Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Philip E. CarolanTreasury Official
Philip E. Carolan, 65, a former senior executive at the Treasury Department, died of cancer June 24 at his home in Washington.
Mr. Carolan worked at the Treasury Department from 1975 until his retirement in 1994. Previously, he worked for the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service for a year and before that, the Foreign Service.
Born in Quincy, Ill., Mr. Carolan grew up on a farm outside of Mendon, Ill. He graduated from Illinois State University and served in the Peace Corps in Iran. He joined the Foreign Service, working at the Agency for International Development in Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia and Afghanistan. He moved to Washington in 1974 to work at the mediation and conciliation service and then Treasury. He was executive director of the Treasury Executive Institute when he retired.
Mr. Carolan served as chairman of the board of the Treasury Department's Federal Credit Union for 14 years. He also volunteered as president of the board of his housing cooperative.
Survivors include his partner of 13 years, W. Michael Neal of Washington; three brothers; and two sisters.
-- Patricia Sullivan
Margaret 'Peggy' UnkleIRS Senior Manager
Margaret "Peggy" Unkle, 53, a senior manager of product assurance at the Internal Revenue Service who started a successful employee mentoring program, died June 11 of cardiac arrest at Inova Alexandria Hospital. She lived in Alexandria.
Miss Unkle started at the IRS in 1975 auditing individual tax returns in the Atlanta office. In her most recent job, she oversaw system testing for individual and business returns, error resolution and modernized electronic filing projects.
She was founder and program manager of an agency mentoring program that has grown to serve more than 7,000 employees. Miss Unkle, described as cool under pressure, personally mentored many IRS employees and tried to help them progress in their jobs, her family and co-workers said.
She was selected for the IRS 2007 Executive Readiness Program.
Miss Unkle was born in Bethesda, grew up in Fairfax County and graduated from W.T. Woodson High School. She received a bachelor's degree in economics from Mary Washington College and a master's degree in public administration from the University of Southern California's Washington branch in 1989.
She was a member of the Professional Managers Association, the Federal Mentoring Roundtable, Federally Employed Women, the Hispanic Internal Revenue Employees and Asian Pacific Internal Revenue Employees.
She played the parlor game Bunco for a number of years with a group of women in Alexandria and traveled extensively in Asia, Europe and the United States. She enjoyed decorating and antiquing and took a class at the Corcoran College of Art and Design on interior decorating.
She loved the theater and had season tickets to the Kennedy Center.
She supported numerous national and local charities. She adored children and brought clothes and toys for numerous children at the Central Union Mission, where she also volunteered. She also was involved with efforts in the 1990s to block a proposed Washington Redskins stadium in Potomac Yard.
Survivors include her parents, John and Marie Unkle of Fairfax, and a sister, Patricia Unkle Goodman of Washington.
-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb
Garnett B. Weatherford Sr.Bus Driver
Garnett Burnell Weatherford Sr., 80, an Alexandria resident and bus driver for what became the Metro transit system, died June 27 at Inova Alexandria Hospital. He had a pulmonary embolism.
Mr. Weatherford spent 25 years with the AB&W transit company until it was acquired by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority in 1973. He then spent 16 years with Metro before retiring.
He was born in Danville, Va., and served in the Navy in the Pacific during World War II.
A son, Garnett B. Weatherford Jr., died in 2004.
Survivors include his wife of 53 years, Florence Morrison Weatherford of Alexandria; three children, Stephen W. Weatherford Sr., Elaine M. Eldridge and John G. Weatherford Sr., all of Alexandria; two sisters, Thelma Snead and Betty Atkinson, both of Danville; a brother, D.D. Weatherford Jr. of Danville; seven grandchildren; and two great-grandsons.
-- Adam Bernstein
Ralph C. Thomas Jr.FDA Official, Singer, Minister
Ralph Charles Thomas Jr., 84, a Food and Drug Administration official, band singer and ordained minister, died June 26 at Prince George's Hospital Center. He had congestive heart failure.
The Rev. Thomas spent 16 years with the FDA before retiring in 1986 as an assistant branch chief focusing on testing food safety. From 1953 to 1970, he was an Army Department civilian doing microbiology work based at Fort Detrick in Frederick.
He was born in Frederick, where he was a 1940 graduate of Lincoln High School. He served in the Army Air Forces in the Pacific during World War II and then attended Virginia Union University in Richmond.
As a singer, he appeared on radio and television talent shows and at functions for dignitaries. He was best known regionally for his work as a singer with the Dick Harp band, a jazz and R&B combo.
In the mid-1970s, Rev. Thomas became a born-again Christian and made church singing the focus of his performing schedule. He recorded an album of traditional hymns that played on Christian radio stations nationwide.
In 1991, he and his wife were ordained as Baptist ministers and toured the South as evangelical singers. He also became the chaplain of a nursing home in Stafford. He was associate pastor of King's Highway Baptist Church in Fredericksburg before moving to Upper Marlboro in 2003.
Survivors include his wife of 61 years, the Rev. Dorothy Easley Thomas of Upper Marlboro; five children, Frank T. Thomas of Temple Hills, Bruce R. Thomas of Brooklyn Park and Lelia R. Stewart, Ralph C. Thomas III and Alana M. Thornton, all of Upper Marlboro; two brothers, Lawrence Thomas of Frederick and Clarence Thomas of Bandon, Ore.; seven grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
-- Adam Bernstein
Roy J. McDonaldFBI Special Agent
Roy James McDonald, 87, an FBI special agent who worked in the Washington field office from 1961 until his retirement in 1978, died June 5 at Inova Alexandria Hospital. He had congestive heart failure.
Mr. McDonald joined the FBI in 1940 as a messenger in the Washington office. He later worked in various field offices, including Boston and New York, and specialized in criminal investigations. He also worked on the bank robbery squad.
He was born on a farm near Fisher, Minn., and raised in Grand Forks, N.D. He served in the Army Air Forces in the Pacific during World War II. He was a 1949 graduate of the University of San Francisco Law School.
He was an elder at Heritage Presbyterian Church in Alexandria, his city of residence.
His avocations included collecting classical and jazz records.
Survivors include his wife of 60 years, Carolyn Nelson McDonald of Alexandria; two daughters, Margaret McDonald of Alexandria and Lara White of Woodbridge; a granddaughter; and a great-grandson.
-- Adam Bernstein
William J. DixonGovernment Attorney
William J. Dixon, 83, an attorney for the old Civil Aeronautics Board and later a House committee, died June 22 at George Washington University Hospital of complications of pulmonary illness.
A native Washingtonian, Mr. Dixon was born in the back seat of an automobile as his parents rushed to the old Garfield Hospital. While growing up, he delivered The Washington Post and worked part time at Giant, Safeway and the Naval Gun Factory. He graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in 1941.
He enlisted in the Navy after the attack on Pearl Harbor and served as an antiaircraft gunner on the aircraft carrier USS Independence. He fought in the battles of Midway, Guam and Tarawa. Mr. Dixon contracted tuberculosis and spent a number of months in Navy hospitals until he was honorably discharged.
He returned to Washington, attended the University of Maryland and then transferred to George Washington University Law School, where he received a law degree in 1950. Thirteen years later, GWU awarded him a bachelor's degree.
Mr. Dixon worked at the National Labor Relations Board for several years and then moved to Louisville to work for a law firm there. He returned to the District in 1955 and became a senior trial attorney at the Civil Aeronautics Board.
In 1964, he was asked to advise the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, where he worked on legislation such as the daylight savings bill and the National Transportation Safety Act. While working there, he lost his vision. Under treatment at the Veterans Administration hospital in the District, he started a low-vision support group.
Mr. Dixon retired from government service in 1974. He was hospitalized in 1978 due to chronic alcoholism and subsequently joined Alcoholics Anonymous. He became a volunteer at Providence Hospital and in 1984 was certified as an addictions counselor. He spent the rest of his life counseling others with the disease.
