Search for celebrities on Ancestry.com!November 24, 2001
Wayne Goodnight
Wayne Goodnight cruised Sonoma County as a deputy sheriff for 14 years, then traded his patrol car for a Santa Rosa Transit bus.
The peace officer turned bus driver died Tuesday at his Santa Rosa home. He was 61.
He had endured failing health since he was diagnosed with diabetes in 1981, and in 1998 he was disabled by a stroke.
The affable Goodnight, a native of Salinas, joined the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department in the early 1970s. He worked previously for the Monterey County Sheriff's Department and the Healdsburg Police Department.
As a Sonoma County deputy he worked for about five years out of the Sonoma Valley substation. His wife of 37 years, Lori Goodnight, said he was in his element when he was suited up and working with the public.
"There was nothing about law enforcement he didn't enjoy -- even the wacky hours," she said. "He was 100 percent a police officer."
Goodnight wrapped up his law enforcement career as a bailiff in the courtroom of former Judge Gayle Guynup. He retired in the mid-1980s and took a job as a Santa Rosa CityBus driver.
He had been promoted to a Transit Department field supervisor when the stroke forced him to stop working.
On his own time, Goodnight enjoyed working out at a gym or shooting at a firing range.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by sons Michael Goodnight of Santa Rosa and Brian Goodnight of Elk Grove, and by his mother, Vel Garrett of Las Vegas.
At his request, there will be no formal services. Private Interment will be in Hollister.
Goodnight's family suggests memorial contributions to Memorial Hospice, 558 B St., Santa Rosa 95401.
O.C. Smith
O.C. Smith, best known for singing a Grammy Award-winning rendition of "Little Green Apples," died Friday. He was 65.
A minister at the City of Angels Church of Religious Science in Los Angeles since 1985, Smith was considered in good health. He presided over an hourlong Thanksgiving Day service, during which he told jokes and appeared in good spirits, a church member said.
Smith was preparing to go for his morning walk when he suffered a heart attack, said a family member, who did not give her name.
"He was a very lovable, very nice person," said Pearl Wirrie, a parishioner who works two days a week at the church. "He was in good spirits (Thursday). He was talking about his wife cooking -- she hadn't cooked in a long time."
Smith, who was born June 21, 1936, in Louisiana, began his musical career as a jazz vocalist and later worked in country and rhythm and blues.
Smith replaced Joe Williams as the lead singer for the Count Basie band in the early 1960s and had a hit with the country song "Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp."
Smith's biggest hit was "Little Green Apples," which he recorded with Roger Miller and Patti Page. The song won Grammys in 1968 for song of the year and best country song and was No. 2 on the pop and R&B charts in 1968.
Smith's other big R&B single was "Daddy's Little Man" in 1969, which reached No. 9.
He continued to perform over the years and released an album just a year ago entitled "Beach Music Classics and Love Songs."
Information on survivors and funeral arrangements was not immediately available.
Ibrahim Kamel
Mohammed Ibrahim Kamel, a former foreign minister who quit in 1978 to protest the Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel, has died. He was 74.
Kamel died Thursday at a Cairo hospital of an unidentified illness, according to a Foreign Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
An associate of the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Kamel was named foreign minister in 1977 after his predecessor, Ismail Fahmy, quit to protest Sadat's peacemaking visit to Israel.
Kamel accompanied Sadat to the U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations at Camp David, but resigned to protest what he saw as the accords' vagueness on the Palestinian issue.
The accords signed in 1978 were formalized in a 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel -- the first between an Arab nation and the Jewish state.
In 1984, Kamel published his memoirs, denouncing the accords for falling short of guaranteeing Palestinian rights.
November 18, 2001
Robert Burris, an avid golfer who loved the sport so much he collected golf balls that landed in his front yard, put them in egg cartons and gave them to friends as gifts, died Wednesday of cancer. He was 76.
November 17, 2001
Sonoma County native Etta Ann Shaffer, whose passions started with her children and grandchildren and ran to Harley Davidsons, beading and baseball cards, died Nov. 8 in Santa Rosa.
November 16, 2001
Born in Windsor 99 years ago, Bertha Mae Hoskins discovered shortly after learning to talk that she loved to sing.
November 14, 2001
Athlete and youth sports advocate Margaret Jane Freeman of Santa Rosa died Nov. 6 after a decadelong battle with breast cancer.
November 13, 2001
Robert Treuhaft, an attorney prominent in San Francisco leftist circles and the region's civil rights movement since the 1940s, died Sunday after a brief illness. He was 89.
November 12, 2001
Arthur B. Whitmore, who had a lifetime interest in cars and for 20 years owned Cal-West Motors, a Santa Rosa used car dealership, died Thursday from heart problems and other health complications. He was 76.
November 11, 2001
Derral Lewis
Derral "Tex" Lewis, a World War II veteran and a barber for 50 years, died of lung cancer Friday in Santa Rosa. He was 79.
Lewis was born in Menard, Texas, one of nine children. He left home at the age of 14, earning a living first as a dishwasher and later as a cook.
During World War II, Lewis served as an Army cook in the South Pacific. He received an honorable discharge after falling ill with malaria on the island of New Guinea.
He returned to Texas and enrolled in barber school. For Lewis, cutting hair was more than a profession, it was also an important social outlet.
"He was a people lover," said his wife, Jean Lewis.
Lewis moved to California in the early 1960s but never lost his drawl, hence the nickname "Tex."
He settled in Santa Rosa in 1969 and, after his second divorce, marriage Jean Lewis two years later.
Lewis worked at the old Occidental Hotel, before it was razed, and later opened "Texarcana Barber Shop" on Sebastopol Road. He knew most of his customers by name.
He sold his shop and retired after suffering a heart attack in the 1980s.
Lewis was a member of the Stony Point Christian Fellowship Church, the American Legion in Cloverdale and the Rincon Valley, Bellevue and Pomona granges.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by two sons, Derral Raye Lewis of Menard, Texas, and Kent Lewis of Abilene, Texas; four daughters, Leah Holmberg of New York, Mona Adams and Corrina Martin, both of Eureka, and Darla Gibbs of Santa Rosa; two brothers, Damon Lewis of Burnett, Texas, and Dan Lewis of Menard, Texas; three sisters, Jean Seals of Salinas, Maxine Allen of Roswell, N.M., and Mae Morring of Lompoc; seven grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. today at the Stony Point Christian Fellowship Church, 4090 Stony Point Road, Santa Rosa.
November 10, 2001
Bobby Bass
Veteran stuntman Bobby Bass, who appeared in scores of movies and television shows with such stars as John Wayne, Burt Reynolds and Sylvester Stallone, has died at age 65, his family said Friday.
Bass, who worked on such films as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "Scarface," "Thelma & Louise" and "Lethal Weapon," died Wednesday.
He had been ill with Parkinson's disease.
"He was a remarkable man," said actress Bo Derek, Bass' stepdaughter.
"He's an absolute legend in the business. Everyone just revered him."
Bass did stunts in more than 40 films and worked on about 30 others, often as an assistant director, second unit director or stunt coordinator, sometimes training actors in the martial arts and the handling of weapons.
The actors he helped train included Mel Gibson, Geena Davis, Susan Sarandon, Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, Burt Reynolds and Danny Glover.
He also acted in a number of television commercials and shows, including "The A Team," "The Twilight Zone," "Fantasy Island," "Mission Impossible," "Star Trek" and "McGyver."
But it was his stunts that made him famous within the industry, Derek said.
He did them for such movies as "Smokey and the Bandit," "Sharkey's Machine," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Scarface."
"His sense of adventure was just so fantastic," Derek said.
"He always had new stunts he was inventing."
The family said funeral services would be private.
November 9, 2001
Linda Tremari-Barbera
Linda Tremari-Barbera, lifelong resident of Sonoma County, mother of two, former Future Farmers of America Sweetheart and dedicated baton twirler, died last week at her parents' home in Bloomfield. She was 48.
Tremari-Barbera, in otherwise good health, suffered a brain hemorrhage and never recovered consciousness.
"There was no warning, no nothing," said her mother, Dot Tremari. "She had two headaches and that was it."
Friends and family packed St. Vincent's Catholic Church to overflowing last week for a funeral Mass.
Born at Palm Drive Hospital in Sebastopol in 1953, Linda Tremari grew up on her parents' ranch in Bloomfield, attended Bloomfield and Tomales schools and worked for an insurance company in Petaluma.
In 1976, she marriage Chuck Barbera and they had two children, Lori Anne and Gino Joseph.
Among family and friends, Tremari-Barbera developed a reputation as the first to offer help in times of need, the first to visit a sick relative in the hospital.
"Linda was more generous and loyal than anyone I know," said Kathy Lucchesi, who grew up with her. "We were best friends for 34 years. I can't and won't tell you everything we've done but I will tell you we did all of our important things together. I will miss her more than anyone can imagine," Lucchesi said.
"If anyone, family or friends, were in the hospital or home with an illness, she was at their side," said her uncle, Leroy Cerini. "She was there for us during family illnesses and never missed a hospital visit," said her aunt, Joan Cerrini.
The Cerrinis, frequent recipients of phone calls day and night from Tremari-Barbera, remember one in particular from the former cheerleader and baton twirler.
"This one was wonderful only because her house was always in perfect order and I couldn't imagine her throwing a baton around," Joan Cerini said. "But she was and broke the light above her dining room table. This was a brand new house."
She is survived by her daughter, Lori Anne Barbera of Santa Rosa, her son, Gino Barbera of Petaluma, parents Joe and Dot Tremari of Bloomfield and brothers Glenn Tremari of Petaluma and Joseph Tremari Jr. of Modesto.
Tremari-Barbera was buried at Pleasant Hills Memorial Park in Sebastopol.
The family asks that contributions be made to Memorial Hospice, 821 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa 95401.
Eve Rannells
Eve Ann Rannells, who worked many years as a law librarian in San Francisco and Papua New Guinea, died of liver failure at St. Helena Hospital on Wednesday. She was 65.
She and her husband, Jack, had moved from Santa Rosa to Calistoga, where he grew up, in February.
Rannells was born in Phoenix but spent much of her youth overseas -- in Brussels, Paris and Tokyo -- where her father, Robert Eunson, was a reporter and bureau chief for the Associated Press.
In 1956, Eve and Jack met as journalism students at Stanford University and worked together on the student-run Stanford Daily. She served as publicist for the Stanford Summer Festival of the Arts in the 1960s.
Later, when her husband was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Eve Rannells worked as a librarian for the California State Public Defender's office. There, she compiled a major expert witness directory called ARSNL.
In 1984, after her two children had finished college, Rannells noticed a classified ad for a librarian in Papua New Guinea.
"She said, 'I'm going to apply to this. Will you go with me if I get it?'" her husband recalled. "And I said, 'Oh sure.' Well, she got it.
"I thought we would be there three months," he said.
Eve and Jack Rannells spent the next 14 years on that island north of Australia. She worked first at the national library and later at a university law library.
She was much loved by the students, many fresh from tiny villages deep in the mountains, who leaned on her for help with the British jurisprudence upon which their young nation's laws were based.
Rannells and her husband returned to the United States and settled in Santa Rosa in 1998.
In addition to her husband, Rannells is survived by her son, Buck Rannells of Toronto, Canada; her daughter, Nina Rannells of San Rafael; sisters Dale Eunson of Santa Monica and Lisa Eunson of Millbrae; and three grandchildren.
The family will hold a private remembrance.
November 8, 2001
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.
Safety advocate 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.
