental in creating the International Executive Service Corps, an organization, modeled after the Peace Corps, that sent retired U.S. businessmen to poor countries to help turn small businesses into large ones.
The split between Hartke and Johnson occurred in 1965, when Hartke aligned himself with other Senate Democrats opposed to the Vietnam War. The group included J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota and George McGovern of South Dakota.
Hartke's opposition to Vietnam later earned him a spot on Richard Nixon's enemies list, but Hartke refused to hold a grudge against Nixon.
"That's neither here nor there," Hartke told the Indianapolis Star in 1991. "That's in the past."
Hartke won a third term in 1970 after a recount, a narrow victory marred by his Vietnam stance. He lost his Senate seat in 1976 to Republican Richard Lugar.
Hamilton said Hartke had an encyclopedic memory of projects in every Indiana county and recalled putting in 15- and 18-hour days campaigning with him.
"He revitalized Democratic politics in the state of Indiana," Hamilton said. "He brought tremendous energy to it. He was a genuine populist. His great passion was for ordinary Americans."
"He was vigorous, enthusiastic and optimistic," Lugar said in a statement. "I counted upon him as a friend with strong Hoosier ties and a generous spirit that gave me a boost each time I visited with him."
Indiana Gov. Frank O'Bannon said: "He was one of those people who never ran down. He was always running up and going."
Hartke's nephew Brian, who lost an Indiana congressional race last year, said the former senator "will be remembered as one of the best campaigners. He campaigned in every town, talked to all the people, never stopped. But at the same time, he wanted to make a mark in the U.S. Senate."
"You wished you had all the energy he had," Brian Hartke said.
"At 84 he was still going strong."
Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., who was attending a Democratic Leadership Council meeting Monday in Philadelphia, said Hartke "served the people of Indiana with distinction as both mayor and U.S. senator."
Hartke also had his share of political problems. In 1994, he was indicted by a grand jury in Indiana for alleged misdemeanor polling violations in connection with a successful campaign to allow riverboat casinos in Dearborn County. As part of a plea agreement, he was given a six-month suspended sentence.
Hartke was born May 31, 1919, in the southern Indiana coal-mining town of Stendal. After graduating from the University of Evansville, he earned his law degree from Indiana University. He enlisted in the Coast Guard and later served as a Navy officer in World War II.
"He was working in his office Friday night when I dropped by to see him," said his son Jan. "He wanted to be somebody who continued to achieve something."
Hartke is survived by his wife of 60 years, Martha, four sons, three daughters and 16 grandchildren, all of whom were with him when he died. He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, but funeral plans were incomplete Monday, his family said.
July 28, 2003
Edith Sanford
Farming was in Edith Sanford's blood and she became an ambassador of sorts for Sonoma County agriculture before retiring. She died Thursday from Alzheimer's disease at the age of 90.
Sanford was the executive secretary for the Sonoma County Farm Bureau for 21 years. She helped lead the voluntary organization of farm and ranch families and was instrumental in establishing the Sonoma County Farm Trails agricultural tourism program.
Born in Berkeley, Sanford's family bought a Sebastopol apple ranch when she was an infant.
She gave up one ranch for another when she marriage Elwood Sanford in 1935.
For the next 34 years, the couple and their three sons raised chickens for eggs and tended to apple and cherry orchards on a 21-acre farm in the Cunningham area south of Sebastopol.
For more than a decade, Sanford split time between her job with the Farm Bureau and the family ranch, where she worked alongside her husband and sons feeding chickens, gathering eggs and picking fruit.
"She had a lot of energy," said son Elwood Sanford Jr. of Sebastopol.
The family sold the ranch in 1969 after her husband died and she continued to work at the Farm Bureau until her retirement in 1978.
During her two decades with the organization, she watched the Farm Bureau's membership grow and the type of agriculture change.
She helped establish the Farm Trails program in the early 1970s. With 120 member farms, the program leads tourists and other visitors to farms where they can get fresh produce and a first-hand look at agriculture.
"She was a ramrod. She got things done," her son said.
In retirement, Sanford traveled across the United States. Often traveling by train, she visited every state except Alaska. Sanford also enjoyed crocheting and was a member of the Sebastopol United Methodist Church.
In addition to her son Elwood, Sanford is survived by her son Gary Sanford of Berlin, Mass.; and her sister Carol Rhodes of Santa Rosa.
Graveside services will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Sebastopol Memorial Lawn, 7951 Bodega Ave., Sebastopol.
Memorial donations may be made to the Alzheimer's Foundation, P.O. Box 4900, Santa Rosa 95402.
July 27, 2003
Dennis Patrick Hayes, a 6-foot-5-inch bachelor who family and friends called "a gentle giant," died at his Santa Rosa apartment July 18 from heart failure. He was 55.
Marjorie Ruth Swartz, an accomplished pianist and best remembered by her family and friends as a political, musical and spiritual visionary, died July 18 of Alzheimer's disease in Sebastopol. She was 87.
July 25, 2003
William Starkey
William Starkey, a second-generation apple rancher and a lifelong resident of Sebastopol, died from complications of a stroke at a hospital in Santa Rosa. He was 83.
With the exception of his time in the military during World War II, Starkey lived his whole life on Pleasant Hill Road, where he continued the family tradition of farming and raising apples.
Starkey had been a member of the Future Farmers of America since his days at Analy High School, class of 1939, and once took his prize-winning pig to a San Francisco contest and returned home with first-place ribbons.
He was a founding member of the Twin Hills Volunteer Fire Department, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3919 of Sebastopol and a member of the Farm Bureau.
For many years, he served on the Twin Hills School Board and the Sebastopol Co-op Cannery Board.
Starkey and his wife of 58 years, Blanche, met at a dance when she was 17.
She says she will always remember him as a "kind and gentle person with a lot of spirit. Bill was always fun to be with."
In addition to his wife, Starkey is survived by daughters Donna Fore of Sebastopol and Jane Reinecke of Irvine; sisters Frances Schumann of Sebastopol and Barbara Brodie of Petaluma; six grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. today at the Sebastopol Christian Church. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Starkey's name to the American Heart Association.
Carol Matthau
Carol Matthau, an actress and writer who marriage famously three times -- twice to author and playwright William Saroyan and once to actor Walter Matthau -- died Sunday of a brain aneurysm at her home in New York City. She was 78.
She was marriage to the celebrated comic actor for 41 years until his death in 2000 at age 79. Her first marriage to Saroyan, in 1943, lasted six years; her second, in 1951, lasted six months.
She professed to be the inspiration behind Holly Golightly, the insouciant protagonist of Truman Capote's 1958 novella, "Breakfast at Tiffany's."
She wrote, often tartly, of her charmed circle of Hollywood and literary friends in a 1992 memoir, "Among the Porcupines."
"It seems strange that everyone I'm writing about was very famous," she noted. "I wonder about it, too. Didn't I ever find anyone interesting who was not famous? Actually, no, I didn't."
Born in New York City, Matthau never knew her father and lived in foster homes as a young child after her Russian immigrant mother went to work in a factory.
When she was 8, her mother marriage again, this time to Bendix Corp. executive Charles Marcus, who warmly welcomed his wife's illegitimate daughter. Matthau came to live with them in a posh 18-room apartment on Fifth Avenue. Like Cinderella, she was transformed. She attended the tony Dalton School and became best friends with Oona O'Neill, the daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill (and later the wife of Charlie Chaplin), and Gloria Vanderbilt.
She was a 16-year-old blond beauty when bandleader Artie Shaw, a family friend, introduced her to Saroyan at a Hollywood restaurant.
Saroyan, who was twice her age, was infatuated with the striking debutante. But Saroyan told her he would not marry her until he knew she could bear children, and she complied. When they were marriage in a civil ceremony in Dayton, Ohio, in 1943, she was two months pregnant with their first child, Aram. A daughter, Lucy, was born in 1946.
After they divorced, she supported herself and the children by acting and writing. She wrote a 1955 novella, "The Secret in the Daisy," under the name Carol Grace.
She often joined Capote, a childhood friend, at a Manhattan nightclub for 3 a.m. parleys over gin and beer. At 7 a.m., they would buy a breakfast of coffee and doughnuts and eat it in front of Tiffany's. Years later she reported in her memoir that he told her she was the model for Holly Golightly.
She met Walter Matthau in 1955 when she was hired as an understudy in a play he was starring in, "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" They had an affair for four years, finally marrying in 1959. In 1962, their son, Charles, was born.
Colin McMillan
Oilman Colin McMillan, nominated as Navy secretary by President Bush in May, died Thursday at his ranch in southern New Mexico. He was 67.
The cause and manner of death were not immediately disclosed.
Roswell Mayor Bill Owen, a family spokesman and longtime McMillan employee, said neither the Otero County Sheriff's Office nor the state Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque had determined the cause.
McMillan had run Permian Exploration Corp. in Roswell, was chairman of Bush's New Mexico presidential campaign in 2000 and served as an assistant defense secretary under the first President Bush.
President Bush had submitted McMillan's nomination to the Senate in May. McMillan was awaiting Senate confirmation.
McMillan was born in Texas and graduated from the University of North Carolina. He came to Roswell while working with Texaco in the 1960s, Owen said.
McMillan is survived by his wife, Kay, and their four children.
Howard Morehead
Howard Morehead, a former Tuskegee Airman and pioneering photographer who captured musicians including Ray Charles and Louis Armstrong for newspapers and television, has died. He was believed to have been 79.
