Search for celebrities on Ancestry.com!October 13, 2002
Robert Allan Griffiths, a 28-year Petaluma resident active in many of the city's community groups, died Oct. 9 in a Santa Rosa hospital at the age of 63. The cause of death was heart disease, the family said.
October 12, 2002
Albert Mihaly, a longtime Santa Rosa architect whose work is indelibly etched in the face of the community -- from Montgomery High School to St. Eugene's Cathedral -- died Sunday at home at the age of 94.
October 11, 2002
LaVonne Boisvert, a longtime businesswoman and a co-owner of the Classic Duck shop in the Coddingtown Mall, died Oct. 2 after a long battle with cancer.
October 10, 2002
Charl E. Rhode, a pioneer in the field of social work and a resident of Santa Rosa for 41 years, died Oct. 2 of lung cancer. She was 94.
October 9, 2002
Zenona Robledo, a successful Sonoma County businesswoman who ran a chain of Mexican restaurants with only a year's worth of formal education, died of heart failure in her Santa Rosa home Sunday. She was 73.
October 8, 2002
Lois Hostetter
On the last day of Lois Marie Hostetter's life, 40 well-wishers visited her hospital room, while family members maintained a vigil, sang with her and played music.
"It was just a wonderful day," said her daughter, Roxanne Nassan of Santa Rosa.
Hostetter, 71, died Sept. 30 at a Santa Rosa hospital after an eight-month battle with lung cancer. Four days earlier, she had seen her last client as a marriage and family counselor, and three days before she had her nails done.
That spirit was typical of Hostetter's life as a single mother of two, a Christian and a counselor who always put her patients' needs first, Nassan said.
At her memorial service on Saturday, someone said: "It seems like half of us here are saying she's my best friend," her daughter said.
When she was fighting cancer and people would call to ask how she was, Hostetter would turn the conversation around and ask how they were doing. "She had a hard time focusing on herself," Nassan said.
Hostetter even kept from her children how ill she was, and was planning a trip to Mexico to undertake a new treatment when she was hospitalized.
"We're grieving but we know where she is," Nassan said. "We just feel so confident she's in God's presence. It was like walking her up that last day."
Born in Longmont, Colo., Hostetter moved to Washington state as a child and attended college in Oregon and Washington. She moved to Santa Rosa in the early 1950s and graduated from Sonoma State University in 1971.
She worked with Young Life, a ministry to high school students, and as a dental office receptionist in Sebastopol. After her children were grown, Hostetter earned a master's degree in marriage and family counseling from University of San Francisco in 1986.
She most recently worked with Christian Counseling Associates in Larkfield. A Christian since childhood, she was a member of the Bethel Baptist Church in Santa Rosa.
Survivors, in addition to Nassan, are: a son, Jay Hostetter of Santa Rosa; brother, Ken Arfsten of Jacksonville, Fla.; and three grandchildren.
Memorial donations may be made to the Pregnancy Counseling Center, 750 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa, 95404.
Tony Mazzocchi
Tony Mazzocchi, a longtime advocate for workplace safety whose disenchantment with traditional politics led him to organize the United States' first labor party in 70 years, died at his home in Washington, D.C., Saturday. He was 76 and had pancreatic cancer.
Mazzocchi brought 1,400 union leaders to a Cleveland convention hall in 1996 to form the Labor Party. Labeled a foolhardy idea by union leaders and political analysts, it was conceived in an era of waning union strength and has fewer than 14,000 members.
Although disappointed by the fledgling party's slow growth, Mazzocchi remained committed to its pro-worker agenda, focused on single-payer national health insurance, free higher education and worker rights.
His slogan: "The bosses have two parties. We need one of our own!"
He was considered "the Ralph Nader of industrial safety." Along with Nader and other activists, he was a key figure behind the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970, often called the most far-reaching pro-labor law of the past half-century.
"Over the last 30 years, nobody comes close to him," said Nader, who praised Mazzocchi's leadership on the drives to pass OSHA, the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act and other major legislation.
"He is an icon," said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association. "More than anyone, he is the unsung hero of organized labor."
A former secretary-treasurer of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, Mazzocchi advised its most famous member, Oklahoma plutonium plant worker Karen Silkwood, whose struggles to ensure plant safety and tragic death inspired the 1983 Oscar-nominated movie "Silkwood."
During the 1980s, Mazzocchi drew attention to efforts in industry to make women working around toxic materials undergo sterilization. He was cited by Ms. magazine in 1982 as one of the "40 Male Heroes of the Decade" for "exposing exclusionary corporate 'fetal protection policies' " that restricted the hiring of women of childbearing age.
August 2, 2002
Celeste Colombi
Celeste Colombi, a hard-working businesswoman and a devout Christian, died of heart failure Sunday in Fort Bragg. She was 70.
Colombi was born in her family home in Fort Bragg and remained a resident of the coastal city for life. The youngest of four children and the only girl in an Italian immigrant family, she grew up to run the family's grocery store with her oldest brother, Robert.
Robert Colombi, who at age 80 still manages the Colombi Market in Fort Bragg, remembered his sister as a quiet and empathetic person who donated to charities and didn't hesitate to aid people in need.
"She was a big donor of the local food bank. She liked to help people," Robert Colombi said.
Celeste Colombi attended local schools and graduated from Fort Bragg High School in 1948. She then joined the family's grocery business.
She never married, but had a supportive circle of friends, Robert Colombi said.
She enjoyed going to the Mendocino Presbyterian Church, her family said, attending regularly until a few years ago, when her health began to fail from a debilitating type of asthma.
In her spare time, Colombi loved to take shopping trips to Santa Rosa and San Francisco for clothes and other items.
Colombi also loved animals and owned several cats and dogs, her brother said.
Colombi was entombed at Rose Memorial Park in Fort Bragg on Wednesday.
In addition to her brother Robert, Colombi is survived by two other brothers, William F. Colombi and Edward Colombi, both of Fort Bragg.
Memorial donations may be made to the Mendocino Coast Humane Society, 19691 Summers Lane, Fort Bragg 95437. Contributions also may be made to the American Lung Association, 115 Talbot Ave., Santa Rosa 95404.
William Mallow, inventor, 72
SAN ANTONIO -- William A. Mallow, a prolific inventor who helped develop some of the most ubiquitous products for commercial and household use, including Liquid Paper and a clumping cat litter, Scoop Away Clean, died of acute leukemia July 30 at a San Antonio hospital. He was 72.
A polymer chemist, Mallow spent nearly 40 years with the Southwest Research Institute, where he worked on a variety of projects, from tiles for the space shuttle to improving the silicone rubber skin covering on the robotic dinosaurs in the Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.
Liquid Paper, the typewriter correction fluid, was invented by Bette Nesmith Graham, but at her request, Southwest Research helped refine it. Southwest Research is an independent, nonprofit development center based in San Antonio.
More recently, Mallow, who retired from Southwest Research in 1998 but remained a technical adviser, was working on a slippery gel designed to thwart rioters or enemy attacks on military installations.
Mallow also worked on a biocidal coating that destroys infectious viruses, fungi and bacteria.
James Lankford, director of the Materials Engineering Department at the institute, called Mallow a great scientist.
A native of Akron, Ohio, Mallow was a good enough violinist to be accepted by the Cleveland Orchestra. Instead, he enlisted in the Air Force.
Charles Wysocki, painter, 73
LOS ANGELES -- Charles Wysocki, a painter of American life who favored mass appeal and commercial growth over critical acclaim, has died. He was 73.
Wysocki died of organ failure Monday at USC Research Hospital following complications from stomach surgery.
Wysocki put his artwork on everything from popcorn tins and T-shirts to jigsaw puzzles and wallpaper, generating a wide and loyal fan base.
He was earning more than $7 million yearly from sales of the products, and his original acrylics have sold for as much as $30,000.
August 1, 2002
Services will be Saturday for Mary Edna Wilson, a member of Sonoma County's pioneer Purrington family and a real estate agent in Petaluma for about 25 years.
July 31, 2002
Charles Rardin
Charles Ernest Rardin, an Adobe Christian Center founder and 40-year member of the Petaluma Masons, died after a brief illness. He was 86.
Rardin was admitted to a San Rafael hospital July 9 with gall bladder problems, said his daughter, Kathryn Baldes of Petaluma. He was later diagnosed with a blood infection and died Saturday of lung failure, she said.
Services for Rardin are 11 a.m. today at Parent-Sorensen Mortuary & Crematory in Petaluma.
Rardin and his wife of 66 years, Mary Maxine Rardin, came to Sonoma County four decades ago with their two daughters, selling their farm in Baxter Springs, Kan., and moving to Petaluma in 1960.
Once in Sonoma County, Rardin supported his family as a tractor mechanic and construction worker. He eventually became employed by the Basalt Rock Company, where he worked for 17 years before retiring.
"He was a very hard worker," Baldes said. "He wore out both his shoulders shoveling rock."
Active in his church and with the Masons, Rardin sat on the board of the Adobe Christian Center for many years and was a member of the Hamilton Lodge No. 180 since 1962.
He helped distribute food at the Petaluma Veterans Building and was an avid gardener.
Rardin is survived by his wife and daughters. He is also survived by a brother and a sister, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
The family asked that contributions be made to the Adobe Christian Center, 2875 Adobe Road, Petaluma 94954.
Myrle Dillingham
Myrle Dillingham, an accomplished artist and popular secretary of the English department at Santa Rosa Junior College, died July 24 of stomach cancer. She was 88.
"She adopted that English department, and they loved her," said daughter Carol Herrman of Kenwood. "Her family and the school were her life."
Dillingham was born in Salt Lake City in 1914. Her father, a barber, moved the family frequently during the Depression, and she attended seven high schools, including four in California.
She marriage Harry Logan in Los Angeles in 1937. They moved to Redding in 1952, and Dillingham became a legal secretary for a blind attorney.
Logan died in 1956, leaving Dillingham to raise two daughters, ages 9 and 15. After the older daughter married, Dillingham and Herrman decided in 1963 to find another place to live. "We went up and down California, and we picked Santa Rosa," Herrman said.
Dillingham got a job with the district attorney. In 1965 she got her real estate license and, soon thereafter, her broker's license. For several years she made her living in real estate.
In 1967, she marriage Frank Dillingham and they spent time traveling before settling in Greenbrae and then Reno. After her husband died in 1973, Dillingham moved back to Santa Rosa.
She applied for the secretary position at the junior college, even though it was no longer open, and she was hired on the spot, Herrman said.
"The job had been closed, but she was so qualified they hired her," Herrman said. "It was a big part of her life."
She retired in 1982, at age 68.
Dillingham was a talented artist, working in sculpture, acrylics, oil and pottery. Her favorite medium was acrylics. She enjoyed painting Sonoma County landscapes, birds, the ocean, some still lifes and trees.
She also was a seamstress, sewing upholstery, drapes, wedding gowns and bridesmaids' gowns, Herrman said.
"She really loved life. Every year she had kites for my kids. She took my kids out fishing, and at 73 she was going down Windsor Waterworks. My children were a big part of her life, and my husband and I took her on all our vacations," she said.
In addition to Herrman, Dillingham is survived by daughter Beverly Andersen of Reno; stepson Scott Dillingham of Orland; stepdaughter Gaye Kenny of Santa Rosa; sister Louise Dole of Santa Rosa; brothers Paul Thomas of Bodega Bay and Lewis Thomas of Auburn; 10 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be 1 p.m. Friday at Daniels Chapel of the Roses, 1225 Sonoma Ave., Santa Rosa.
Memorial contributions may be made to Santa Rosa Junior College English Department, 1501 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa 95401.
July 30, 2002
Wallace W. Winkler
Wallace W. Winkler, a farmer and lifelong Sebastopol resident, died Friday of a stroke.
Raised on his father's Sebastopol farm, Winkler was a natural athlete and a lover of the outdoors. At Analy High School, he balanced his studies with baseball, football and the farm work expected of him at home.
"He loved it," his wife, Jean Winkler, said about the farm work over which he would labor for most of his life. "He was a hard-working man."
In 1940, Winkler volunteered for the U.S. Air Corps. He worked as a mechanic on fighter planes as a staff sergeant in Europe.
When he returned from service, Winkler marriage his high school sweetheart Jean Sterrett and went into business with his father, Walter Winkler, farming apples, pears and prunes.
It was a change in career paths for Winkler, who had studied at Santa Rosa Junior College with the hope of become a veterinarian. "He just loved animals," said his son, Jim Winkler of Sebastopol.
Though veterinary work was not in his future, Winkler managed to apply his passion for animals to his farm work. In an era of farm machinery, Winkler insisted on using mules when cultivating the nursery stock.
"It just did a better job then what you could get from a tractor," his son said.
A community-minded man, Winkler helped found the El Molino Boosters in the late 1960s, providing funding for student athletics and other activities at the high school that all three of his sons eventually attended. He was also a member of Masonic organizations, including LaFayette Masonic Lodge No. 126, where he was a Past Master.
In addition to his son, Winkler is survived by his wife, Jean Winkler of Sebastopol; other sons Scott Winkler of Sebastopol and Steve Winkler of Santa Rosa; sister Gertrude Duckhorn of Sebastopol; and two grandchildren.
