Search for celebrities on Ancestry.com!August 22, 2001
Irene Smith
Irene Smith, a Pomo Indian who lived in Sonoma County her entire life and was a tribe elder, died Thursday of a heart attack. She was 86.
Born on the Dry Creek Rancheria in Geyserville to Joseph and Rosie Lozinto, Smith, one of 13 children, attended elementary school there.
She became an accomplished blanket and quilt maker.
Smith later followed in the footsteps of her mother and sister, who were master basket weavers. Smith didn't sell her creations, but rather gave them to relatives.
At this year's Sonoma County Fair, Smith and her husband, Grant Smith, 95, received an award as the longest-married couple in the county. They were marriage 68 years.
Smith was active in and a co-founder of the Faith Tabernacle Church of Santa Rosa, established in 1951. It is the only Indian-founded church in Sonoma County.
Smith often traveled with her husband to visit other churches in the West and Northwest.
In addition to her husband, Smith is survived by a son, Ron Smith of Santa Rosa. She also is survived by many nieces and nephews.
Services will be held today at 1:30 p.m. at Eggen & Lance Mortuary in Santa Rosa. Interment will be at Sebastopol Memorial Lawn.
Jason McCulloch
Jason G. McCulloch of Petaluma loved the outdoors, and he filled his 21 years with as much of it as he could.
McCulloch died Saturday while deer hunting near Lake Pillsbury after the off-road vehicle he was riding crashed into an oak tree.
He was born in Santa Rosa but like his mother and a grandfather lived in Petaluma.
His mother, Gail McCulloch, said her son's love for all things outdoors began as a baby, when his father began taking him fishing at 6 months old.
"He loved hunting, fishing, camping, anything to do with nature. He'd have fun and live life to the fullest and took chances.
"He lit up a room when he walked in. He was the life of the party," she said. "He was a wonderful boy."
McCulloch was a graduate of Casa Grande High School. That's where he met Dominique Binsfeld, "the love of his life," said his mother. They had dated more than two years and planned to marry.
For the past 11/2 years, McCulloch worked for Clover- Stornetta Farms Inc.
"He liked being here just as much as we liked having him," dairy co-owner Herm Benedetti said. "He was a pleasant, happy person to be around."
McCulloch is survived by his parents, Byron and Gail McCulloch of Petaluma; a brother, Jeff McCulloch of Petaluma; grandparents Larry and Ruth Katen of Rohnert Park, and John and Irene McCulloch of Hawaii; and great-grandfather John Burkhart of Santa Rosa.
Services are at 3 p.m. Thursday at Parent-Sorensen Mortuary in Petaluma. Inurnment will be private.
Memorial donations may be made to the United Anglers of Petaluma, 333 Casa Grande Road, Petaluma 94954.
August 12, 2001
Wendel Ozier
Friends and family will gather Aug. 25 at the Brook Haven Park tennis courts to remember Daniel Wendel Ozier, a retired college professor and longtime tennis instructor.
Ozier, a Sebastopol resident, died Monday of Parkinson's disease. He was 73.
Among Ozier's tennis students was Justine Caruso. She was Analy High School's top-seeded player last year. She is helping lead a $110,000 campaign to replace the school's tennis courts.
The community will gather at the new courts Sept. 8 and Caruso plans to dedicate her work to Ozier, a man credited for inspiring many to take up tennis.
Her mother, Kim Caruso, who helped her in the tennis court campaign, was Ozier's life partner for nine years.
"I met him on Brook Haven's tennis courts," Kim Caruso recalled.
Born in Decatur, Texas, Ozier had been a professor at Fresno City College and Fresno State University, where he also helped coach tennis. He later taught at UC Santa Cruz before retiring about 13 years ago, Caruso said.
He lived in Sonoma County for 12 years.
Survivors include three sons, Nick Ozier of Piedmont, Dix Ozier of Auckland, New Zealand, and Joe Ozier of Sarasota, Fla.; a brother, Whitfield Ozier of Lawton, Okla.; and four grandchildren.
The Aug. 25 service will begin at 2 p.m. at the tennis courts and the Garzot/Duffield Building next to the park's Super Playground.
Memorial donations may be made to the Analy Tennis Court Project, Sebastopol Community Center, P.O. Box 2028, Sebastopol 95473.
Space food designer Howard Bauman, 76
MINNETONKA, Minn. -- Howard Bauman, the man who led the Pillsbury Co.'s effort to design space food for astronauts, died Wednesday of complications from pulmonary disease. He was 76.
Bauman was a Pillsbury food scientist for 36 years. His team designed food for 1960s space flights that could resist high temperatures and humidity, be thrown against walls without breaking and last 30 days without refrigeration.
One of Bauman's daughters, Vicki Zobel, said the Smithsonian Institution in Washington has in its space exhibit an example of the "gunk-covered brownie cubes" -- as a newspaper once described them -- that her father made decades ago.
Born in Woodworth, Wis., Bauman received a Ph.D. in microbiology at the University of Wisconsin in 1953.
Bob Wooden, who worked as a scientist for Bauman, said Bauman's early efforts at Pillsbury led to ready-made doughs that would last up to 90 days in a refrigerator, compared to seven days in the 1940s.
But what made Bauman famous, Wooden said, was his work at Pillsbury on behalf of the space program in the early 1960s. NASA wanted food that was microbe-free, which led to Bauman's revolutionary efforts in food production and testing, he said.
When Bauman retired in 1989, he was vice president of science and regulatory affairs for Pillsbury.
Mexico millionaire Hank Gonzalez, 73
MEXICO CITY -- Carlos Hank Gonzalez, a flamboyant millionaire and politician who helped shape the political party that ruled Mexico for seven straight decades has died. He was 73.
Gonzalez, famous for coining the phrase "A politician who is poor is a poor politician," died of prostate cancer at his ranch in the central Mexican city of Santiago Tianguistenco on Saturday, his family announced.
Gonzalez was a behind-the-scenes force in the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico from 1929 until last year, when President Vicente Fox became the first opposition candidate ever to win the presidency.
He served as Mexico City's mayor, governor of Mexico state, agriculture secretary and head of Mexico's tourism ministry.
He exemplified the PRI's old-guard leaders who built careers on doing small favors for supporters in rural areas.
"He personified Mexico's political businessman," said Homero Aridijis, a political analyst. "He was the most powerful fixture in Mexican politics for 30 years because his influence extended beyond the length of any one presidential term."
Battling cancer since 1986, Hank Gonzalez had been sick and fallen out of public view in recent years.
August 11, 2001
Edith Nichols
Edith Nichols, wife of former Sonoma County Administrator David Nichols, died Aug. 4 of complications from pneumonia at her home in San Carlos. She was 73.
The Nicholses spent 23 years in Santa Rosa, beginning in 1955 when David Nichols was first hired as an assistant county administrator. Edith Nichols, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, was a homemaker who volunteered with local schools and charities.
"She was a beautiful person. I knew and admired her for 50 years," said Shirley Rush, a Santa Rosa neighbor who lived around the corner from the Nicholses. "She was very much a home mom and raised four wonderful kids. But she also gave a lot to the community too."
Raised in Concord, Edith Nichols received an alumni scholarship to Berkeley in 1946. She was selected queen of her sophomore class and elected vice president of the student body during her senior year. She met her future husband while at college. They lived in Contra Costa County before moving to Santa Rosa.
The family moved to San Carlos in 1978, after David Nichols accepted the job of running San Mateo County.
In addition to helping with school and the PTA, Nichols was active in foreign student exchange programs. She sponsored children from Australia, Germany and Norway while sending her own children to homes in Germany, Belgium, Italy and the Philippines.
"Mom was very active in all the community events, but especially the schools," said her son Stuart. "She was in the PTA, even the school librarian once."
She served as a coordinator of volunteer programs in both Sonoma and San Mateo counties. She was also active in the League of Women Voters and the American Association of University Women in both counties.
She also maintained her ties to her university, serving on the board of directors of the Cal Alumni Association and as president of the Alumni Club of Sonoma County as well as the Alumni Association of the Peninsula. In 1984, she received the Citation Award for outstanding service to the university and to the Alumni Association.
In addition to her husband of 50 years, who still lives in San Carlos, she is survived by sons Mark Nichols of Portland, Ore., Paul Nichols of Hillsborough and Stuart Nichols of Los Altos; daughter Beth DeGolia of Alamo; and seven grandchildren.
Services will be private. Memorial donations may be made in Edith Nichols' name to the American Cancer Society.
Nora Sayre, 68
Nora Sayre, a cultural historian, essayist and film critic who wrote acutely observed analyses of America in the 1950s and '60s, died of emphysema Wednesday in New York. She was 68.
Sayre came of age in the 1950s as the only child of writers whose circle included many of the leading Hollywood writers and literary figures of the period. Observing their struggles with the social and political dislocations of the McCarthy era led her to focus on the culture of the Cold War years in her writing.
She wrote four books: "Sixties Going on Seventies" (1973), "Running Time: Films of the Cold War" (1982), "Previous Convictions: A Journey Through the 1950s" (1995), and "On the Wing: A Young American Abroad" (2001).
She also was a frequent contributor of book reviews to the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, where her last published piece ran earlier this month, and other publications, including the Nation and Esquire.
Known for her chain-smoking and irascible personality, Sayre grew up among New York's literary illuminati of the 1930s and '40s. The critic Edmund Wilson was a family friend, as were James Thurber, E.B. White, Graham Greene and Dorothy Parker.
Her father, Joel, was a staff writer for the New Yorker and sometime screenwriter who wrote the 1935 movie "Annie Oakley" for Barbara Stanwyck and co-wrote the 1939 classic "Gunga Din." Her mother, Gertrude, was a reporter for the New York World whose career was hindered by frequent mental breakdowns.
Sayre, a film critic for The New York Times from 1973 to 1975, examined the effect of the Cold War on Hollywood filmmaking in the '50s in an earlier work, "Running Time." Considered essential reading for students of the period, it described the intricacies of blacklisting and how pressures from the House Committee on Un-American Activities affected themes, content, relationships and the bottom line in Hollywood.
Robert Rimmer, 'Harrad' author, 84
QUINCY, Mass. -- Robert Henry Rimmer, author of the 1960s bestseller "The Harrad Experiment," which explored the idea of men and women living together in a college dorm, has died.
Rimmer died Aug. 1 at his home in Quincy. He was 84.
Rimmer's writings, preaching sex without guilt and exploring alternative models of intimacy in and out of marriage, were popular reading among the free-love generation.
A Boston native, Rimmer served in the Army during World War II and later became president of the family business, Relief Printing Corp. He started a publishing company, Challenge Press.
He is survived by his wife, Erma Rimmer; two sons; and four grandchildren.
August 10, 2001
The Rev. Homer McLaughlin, minister of Bennett Valley Baptist Church for more than 25 years, believed in practicing what he preached.
August 9, 2001
Victor Delgado
Victor Delgado of Santa Rosa, who played basketball across the Mexican state of Chihuahua as a teen and as a young man came to America to become a newspaper printer, died Monday. He was 59.
Delgado retired in April from The Press Democrat. He had worked at the paper for nearly 16 years, creating layouts of advertisements and pages.
He was born and reared in the town of El Porvenir in Chihuahua. His daughter, Antonieta Gilley of Shrewsbury, Pa., said he played on several youth basketball teams -- and in 1960 scored the winning basket in a state championship game.
He immigrated to Texas and in 1963 took his first job as a printer at the El Paso Times. He subsequently worked at newspapers in New Mexico, Washington, Colorado and Montana. He started at The Press Democrat in 1985.
On his own time, Delgado enjoyed playing poker and blackjack, watching boxing and soccer, and reading.
A period of failing health preceded his death Monday at Santa Rosa's Sutter Medical Center.
In addition to his daughter, he is survived by a sister, Nancy Delgado of Cockeysville, Md., and a nephew he considered a son, Juan Marquez, also of Cockeysville.
There will be no services. Interment will be private.
Dorothy Burke
Petaluma resident Dorothy Giraud Burke, who grew up on a Gossage Avenue chicken ranch and worked for decades in nursing, died Tuesday. She was 94.
Four years ago, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors commended her for her contributions as a nurse and for the other achievements of her long and full life.
Burke was born March 11, 1907, in Battle Mountain, Nev. She was one of six children of French immigrants Julien Giraud and Veronica Bidart.
The Girauds settled in Petaluma shortly before World War I and started a chicken ranch. Burke graduated from Petaluma High School in 1924, then trained as a nurse at Franklin Hospital in San Francisco.
She marriage William Grant and they had two daughters. The children were still young when Grant died in 1947.
His widow supported her daughters by working as a Red Cross nurse.
Over the course of her career in Petaluma, she also worked at the former Petaluma General Hospital and for private doctors.
Burke moved to Napa in the 1960s and marriage Harry Burke. She finished her nursing career at Napa State Hospital.
After her second husband died in 1981, she returned to Petaluma.
She was active in a number of professional and community organizations, the American Association of Retired Persons and the Republican Women's Organization.
She died at Santa Rosa's Kaiser Hospital from complications of heart surgery.
Burke is survived by her daughters, Carol McDowell of Petaluma and Muriel Cranor of Windsor; five grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; and two great-great-grandchildren.
Interment will be at the veterans' lawn at Cypress Hill Memorial Park.
Joseph Kniffin
Joseph K. Kniffin, a San Francisco native who spent most of his life in Sonoma, died Friday after a long bout with cancer. He was 51.
Kniffin moved to Sonoma Valley as a child. He was a graduate of Sonoma Valley High School.
He was in the Air Force during the Vietnam War, but "was one of the lucky ones" who remained in the United States, said his wife, Karen Kniffin of Sonoma.
They were marriage for eight years.
He was bartender and manager of the Town Square in Sonoma for 15 years.
Kniffin was also a car buff who rebuilt several cars over the years. He was past treasurer of the Devils Darlings Car Club.
"He restored a number of cars. The last one was a 1923 Bucket T. We showed it and had a lot of fun with it," Karen Kniffin said.
Kniffin also was a golfer, participated in the annual Relay for Life fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society and enjoyed cooking, gardening and camping.
"He had a lot of friends, and was well loved," Karen Kniffin said.
In addition to his wife, Kniffin is survived by his parents, Joseph G. and Joyce M. Kniffin of Sonoma; a son, Kris Kniffin of Sonoma; a brother, Jeffrey L. Kniffin of Middletown; and a sister, Joni A. Mayfield of Sonoma.
Services were Tuesday. Burial was in Valley Cemetery in Sonoma.
Gen. Minh, former S. Vietnam president
PASADENA -- Gen. Duong Van "Big" Minh, who was president of South Vietnam for just a few days before the country fell to Communist invaders in 1975, has died. He was 86.
Minh, who used a wheelchair, fell at his home Sunday, his daughter Mai Duong said Tuesday. He died Monday night in Pasadena.
Minh was installed as the South Vietnamese president in April 1975 as the country crumbled under the onslaught from North Vietnam's Communist forces.
In a matter of days, Minh's short political reign ended as Communist troops overran Saigon and captured the country's leaders. He was arrested and put in detention, but allowed to emigrate to France in 1983.
Minh's military career began in the 1940s when he was commissioned in the French colonial army.
After French colonial rule ended in 1954, Minh ascended through the ranks of the new South Vietnamese military.
Minh helped lead a U.S.-backed coup in 1963 that overthrew then-South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, who was killed along with his brother, police chief Ngo Dinh Nhu, while trying to escape.
Minh, the second-highest ranking general at the time, took power under a military junta. Two months later, Gen. Nguyen Khanh took control of the country. Minh went into exile.
He resurfaced in 1971 and challenged President Nguyen Van Thieu, who was supported by the United States. Minh eventually withdrew from the race after alleging the election was rigged. Thieu ran unopposed.
August 8, 2001
Lorenzo Music, 64, voice of Garfield
He swore he didn't know Garfield the Cat from Charlie the Tuna. Nevertheless, the former folk singer and comedy writer with the voice once described as "kind of cutely stupid" became television's animated Garfield.
Lorenzo Music, who was also the unseen voice of Carlton the drunk doorman of the television series "Rhoda" as well as a crash dummy and a pig Latin-spouting tout for the Queen Mary, has died. He was 64.
Music died Saturday of bone cancer at his home in Los Angeles.
Garfield creator Jim Davis chose Music as the orange cat's sardonic voice for the comic strip's first animated television special in 1982.
Building on Garfield and the popularity he had already achieved as the unseen Carlton on "Rhoda" from 1974 to 1978, Music became the pet rock of vocal commercial advertising.
He could earn hundreds of dollars uttering merely three words -- "Hello adoring fans" in the guise of Garfield, for example, welcoming tourists to Universal Studios, or urging a stop at McDonald's.
Music played a crash dummy in a public service ad urging automobile passengers to buckle their seat belts -- and collected a cash court settlement from Universal Pictures after the likeness was used without permission in the 1987 film "Harry and the Hendersons."
"Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get so overexposed that no one will want me," Music told the Los Angeles Times in 1987, a little embarrassed by his newfound success. "But it seems that the more you do in this business, the more people want you."
On the rare occasions when the well-known voice allowed himself to be photographed, he carefully hid his face behind hat brims, sunglasses, coffee cups or other props and his own scruffy beard.
"Anonymity works for me," Music said. "That way I never grow old."
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and raised in Duluth, Minn., Music studied at the University of Minnesota. While in college, he met his wife, Henrietta, and performed with her for several years. In 1976 they had a syndicated variety program, "The Lorenzo and Henrietta Music Show."
Music was a folk singer working in San Francisco when he met Tommy Smothers, to whom his voice has been compared. Smothers hired him to write for his "The Smothers Brothers Show" with brother Dick.
The show earned Music an Emmy in 1969, and he went on to write and work as story editor for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "The Bob Newhart Show." Music and his wife also wrote the theme song for the Newhart show.
Working on the Mary Tyler Moore spinoff "Rhoda," Music had no intention of acting in the sitcom. But producers who liked his unusual voice asked him to try it, and he became Carlton the Doorman.
After "Rhoda" was canceled, a Paramount executive suggested Music capitalize on the fondness for the Carlton voice by making radio commercials -- which he did until about a month ago.
Music is survived by his wife and their four children, Roz, Fernando, Sam and Leilani.
