Wednesday, February 8, 2006
Norman SabatiniHomebuilder
Norman Sabatini, 88, who spent 35 years as a Washington area home builder before retiring in 1998, died of heart disease Jan. 29 at his home in North Bethesda.
Since 1963, when he started Norsab Inc. and later Hermitage Building Inc., his companies built almost 1,500 homes in the metropolitan area. The companies also did custom home building and complicated remodeling projects and worked on several light commercial properties.
A native Washingtonian, Mr. Sabatini competed in track and field at MacFarland Junior High School and held the city junior high school high jump record for many years. He graduated from Central High School, where he was the primary pass receiver while on the football team.
An all-around athlete, he loved baseball, and he was well known in a local semi-professional league as a pitcher and a catcher with bigger ambitions.
While working at the Washington Gas Co., Mr. Sabatini attended night school at the old Columbus University in the District and graduated with a degree in accounting. His work was interrupted in 1941 when he was drafted into the Army. He completed officer candidate school and other specialized training before shipping out to fight in the Italian Campaign of the European theater as a member of the 88th Infantry Division.
While fighting in Italy, he was given a battlefield commission to become a company commander. On July 17th, 1944, he was injured by a mortar fragment while his unit was trying to take a German stronghold in the town of Palaia. He received two Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart with an oak leaf cluster. He completed his Army service with the rank of captain and returned to the gas company.
After 17 years with the gas company, he worked as a sales manager with the James A. Cassidy Co. and later the United Clay Brick Co. In 1963, he started a company based in Silver Spring.
His company was recognized numerous times by the local chapter of the National Association of Homebuilders and by the National Association of the Remodeling Industry.
Mr. Sabatini was instrumental in establishing the 88th Infantry Division Association and was active in the National Capital Building Industry Association, where he was a life director.
He had a passion for golf and was an avid reader.
Survivors include his wife of 64 years, Elizabeth "Betty" Sabatini of North Bethesda; three children, Carolyn Brown of Silver Spring, Rita Sabatini of Rockville and Louis Sabatini of Silver Spring; five grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
William Darley SmithCIA Finance Officer
William Darley Smith, 69, a retired CIA finance officer, died Jan. 25 at his home in Fairfax. He had Parkinson's disease and dementia.
Mr. Smith was born in Logan, Utah, and was raised there and in Idaho.
After serving in the Marine Corps in Japan from 1954 to 1956, he graduated from Utah State University with a bachelor's degree in political science and history.
He worked for an aeronautical engineering firm in Utah before 1963, when he moved to the Washington area to begin a career with the CIA. Most of his 23-year career was spent in the agency's budget and finance section and included tours of duty in Asia and Africa.
He also was an active member of the Linden Square Homeowners Association and a classical and jazz music aficionado.
Survivors include his wife of 49 years, Helen Markowski Smith of Fairfax; two daughters, Michelle Simmons of Springfield and Nan Zacharias of Safety Harbor, Fla.; his mother, Edith D. Swain of Twin Falls, Idaho; two brothers; and a granddaughter.
Mary Anne AndersonChurch Member, VolunteerMary Anne Anderson, 74, a church member and volunteer, died of complications from diabetes Jan. 9 at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Towson. She lived in Lutherville.
Mrs. Anderson, who attended Mass at the Carmelite Monastery in Towson, was involved in the International Community for Renewal of the Earth, a spiritual and environmental movement. She was also part of the Christian Family Movement.
Born Mary Anne O'Brien in Washington, she graduated from the Academy of the Holy Names in Silver Spring and Georgetown Visitation Junior College. She was a 1953 graduate of Trinity College in Washington.
She married and moved with her husband to Bedford, N.Y., where she was a homemaker and volunteer, hosting inner-city children through New York's Fresh Air Fund and raising puppies destined to be guide dogs through the Guiding Eyes for the Blind program.
The couple relocated to Middletown, Md., in 1993, joined Holy Family Catholic Church there, and in 2001 moved to Lutherville.
Survivors include her husband of 49 years, Bernard F. Anderson of Lutherville; five children, Ken Anderson of Timonium, Md., Tim Anderson of Colleyville, Tex., Don Anderson of Everett, Wash., Margaret Ann Connors of Clinton, N.J., and Regina DiFucci of Mount Olive, N.J.; a brother, George O'Brien, and two sisters, Margaret O'Brien and Helen MacCollum, all of Silver Spring; and 12 grandchildren.
Albert Wiley PattersonNaval Hospital Employee
Albert Wiley Patterson, 91, who worked at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda until the late 1970s, died Jan. 7 of pneumonia and kidney failure at Washington Hospital Center.
Mr. Patterson was born in Vassar, Kan., and worked on the family farm after he dropped out of school at 13. As a young adult, he lived and worked for about a year in Asheville, Ala., before returning to the farm.
He moved to Washington at 27. He worked for the National Institutes of Health and Arlington National Cemetery before joining the National Naval Medical Center, where he did custodian work.
"He was a good worker," said his sister, Anna Mae Hendrickson of Kansas City, and he never took sick or annual leave. Mr. Patterson, who always wore his farm overalls, used more than a year's worth of paid leave to return to his family farm and work for a year.
Mr. Patterson knew every capital of every U.S. state and of every country. He was a staunch advocate of osteopathic and homeopathic medicine.
His wife, Inez Patterson, died in 1996.
In addition to his sister, survivors include two stepchildren, Godfrey Smith of Silver Spring and Beverly Bailey of Washington; and a brother.
Shapur ZanganehCivil EngineerShapur Zanganeh, 77, a retired hydropower expert who worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, died Feb. 2 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease, at his Falls Church home.
Mr. Zanganeh was born in Kermanshah, Iran, and came to the United States in the early 1940s to study, first at West Virginia University and then at Davis and Elkins College in West Virginia, where he received his undergraduate degree in civil engineering in the late 1940s. He received a master's degree in civil engineering and a master's degree in hydrology from the University of Oklahoma.
During the 1950s and 1960s, he served with several consulting engineering firms throughout the United States and overseas, designing and constructing major water resources projects. He joined the Corps of Engineers in the late 1970s as a hydropower expert, working on levee and dam projects throughout the nation. He retired in 1995.
He was a member of the Falls Church Lions Club and Falls Church Episcopal Church. Friends and family noted that he accepted the debilitations of his illness with peace and serenity.
Survivors include his wife of 50 years, Bonnetta Zanganeh of Falls Church; two children, David Zanganeh of the District and Leala Kurtzke of Vienna; two brothers and two sisters; and five grandchildren.
Mary Myers RayNative Washingtonian
Mary Myers Ray, 88, a native Washingtonian and a 1936 graduate of McKinley Technical High School, died Feb. 4 at Inova Loudoun Hospital. She had congestive heart failure.
Mrs. Ray, a McLean resident, briefly did administrative work at the Labor Department and Works Progress Administration before becoming a homemaker.
Her husband, Elmer Carroll Ray, whom she married in 1941, died in 1989. A daughter, Peggie Russell, died in 1998.
Survivors include three children, William C. Ray of Leesburg, Margie Ray McDevitt of Wayne, Pa., and Pattie Ray Snider of Potomac Falls, Va.; a sister, Betty Clem of Front Royal; nine grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Delores Boswell WillisBakery ManagerDelores Boswell Willis, 74, a native Washingtonian and a bakery manager of Giant stores in Montgomery County in the 1960s, died Jan. 26 at Suburban Hospital. She had sepsis.
Mrs. Willis, a Bethesda resident, was a member of support groups for those with depression.
Her marriages to James T. Willis and Werner Rohling ended in divorce.
Survivors include two sons from her first marriage, James T. Willis Jr. of Silver Spring and John Willis of San Diego; and two granddaughters.