Morehead died July 13 at Veterans Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles, said longtime friend and TV producer Tom Reed. He had no known relatives and no cause of death was given.
Morehead was born in Topeka, Kan., and was one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen in World War II. He studied photography at Los Angeles City College and motion picture photography at Southern California. He worked as a news photographer for the Los Angeles Sentinel in the 1950s, and his photographs appeared in Jet and Ebony magazines.
In 1970, Morehead became the first black staff cameraman to work at a Los Angeles television station, at KTLA-TV. He later worked for KABC-TV.
"It's not that I was the best, but I just happened to be the first," Morehead said in 1994.
Friend Stephanie Evans said a memorial was planned for Monday in Los Angeles.
July 8, 2003
Violet DeMeo
Violet DeMeo, who was born into a pioneering dairy family and later marriage into one of Santa Rosa's most prominent families, died July 1 of natural causes in a convalescent home.
She was 93.
A lifelong Sonoma County resident, DeMeo was a homemaker who brought a sense of style and grace to almost everything she did, said her son, Mark DeMeo, a Santa Rosa pathologist.
"She was the ambassador of happiness," he said. "She was known in every shop, in every grocery store, in every bakery. She knew everybody."
DeMeo was born Violet LaFranchi on Jan. 17, 1910, in Sebastopol, and was raised on a dairy farm where she loved to ride horses and help herd cows.
She dropped out of Analy High School to care for her ill mother, but went on to graduate from cosmetology school and Sweet's Business College, and for a time worked as a hairdresser.
She met her husband, Nick DeMeo, at a night club in Rio Nido. He was an aspiring banjo and piano player who became a prominent Santa Rosa attorney. His brother, Charles, was responsible for the DeMeo Foundation, a Santa Rosa-based philanthropic organization.
Violet DeMeo belonged to the San Souci Dance Club and loved to swing dance. But her favorite tune was Willie Nelson's version of "September Song."
At home, she kept a spotless house while raising three children.
"She was an unbelievable mom," her son said. "I could live my childhood over 100 times."
DeMeo was a member of St. Rose Parish and the St. Rose Mother's Club. Her husband preceded her in death in 1992.
DeMeo is survived by daughter Joan Cloughesy of San Jose and sons John and Mark DeMeo, both of Santa Rosa. She is also survived by a brother, Howard LaFranchi of Sebastopol, and sister Dorothy Neal of England.
Services will be at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Calvary Cemetery, 2930 Bennett Valley Road in Santa Rosa. A reception will follow at Vineyard Creek Center, 170 Railroad St., in Santa Rosa.
The family suggests donations to the Valley of the Moon Children's Foundation, the Thomas Mark DeMeo Scholarship Fund, St. Rose School or a favorite charity.
Ignacio Velasco
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Cardinal Ignacio Velasco, who led Venezuela's Roman Catholic Church through a stormy relationship with President Hugo Chavez, has died. He was 74.
Velasco died early Monday in his Caracas home after battling a lengthy illness, said Monsignor Jose Luis Gonzalez, administrator of the Caracas archdiocese.
Hundreds of Venezuelans, including former President Luis Herrera Campins, paid their respects at the Caracas Cathedral, where Velasco's casket was to remain through Wednesday. Pope John Paul II sent condolences.
Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel called Velasco's death "a loss we regret because of what it means for the great Venezuelan Catholic family."
Velasco's 2001 appointment as cardinal was "an honor for the Venezuelan people," Rangel added in a statement sent to the Associated Press.
Velasco often jumped into Venezuela's bitter debate over Chavez's leftist policies.
Shortly after his appointment as cardinal, Velasco warned that Chavez risked losing the public's faith if he did not improve relations with the church in this predominantly Roman Catholic country.
Chavez once called the church a "tumor" and priests "devils under their cassocks."
Velasco visited Chavez while the president was in custody during a brief 2002 coup. After the coup, Velasco urged Venezuelans to heed Chavez's appeal for reconciliation, saying the president "promised me he would correct many things."
In November, unidentified assailants tossed a grenade at Velasco's Caracas home. No one was hurt. And in April, Velasco warned that Chavez was leading Venezuela toward communism and called upon God "to free" the country from that threat. Chavez angrily denied the charge.
In a 2001 interview with the Associated Press, Velasco smiled when asked whether his appointment as cardinal was a message to Chavez.
"I see it this way," he said. "My appointment to cardinal is a way to support the church. This is the way the people see it. And the pope feels that by naming cardinals, he has strengthened the church against the public authorities.
"Although I am a person who likes a good dialogue, I try to be like a bridge, to exchange ideas, unless there is clearly something negative that needs to be said. And the church will always say it."
Velasco was born Jan. 17, 1929, in the western town of Acarigua, Venezuela. He was ordained in 1955 at age 25 and spent years working with indigenous communities in Venezuela's Amazon jungle.