Survivors include his wife of 49 years, Eugenia Moore Dixon of Washington; five sons, Monsignor Bennet William Dixon of Roanoke, Thomas Watson Dixon of Leesburg, James Jefferson Dixon of Frederick, Damien Joseph Dixon of Port Charlotte, Fla., and Timothy Patrick Dixon of Falling Waters, W.Va.; a sister, Leila Kirby of Solomons Island; eight grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
-- Patricia Sullivan
Joseph F. BurnsAccountant
Joseph Francis Burns, 86, an Air Force Department accountant from 1963 to 1984, died June 28 at Fairfax Nursing Center. He had coronary artery disease and Huntington's disease, a genetic disorder.
Mr. Burns, a former Herndon resident, was a native of Scranton, Pa., and an Army Air Forces veteran of World War II.
He was a 1953 graduate of Washington's Southeastern University, where he also received a master's degree in commercial science in 1954. He was a certified public accountant for businesses before joining the Air Force Department.
In retirement, he taught adults how to read and volunteered for Mended Hearts, a support group for people with heart disease.
His first wife, Mary O'Connor Burns, whom he married in 1950, died in 1973. His wife of 15 years, Martha Phillips Burns, died in March.
Survivors include four children from his first marriage, Janet M. Roma of Stephens City, Va., Robert J. Burns of Charlottesville and Patricia A. Pedersen and Bonnie B. Fairbank, both of Woodbridge; four stepchildren, William R. Phillips of Fairfax Station, Susan P. North of Rosemont, Pa., David D. Phillips of Alpharetta, Ga., and Timothy R. Phillips of Herndon; and 22 grandchildren.
-- Adam Bernstein
Gracemary Greene SnyderLibrarian, Foreign Service Spouse
Gracemary Greene Snyder, 86, a retired librarian at the Wesley Theological Seminary and the spouse of a State Department protocol officer, died of failure to thrive June 24 at Collington Episcopal Life Care Community in Mitchellville.
Mrs. Snyder worked at the seminary for 10 years, retiring in 1992. Previously she accompanied her husband to posts around the world, where she fulfilled many unofficial functions of a diplomat's spouse, including entertaining foreign and U.S. officials.
When the couple returned to the United States about 1970, they settled in Bethesda.
Mrs. Snyder was a native of Reading, Pa., and graduated from Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pa., in 1942. She received a master's degree in theological studies from Wesley College in Dover, Del., in 1982.
She was a member of the pastoral care team at River Road Unitarian Church in Bethesda.
Survivors include her husband of 63 years, C. Kenneth Snyder of Mitchellville; three children, Judith L. Munyon of Austin, Wendy S. Wilson of Columbus, Ohio, and Tim Snyder of Bethesda; a sister; nine grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
-- Patricia Sullivan
Don HallNursing Home Administrator
Don Hall, 85, who was an administrator at the D.C. Village, a nursing home in Washington, from 1968 to 1983, died June 22 at his home in Hillsville, Va., where he had lived for seven years.
He was born in Jackson County, Fla., and grew up in Dover, Fla. He was in the National Guard when his unit was mobilized for service in 1940. During World War II, he saw action in New Guinea and the Philippines before the Japanese surrender. After the war, as a member of the 441st Counter Intelligence Corps, he served with the occupation forces in Japan. He accompanied Emperor Hirohito during the emperor's tour of the nation after the war, receiving a box of cigars from the emperor for his role, his family said.
He remained in active service with the Army's Counter Intelligence Corps until his retirement as a chief warrant officer in 1962 in Washington. He lived at posts in Texas, California, Japan, Tennessee, Germany and Washington.
After retirement, he began another career, working as an administrator at Bay County Hospital in Panama City, Fla., before working as administrator at D.C. Village. He retired in 1983.
He was a former member of Franconia Baptist Church. He lived in Springfield and Woodbridge before moving to Florida in 1999.
Survivors include his wife of 57 years, Barbara Hall of Hillsville; three children, Donna Quesenberry of Hillsville, Ron Hall of Raleigh, N.C., and Ken Hall of Dacula, Ga.; five grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.
-- Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb