Search for celebrities on Ancestry.com!July 29, 2002
Troy Patrick Elder
Troy Patrick Elder, who died Thursday in a car crash, lived the last hours of his life in perfect character, say those who knew and loved the 25-year-old man.
At his suggestion, he was following his best friend, Milo Lopez, who was having car trouble, from Santa Rosa to Sebastopol to ensure his friend arrived safely.
"That's the kind of guy he was; he always put other people first," said Lopez, who witnessed the collision on Highway 12 near Llano Road.
And Elder was driving his beloved 1985 Mazda RX-7, a sports car to which he'd devoted hundreds of hours of work inside and out.
"He loved his RX-7," said Elder's older brother, Nathan. "He was always working on it."
Years before his brother received his driver's license, he demonstrated the kind of talents he would later bring to bear on his sports car, said Elder.
"He was mechanically-minded, an abstract thinker and real problem solver," said Elder, now of Santa Rosa.
When he was 11/2 , Troy was discovered in the family garage -- riding a bicycle.
"He never ever had training wheels," Elder said.
An avid skateboarder since the fourth grade, he was good enough that his older brother and friends urged him to turn professional.
He showed the same aptitude for skiing, and as a teen-ager was, with his brother, a member of the Alpine Meadows Ski Team, in Lake Tahoe.
"I remember that point when I looked at him and said, 'Wow, my little brother's better than me at some of these things,'" said Nathan Elder, who is two years older.
Elder was born May 21, 1977 in Santa Rosa but grew up in Sebastopol. He graduated from Analy High School in 1995 and had lived for the past four years in Santa Rosa.
While many things came easily to his younger brother, school work didn't, said Nathan Elder. Nevertheless, with the support of his parents, Elder, who was dyslexic, achieved top grades.
"He was a very hard worker, and that's all it came down to, working harder," said Lopez, Elder's best friend and classmate since the third grade.
"He always looked you in the eye, he never made you feel as if you weren't equals," Lopez said.
Elder studied the culinary arts at Santa Rosa Junior College and worked for the past year at the Parkside Cafe in Santa Rosa.
Before that, he worked for two years at Borolos Original Pizza, owned by his brother.
In the often-chaotic atmosphere of a busy restaurant, Elder retained both his easy-going demeanor and his fascination for things mechanical.
"He never felt the pressure," said Elder, who recalled that when kitchen machinery broke, Troy Elder would "insist on fixing things" rather than calling in repair technicians.
Besides his brother, Elder is survived by his parents, Gary and Rebecca Elder, of Sebastopol.
A visitation service will be held from 1 to 2 p.m. today at Pleasant Hills Memorial Park Chapel, 1700 Pleasant Hill Road, Sebastopol, with a funeral service to follow.
July 28, 2002
Stanislaw Hejnowicz, a Forestville man who was seized by the Nazis in his native Poland and forced to work in a coal mine throughout World War II, died of leukemia Wednesday at Palm Drive Hospital in Sebastopol. He was 83.
July 27, 2002
Patricia A. Maxwell, a 40-year resident of Sonoma County and a devoted volunteer, died in Palo Alto on Monday. She was 65.
June 3, 2002
Arthur Barboni, a hard-working dairyman who rarely took vacations and knew all of his cows by name, died of heart failure May 31 at Memorial Hospital in Santa Rosa. He was 89.
June 2, 2002
Michael Hromalik
Michael Francis Hromalik, who brought his love for baseball to a generation of Petaluma kids, died Wednesday of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in San Rafael. He was 73.
Hromalik moved to Petaluma 35 years ago and coached Little League baseball for years.
"There's tons of kids around town that say, 'Your dad coached me.' He was a really good role model," his son, Mark Hromalik of Baltimore, said Saturday.
Hromalik was born in Johnson City, N.Y., and served in the Air Force during the Korean War. He was stationed in Half Moon Bay and met his wife, Nanette, on a blind date.
After he was discharged from the service, Hromalik enrolled at the University of San Francisco. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in history and a teaching credential. Later he obtained a library credential.
Hromalik taught at high schools and middle schools in Healdsburg, San Jose and San Rafael. He was the Davidson Middle School librarian in San Rafael for 25 years, until he retired in 1992.
