Obituaries

Virginia O. ReadGift-Shop Employee

Virginia O. Read, 95, a manager and buyer in the 1960s and 1970s at Prince George's Hospital Center's gift shop, died Feb. 1 at Holy Cross Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Burtonsville. She had a stroke two years ago.

Mrs. Read, a longtime resident of Bladensburg and Silver Spring, lived with a son in Beltsville for the past two years.

Virginia Oliver was born in Ridgefield Park, N.J., attended what is now Montclair State University in New Jersey and settled in the Washington area in the late 1930s.

She did volunteer work for St. Jerome Catholic School in Hyattsville and was a former president of the Decatur Heights Homemakers Association in Bladensburg.

Her husband, Clark E. Read Jr., whom she married in 1936, died in 1971.

Survivors include two sons, Michael Read of Martinsburg, W.Va., and Dennis Read of Beltsville; three sisters; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Ralph H. OlsonCivil Servant

Ralph H. Olson, 89, a retired federal civil servant who worked in the Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service, died of congestive heart failure Jan. 26 at the Gainesville Health and Rehabilitation Center in Gainesville, Va. He was a resident of the District.

Mr. Olson was a native of Rutland, Vt., and a graduate of the Green Mountain Institute in Poultney, Vt. He served in the Army Air Forces during World War II and was stationed in England with the 8th Division under Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.

He settled in Washington in the 1940s and worked for the Agriculture Department until 1972.

He leaves no immediate survivors.

Harlow Grosvenor FarmerCIA Analyst

Harlow Grosvenor Farmer, 83, a retired Central Intelligence Agency analyst, died of pneumonia Jan. 31 at the BayWoods of Annapolis retirement home.

Mr. Farmer worked about 17 years for the CIA, until 1983. Earlier, he was a researcher with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass.