Obituaries

Mrs. Bickings, born in Niles, Kan., worked as a teenager during World War II riveting skins on the fuselage of B-29 Superfortress bombers and repairing bomb bay doors for Boeing in Wichita, Kan. When rumors circulated about the war's end in April 1945, she and a friend went to a Wichita dance hall to celebrate. It was there that she met her future husband, a serviceman from Washington.

Mrs. Bickings was among 20 Rosie the Riveters honored at a congressional reception May 19, 2004, at the Rayburn House Office Building.

She moved to the Washington area in 1946 and volunteered while raising a family. She organized and managed the craft table for the fundraising bazaar at Bells Methodist Church in Camp Springs. She was a Girl Scout leader, a member of the Prince William County chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution and a member of the Harmony Hall regional center in Fort Washington.

Survivors include her husband of 60 years, James E. Bickings of Dumfries; three children, Shirley Butler of Severna Park, Charlene Bickings of Alexandria and James Bickings of Leesburg; two sisters; and three grandchildren.

Julius Davis 'Cap' CaporalettiHUD Accountant

Julius Davis "Cap" Caporaletti, 81, a retired accountant with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, died Jan. 26 of lung cancer at St. Vincent Hospice in Indianapolis. He was a longtime Alexandria resident.

Mr. Caporaletti was born in Alexandria, the son of Italian immigrants. He was a 1944 graduate of George Washington High School, where he was captain of the football team and voted most popular. During World War II, he served in France with the Army's 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

He received a bachelor of commercial science degree from Strayer College in 1953 and joined HUD shortly thereafter. He was with the agency until he retired in 1980.

In retirement, he worked part time as an accountant with the Naval Research Lab. He also served on the board of directors at Wight Bay Condominium in Ocean City, where he had a vacation home.

Mr. Caporaletti loved being with family and friends, playing tennis, bowling and following the Washington Redskins. He was a good cook, and he played the harmonica and wrote poetry.

Survivors include his wife of 59 years, June Caporaletti of Indianapolis; three children, Janet Lewis of Indianapolis, David Caporaletti of Port St. John, Fla., and Gregory Caporaletti of Titusville, Fla.; and two grandchildren.

Joseph Emory HardestyEngraving Worker

Joseph Emory Hardesty, 90, who worked for many years at the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, died Jan. 25 of cancer at a treatment center at the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington in Rockville. He lived in Silver Spring.

Mr. Hardesty was born in Washington and graduated from McKinley Technical High School. He served in the Navy as a Seabee during World War II and participated in Normandy landings just after D-Day.

He had worked for the Bureau of Engraving before the war and rejoined the bureau after his return. He was a metalsmith and sheet-metal specialist and retired in 1971.

He enjoyed boating and fishing and was a member of the American Legion.

His first wife, Kathleen Huntington Hardesty, died in 1970.

Survivors include his wife of 24 years, Dorothy Hardesty of Silver Spring.

Daniel Glyndwr LewisEngineer, Singer

Daniel Glyndwr Lewis, 79, a retired engineer with the American Public Power Association, died of lymphoma Jan. 28 at Inova Fairfax Hospital. He was a Bethesda resident.

Mr. Lewis, who sang bass for 40 years at the River Road Unitarian Church, died just after 40 members of the church choir arrived to sing "Bright Morning Stars," "Hush, Somebody's Calling My Name" and "Yonder Come Day" for him. Their voices echoed down the hospital hallway.

He sang soprano as a preacher's son in Newark Valley, N.Y., and moved on to school and university choruses, light opera and the Washington Choral Arts Society.

He served in the Navy during World War II . After the war, he graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, then took advanced engineering training at General Electric Co. in Syracuse, N.Y. He later worked for Control Data in Minneapolis and the Public Power Commission and the American Public Power Association in Washington. He retired in 1991.

He was a member of the National Capital Astronomers. For the past five years, he worked on planning, fundraising and groundbreaking for a new fellowship hall at River Road Unitarian Church in Bethesda.

His marriages to Helen Lewis Cackener and Bett Notter ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife of 15 years, Barbara Keairnes Laur Lewis of Bethesda; four children from his first marriage, Deborah Lewis Poplasky of Canandaigua, N.Y., Elizabeth Lewis Michl of Delmar, N.Y., and Margaret Lewis Price of Tualatin, Ore.; a son from his second marriage, Daniel Lewis of Sacramento; two adopted children from his second marriage, Lee Lewis of Beverly Farms, Mass., and Bart Burkewitz of Norwich Corner, Conn.; three stepchildren, David Laur of Seattle, Karen Laur of Belmont, Calif., and Matthew Laur of Gaithersburg; a brother; and 16 grandchildren.

John Dorsey HeinbergEconomist

John Dorsey Heinberg, 68, an economist specializing in the evaluation and research of domestic federal programs and policies, died of brain cancer Jan. 22 at his home in McLean.

Mr. Heinberg worked for the Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration from 1987 until his retirement in 2003. From 1988 to 1995, he designed, ran and evaluated job training for a homeless demonstration project that helped more than 45,000 homeless people at 32 locations by providing shelter, jobs, training and social services. That model is now used around the country by many communities.

Born in Columbia, Mo., Mr. Heinberg was the son of a University of Missouri political science professor. In the summer of 1949, when he was 11, his father took him to a private meeting with President Harry S. Truman at the White House. Mr. Heinberg graduated from Yale University and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He served in the Navy from 1959 to 1962.

The following year, Mr. Heinberg received a master's degree in economics from the University of Missouri, and he received a doctoral degree in public finance in 1967 from the University of Wisconsin. His thesis on the rehabilitation of housing as an alternative to urban renewal projects introduced him to his career.

Mr. Heinberg taught public finance and developed a course in urban economics at Princeton University in 1966. In 1969, he accepted a senior research associate's job at the Urban Institute in Washington and oversaw work on the Experimental Housing Allowance Program, one of the largest, most expensive and challenging experimental research projects launched by the government in the 1970s.

In 1978, Mr. Heinberg joined the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and later worked at the General Accounting Office until he joined the Department of Labor.

Mr. Heinberg in 2001 received the Secretary of Labor's Career Service Award. He then spent a semester at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

He was a member of the American Economic Association and the American Evaluation Association and served on the editorial board of the journal Evaluation Practice. After retirement, he was a consultant to Capital Research Corp.

He enjoyed studying the Civil War. He was a member of the Civil War Roundtable and took graduate courses at George Mason University in preparation for writing a book about the Civil War era in Missouri. He also enjoyed college basketball, Barry Levinson movies and television shows, and coffee. He swam or walked every day and was a past member of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Arlington and the Church of the Good Shepherd in Burke.

He was one of 11 former government officials who signed Daniel Ellsberg's "Truth Telling Project: A Call to Patriotic Whistleblowing" in 2004, which urged government employees to bring forward wrongly concealed federal documents.

Survivors include his wife of 41 years, Beverly Susan Brockus of McLean; two children, Jason Bruce Heinberg of Arlington and Susan Walker Heinberg Oleinik of Princeton, N.J.; and a grandson.

Grace Hermia LawsYouth Worker, Teacher

Grace Hermia Laws, 80, a retired teacher and former member of the D.C. Mayor's Youth Council, died Jan. 27 of congestive heart failure at her home in Bedford Court in Silver Spring.

Miss Laws was born in Rocky Mount, N.C. One of 10 girls in her family -- seven of them college graduates -- she received a bachelor's degree from Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte in 1946. After operating a Rocky Mount preschool for a few years, she moved to the District to take a job as a recreation director with the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation. She became a member of the Mayor's Youth Council during then-Mayor Walter Washington's tenure.

In 1966, The Washington Post reported on a speech about community action that she made to the 18th annual Youth Conference, sponsored by the local chapter of Zeta Phi Beta sorority. "You have to start where you are -- in your home, your school, your church," she told the audience of young people. "You don't have a lot of money to revamp your neighborhood, but you can pick up the broken glass and talk to your neighbor's children, kindly, letting them know they shouldn't run roughshod over other people's property."

During the riots after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, she walked the streets of Washington with then-Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.). She also held several positions with the federal government.

After her retirement, she taught English as a second language in the Montgomery County school system. She retired a second time after suffering a massive stroke in 1990.

Survivors include a sister, Nellie Laws Grant of Silver Spring.