Hromalik's friends and family members remember him as a man who spent thousands of hours pitching baseballs to youngsters.
"I'm one of six kids and he coached all of us," Mark Hromalik said. "We all were pretty good baseball players."
In addition to his son Mark, Hromalik is survived by his wife, Nanette Fredette Hromalik of Petaluma; three other sons, Martin Hromalik of Novato, Matthew Hromalik of Healdsburg and Michael Hromalik of Petaluma; two daughters, Monica Heggli of Cotati and Mary Longo of Suisun City; nine grandchildren; and numerous nieces and nephews.
A vigil for Hromalik will take place at 7 p.m. tonight at Parent-Sorensen Mortuary & Crematory in Petaluma.
A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Monday at St. Vincent de Paul Church, 35 Liberty St. in Petaluma. Burial at Calvary Catholic Cemetery will follow.
Memorial donations may be made to the American Cancer Society, 400 North McDowell Blvd., Petaluma 94954.
Ex-CIA official John Hart, 81
Washington -- John Limond Hart, the Central Intelligence Agency's station chief in Vietnam from 1966 to 1968 who called the agency's treatment of a top KGB defector an "abomination" in a sensational report in 1978 for which he came out of retirement, died May 27 at the Ingleside at Rock Creek assisted living community in Washington. He was 81 and had Alzheimer's disease.
Over the years, Hart served as head of CIA operations in Korea during the Korean War and later as chief of a Cuban task force. He was head of the CIA's European division from 1968 to 1971, when he was asked by then-CIA chief Richard Helms to review the case of Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko.
Nosenko contacted the CIA in Geneva in 1962, looking to trade secrets to replace Soviet money he had spent on a drinking spree. He defected in early 1964, and just months after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he said he could prove a link between suspected killer Lee Harvey Oswald and the KGB.
As that link was debated furiously, CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton and others suspected that Nosenko had been planted by the Soviets to provide disinformation. He subsequently was held for three years while agents examined his claims.
Eventually, he was released and given a new identity and a well-paid consulting job in the Washington area, but not before his handling poisoned relations within the Soviet division of the CIA.
At a 1978 hearing of the House committee on assassinations, Hart testified that the Nosenko treatment was "counterproductive and created a lot of misinformation" at a critical time for the agency.
Hart declined to characterize a potential link between Oswald and the Soviet intelligence agency. Angleton disputed many of Hart's conclusions.
Hart's expertise in the Nosenko case stemmed from his larger interest in the psychology of Soviet defectors. He was author of a top-secret report from the early 1970s that sought to delineate the motivations of clandestine turncoats.
Hart retired from the CIA in 1973. His CIA decorations included two awards of the Distinguished Intelligence Medal.
June 1, 2002
Gordon Swartz
Gordon P. Swartz, a teacher, artist and musician who founded the Burbank Center for the Arts' California Art Museum and served as its director for three years, died Wednesday at his Santa Rosa home following a long illness. He was 77.
Swartz had been in declining health since suffering a stroke in 1994. He moved to Santa Rosa 21 years ago from Southern California and became active in art circles, fairs and farm groups.
Swartz was a familiar figure at farmers markets around Sonoma County, accompanying his wife of 39 years, Hilda Swartz, who has managed farm markets for nearly 20 years and now oversees the Sonoma Valley and Oakmont markets.
"When Gordon was in better health he was always there to help and support me," Hilda Swartz said. "And when he couldn't physically help me, he gave me an emotional boost with his magnificent sense of humor. He kept me in stitches for 39 years."
The couple had no children, but had "adopted" Larry and Linda Carniglia of Kenwood and their seven adopted children. The two families supported each other in good and bad times.
"Gordon was interested in others and was encouraging and attentive to our children. He was a caring and devoted husband to Hilda, always encouraging her in her work," Linda Carniglia said.
Swartz was born Feb. 1, 1925, in Columbus, Ohio, where he was raised and educated. He earned a bachelor of arts degree from Ohio State University and embarked on a teaching career that spanned more than 20 years. He held a teaching position in Ohio before moving to Southern California, where he taught at Samuel Gompers Junior High and Hamilton High School in Los Angeles. He met his wife at Gompers Junior High, where she was a home economics teacher. Later they both taught at Hamilton High, where Gordon instructed English classes and coached girls and boys track.
"Gordon was a real Renaissance man, deeply interested in art, literature and music. A born teacher, he took a personal interest in kids and challenged them to become interested in the fields of art and literature," said longtime friend Jim Dishun, a Santa Rosa resident who traces his friendship with Swartz back to Ohio.
Gordon and Hilda Swartz moved to Sonoma County in 1981. They worked at the Sonoma County Fair and were involved in art groups. In 1983 Swartz founded the California Museum of Art and served as the director until 1986.
Swartz painted in acrylics and exhibited his work throughout Northern California. He also did art projects based on moving black light sculptures.
In addition to his wife, Swartz is survived by his sister, Frances Ensign of Columbus, Ohio; and his mother-in-law, Clarian Standing of Beaumont.
A memorial tribute is planned for June 30, with the time and place to be set at a later date. Memorial contributions are suggested to Heartland Hospice of Santa Rosa, 825 Sonoma Ave., Suite B, Santa Rosa 95404.
Olivia Erikson
Olivia Christine Erikson, widely considered the oldest living member of the Coast Miwok Tribe, died May 22 in San Rafael. She was 95.
The great-granddaughter of Captain Stephen Smith, who settled Bodega Bay in 1841, and Marie Cheka (whose Native American name was Tsupu), Erikson was born in San Francisco in 1906 and moved with her family to Bodega Bay that year.
Her grandfather, William Smith, founded Smith Brothers' fishing fleet and the family property was located where the Bodega Bay Yacht Club and Bodega Bay Lodge now stand.
In 1909, she moved to Sebastopol, where her father operated a fish market. She lived in Sebastopol for 26 years before leaving in the 1930s to work as a seamstress at Simmons Mattress Factory in San Francisco.
She lived in San Francisco for more than half a century, residing in San Rafael the last 12 years of her life.
Her nephew Gene Buvelot, vice-chairman of Miwok Tribe, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, said his aunt was the oldest of the nearly 600 remaining members of the tribe.
"She was very caring and interested in the family members and always had words of wisdom to say," he said.
In addition to her nephew, Erikson is survived by numerous nephews, nieces, great nieces and great nephews.
Private services were held May 26 in Novato. Memorial gifts can be sent to the Coast Miwok Scholarship Fund, 2255 Las Gallinas Ave., San Rafael 94903.
Gunnar Jarring, Swedish diplomat
Gunnar V. Jarring, Sweden's former ambassador to Washington and the Soviet Union who served as a special U.N. envoy to seek peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors in the wake of the Six-Day War in 1967, has died. He was 94.
Jarring, dubbed the Silent Swede because of his talent for quiet diplomacy, died Wednesday of undisclosed causes at his home in Helsingborg, Sweden.
A career diplomat and linguist who spoke a dozen languages, Jarring was Sweden's ambassador to the Soviet Union in November 1967, when U.N. Secretary-General U Thant appointed him as special U.N. representative to the Middle East.
Jarring's mission was to persuade Israel and the Arab countries to agree to peace negotiations in accordance with a U.N. Security Council resolution, which called for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories occupied during the six-day conflict.
It also asked for every country in the area to recognize the right of all Middle Eastern states to live within secure and guaranteed boundaries free from threats or acts of force.
"I hope to accomplish something within the framework of the resolution," Jarring said at the time. "It's impossible to say now what success I will have."
After four months -- and 40 trips to the warring Arab and Israeli capitals -- Arab and Israeli positions did not change, causing Jarring to sever his direct contacts and leave the region.
His attempts to solve the Arab-Israeli deadlock, however, only added to his reputation as "a master of the art of quiet diplomacy," as Thant called him.
May 2, 2002
A-J Levinson, living will advocate
A-J Levinson, who led a New York-based patients' rights group that developed the now-common living will and who served as a national spokeswoman for bringing dignity to dying, has died. She was 73.
Levinson died of cancer Monday at her home in Manhattan.
As executive director of Concern for Dying from 1976 to 1987, Levinson urged family members, doctors, nurses and other caregivers to honor a dying person's wishes.
The now-defunct Concern for Dying, which grew out of the Euthanasia Educational Council, was founded in 1967. Levinson, who had been on the board, became executive director the same year that the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in the nation's first major right-to-die case that the parents of Karen Ann Quinlan had the right to remove her from life support.
Concern for Dying distributed more than 7 million copies of the living will, a document in which people express their wishes not to have their lives prolonged through the use of artificial or heroic means if there is no hope of recovery.
"The important point," Levinson told television newsman Robert MacNeil in 1985, "is that it is most helpful to family members as well as physicians if they have a clear indication of what the patients would have wanted, because the decision has to be made, or should be made, rightfully, on the basis of that patient's feelings and directions."
Levinson and her organization also stressed the need for dying patients to have sufficient pain medication.
Levinson, however, denounced mercy killing. There are, she told the Los Angeles Times in 1986, moral and practical reasons to oppose a law allowing mercy killing. Such a law, she said, would have enormous potential for abuse and the category of those eligible for euthanasia inevitably would grow.
"I don't think society should be in the business of killing people," she said. "If society were to do a better job of treating pain and treating the suffering of terminal illness, we wouldn't have patients saying, 'Kill me.'"
Born Ann Jane Rock in Boston in 1929, Levinson (who preferred to go by the hyphenated A-J) graduated from Bryn Mawr with a degree in history.
She retired in 1988, a year after she suffered a major stroke.
George Higgins, 'labor priest'
Monsignor George G. Higgins, dubbed "the labor movement's priest" for his longtime commitment to union causes, died Wednesday at 86.
Higgins spent more than half a century as a staunch supporter of the labor movement and speaking out for social justice. He served on committees and boards of several groups, including the United Auto Workers and the Bishops' Committee for Catholic-Jewish Relations.
In August 2000, Higgins received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Clinton.
Higgins' death, in his hometown of La Grange Park, Ill., was announced by Catholic University of America, where he earned a master's degree and a doctorate and had lectured.
"His oftentimes controversial presence as a priest in the forefront of the organized labor movement in this country earned him both distinction among and respect from people of all faiths," said the Rev. David M. O'Connell, Catholic University president.
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the archbishop of Washington, praised Higgins' devotion to the labor movement. "I am sure that his voice will continue to echo for many, many years," McCarrick said.
A memorial Mass will be celebrated Saturday at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
April 4, 2002
John Luvender
John T. Luvender volunteered for the army during the Vietnam War, and battled through the jungles on foot during some of the fiercest fighting.
He returned home with a passion for peace and a lifelong commitment to breaking down the barriers that divide people, ethnic groups and nations.
He became active in the fledgling community media movement, which helps citizens produce and air their own films, and in 1993 helped begin the process that led to the creation of Santa Rosa's Community Media Center.
Luvender, 55, died Sunday after a long battle with chronic hepatitis. He was honored Tuesday by the Santa Rosa City Council for his contributions.
"Community meant everything to John, and he understood that multimedia and television are tools with incredible power for strengthening communities," said Laurie Cirivello, executive director of the Community Media Center.
Luvender was born in eastern Pennsylvania and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1968. He volunteered to serve in Vietnam with the 182nd Airborne Brigade, and saw ground combat during the 1969 Tet offensive.
After returning home, he became active in Vietnam Veterans Against the War and earned a degree from Kings College in Pennsylvania.
He received national awards for documentary work at Boston Neighborhood Network TV and Malden Community Access TV for a series of interviews with residents of Boston's then-segregated ethnic neighborhoods and a program about the Vietnam experience.
"He wanted people to understand each other as people," Cirivello said.
Luvender moved to Sonoma County with his wife and daughter in 1991, and began community education and organizing work that led to the formation of community media centers in Napa, Berkeley and Santa Rosa.
While working on a masters degree at Sonoma State University, Luvender assisted in the development of Santa Rosa's community media plan.
"He was a soft-spoken, unassuming man who found a way to connect people. He helped create the vision that would become our Community Media Center," said Marc Richardson, Santa Rosa's assistant city manager.
Luvender served as executive director of Berkeley Community Media from 1994-1996 and then became operations manager for the Community Media Center of Santa Rosa, where he facilitated and created community programming, including a local oral history project for the Sonoma County Museum.
He was a drummer and member of Carnival Samba, a member of the Santa Rosa Church of Religious Science and of Friends of ArtQuest, a parents' organization at Santa Rosa High School. He served as a regional board member for the national Alliance for Community Media, and was a founding parent at Willow Wood Waldorf School in Sebastopol.
Luvender is survived by his daughter, Molly Miranda Hull Luvender of Santa Rosa and Sebastopol; his mother, Ann Luvender; sisters Sherry Luvender and Patsy Luvender; and brother Daniel Luvender, all of Scranton, Pa.
A memorial celebration will be held Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Community Media Center in Santa Rosa, 1075 Mendocino Ave.
A memorial fund has been established to help support his 15-year-old daughter. Contributions may be made to the "Molly Luvender custodial account - BayView Bank," c/o the Community Media Center.
Donations also may be made to Home and Family Funerals. For information, contact Jeri Lyons at 823-7709.
Clara McLendon
Clara McLendon loved to cultivate colorful blooms in her garden, but her family cherishes her most for the love of arts, humanity and nature she cultivated in their hearts. McLendon died Monday at age 93.
Raised in San Francisco, McLendon and her late husband Jesse moved to Santa Rosa in 1955. Her husband of 56 years, a former fire chief, was then working for the Federal Civil Defense Administration.
Living in a small new home on Melbrook Way, the two took the opportunity to pursue their passion for gardening.
"Every square inch was planted with flowers. My mother loved roses," and anything that blossomed, said her son Douglas, of San Carlos.
Whenever friends or family came to visit she took them to see the Luther Burbank gardens. His mother was active in the Santa Rosa Garden Club and philanthropic women's organizations like the Saturday Afternoon Club and the P.E.O. Chapter in Santa Rosa.
One of the longest-living Alzheimer's patients in America, she inspired her son Heath to join the board of an organization seeking an effective treatment for the disease. Knowing that it would not help his mother, he sought to stem the pains of future families. His mother would have done the same.
Douglas recalls McLendon's baking talents, patience and support and calls her "the world's greatest mother."
When their father was busy working odd hours to support their small clan as a fire chief in San Francisco, his mother gave him a way to escape "the cold, cold fog hanging outside." When he was young, she would read to him, and later when he was a teen-ager, the two would sit reading silently together.
"She instilled in me an appreciation of literature and arts that will last my life long," Douglas said.
He credits his mother's long life in spite of a debilitating disease to the loving care she received from the family of Maria and Donald Martinez, who invited her into their home to care for her full-time in her later years.
McLendon is survived by sons Heath of Summit, New Jersey and Douglas of San Carlos; and six grandchildren.
Services will be held at noon Monday at the Santa Rosa Memorial Park Chapel. Memorial contributions may be made to Alzheimer's Respite Resource Center, P.O. Box 4900, Santa Rosa, CA 95402.
Broy Rhia
A memorial service for Broy Rhia, Santa Rosa's former public works director, will be held Sunday.
Rhia, 72, is presumed dead after failing to return from a scuba diving expedition in Mexico last week.
Family members said his body was never recovered after he went on a March 25 diving trip about 250 miles south of Cabo San Lucas.
"It's not real clear what happened," said his daughter Cynthia Riha.
She said his diving partner noticed him floating face down in the water and not breathing.
"She tried to resuscitate him. She floated with him for about an hour and they drifted about two miles away from the boat," Cynthia Riha said. "It started to get dark and she couldn't see the boat any more so she let him go ... She was picked up by the boat 20 minutes later."
An overnight search failed to locate him.
Riha was a world traveler and veteran deep-sea diver.
He worked for nearly a decade as Santa Rosa's assistant city engineer. In 1970 he was promoted to Public Works director and city engineer.
He stepped down in 1986 and became a consultant.
In the early 1990s he was part of a team that assessed the infrastructure needs of cities in Poland and Slovakia. He also did engineering work in Thailand.
Riha was a pilot and volunteered with Angel Flight, which transports people needing medical care.
He combined his professional expertise with his interest in aviation on a $3.2 million project to repave runways and taxi lanes at the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport.
Family members are planning a celebration of Riha's life at 4 p.m. Sunday at Paradise Ridge Winery, 4545 Thomas Lake Harris Drive, Santa Rosa.
Memorial contributions may be made to Angel Flight, 3237 Donald Douglas Loop South, Santa Monica 90405.