Memorial services are at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Pleasant Hills Memorial Chapel, 1700 Pleasant Hill Road in Sebastopol. Donations may be made to the El Molino Boosters Lighting Fund, 7050 Covey Road, Forestville, CA 95436.
Lorna J. Marshall, studied Bushmen
Lorna J. Marshall, a college English instructor turned homemaker who in her 50s began a new life as an anthropologist studying the Bushmen of Africa, died on July 8 at her home in Peterborough, N.H.
She was 103.
Marshall's anthropological career began when her husband, Laurence K. Marshall, a founder and president of the Raytheon Corp., retired in 1950 with the thought that it was time to get reacquainted with his family.
"Where is the remotest place we can go and be a family again?" Mr. Marshall asked, said Irven DeVore, the More research professor of anthropology at Harvard.
The Kalahari Desert was the answer he found. He decided he would take his family to live among the legendary Bushmen.
"They became a sort of Swiss Family Robinson of the Kalahari," DeVore said.
The family's accomplishments made it more than that. Mr. Marshall helped the Bushmen start a fine-wool industry. The Marshalls' son, John, began his career as a leading maker of ethnographic documentary films. Thomas, who would go on to write best sellers like "The Hidden Life of Dogs," wrote a well-received book on the Bushmen, "The Harmless People" (Knopf, 1958).
Meanwhile, Mrs. Marshall began the painstaking process of documenting the culture and behavior of the Bushmen, sometimes called !Kung. (The "!" represents a clicking sound in their language). She was the first of dozens of scholars who have made the Bushmen one of the world's most studied populations of traditional hunter-gatherers.
"To say she started it is not a mistake," DeVore said. "By standards of ethnography, she did as well or better than any monograph I know, and she was there early."
Over the next two decades, the Marshall family made eight trips to the Kalahari, a desert the size of Spain in what is now Namibia, Botswana and the Republic of South Africa, staying for as long as a year and a half at a time. Then the family would return to Cambridge, where Mrs. Marshall would employ the best graduate students to organize her voluminous notes, which resulted in two books and many articles.
Mr. Marshall said he wanted to do something with his family when he retired, and its members were interested in anthropology. So he asked his wife to take some courses at Harvard, which she did between trips to Africa.
The family was at first apprehensive about tales of poison darts and trance dances, but found the Bushmen polite and kind. The Marshall family lived in tents, even as temperatures ranged from freezing to 125 degrees.
Mrs. Marshall published her first book, "!Kung of Nyae Nyae," in 1975 (Harvard University Press), and her second, "Nyae Nyae !Kung Belief and Rites," three years ago (Peabody Museum Press).
Buddy Baker, musical director
Buddy Baker, musical director for nearly 200 Disney movies and TV shows including a "Daniel Boone" miniseries and "The Mickey Mouse Club," has died at age 84, the studio said Monday.
Baker died Friday at his home in Sherman Oaks from unspecified natural causes, said studio spokesman Howard E. Green.
The composer penned incidental music for "The Mickey Mouse Club" show and special songs sung by its child stars and was responsible for music in the 1981 cartoon feature "The Fox and the Hound."
He was nominated for an Academy Award for the score to the 1972 children's drama "Napoleon and Samantha."
He also scored incidental music for the Disney theme park attractions "Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln," "It's a Small World," and "The Haunted Mansion."
"Anyone who has ever been to a Disney theme park has enjoyed his music and his scores," said Roy E. Disney, vice chairman of Walt Disney Co. "I had the privilege of working with Buddy on scores for several projects that I produced and he always came through with something original and appropriate."
Although Baker did not write the famous "Mickey Mouse Club March" or the jingly, repetitious "It's a Small World" song, he would adapt those melodies for use at other places in the show or ride.
Raised in Springfield, Ill., he began piano lessons at age 4 and was playing trumpet as well when he was 11 years old. He studied music at Southwest Baptist University and moved to Los Angeles in 1938 to work in Hollywood.
He wrote arrangements for radio programs starring Bob Hope, Jack Benny and Eddie Cantor.
In 1954, he was hired by Disney Studios, where he worked on arrangements for the TV show "Davy Crockett" and three "Winnie the Pooh" cartoons.
He also composed original music for movies that included 1960's "Toby Tyler," 1975's "The Apple Dumpling Gang" and 1976's "The Shaggy D.A."
