Friday, August 17, 2007
Richard D'ArienzoPark Planner
Richard "Rick" J. D'Arienzo, 55, a park planner for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, died of a ruptured spleen Aug. 3 at a family reunion in Massena, N.Y. He lived in Bethesda.
Mr. D'Arienzo worked for the commission for more than 30 years, expanding and improving parks throughout Montgomery County. He worked on the Park, Recreation and Open Space master plan and helped acquire or develop Nike Missile Local Park, Milton Kaufmann Park, Manor Oaks Local Park, Ovid Hazen Wells Recreational Park, Laytonia Recreational Park and South Germantown Recreational Park.
He was project manager for the King Dairy Barn Mooseum, a heritage museum and educational center at the James and Macie King barn in the South Germantown Recreational Park that will interpret the county's dairy heritage.
He was born in Massena and graduated from the College of the Adirondacks with an associate's degree. He received a bachelor's degree from the State University of New York at Syracuse and a master's degree in parks and recreation from the University of Baltimore in 1987.
He moved to the Washington area in 1976. He served on the Silver Spring area recreational advisory board and volunteered at hospitals. He enjoyed the outdoors, hunting, fishing and gardening, and was a Washington Nationals fan.
Survivors include his wife of 17 years, Carol Truppi of Bethesda; and his father, Alfonso D'Arienzo, and stepmother, Maidie D'Arienzo, both of Clearwater, Fla.
-- Patricia Sullivan
Muriel Goodman EngelMedical Records Librarian
Muriel Goodman Engel, 81, a medical records librarian, died of pneumonia Aug. 10 at the National Institutes of Health clinical center in Bethesda. She lived in Silver Spring.
Ms. Engel worked at Doctors Hospital and at Providence Hospital as a medical records secretary. She was a clerk-typist at NIH and secretary in the gastrointestinal clinic at Bethesda Naval Medical Center.
She also held administrative and secretarial positions in the obstetrics-gynecology and urology departments at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington for 12 years, until she retired in 1996.
Ms. Engel was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and attended Hunter College in New York. She graduated from Brooklyn College. She worked at a bilingual radio and television school and at New York's Sidney Hillman Health Center as chief medical records librarian and assistant records librarian. She moved to the Washington area in 1964.
A meticulous note taker and consumer advocate, Ms. Engel would clip news items about food safety hazards or driving tips for her friends and family. She enjoyed walking and hiking and the visual arts.
She volunteered at the Vegetarian Society of D.C. and at Murch Elementary School in Washington and Rock Creek Palisades Elementary School in Kensington.
Her marriage to Arnold Engel ended in divorce.
Survivors include three children, Edward Engel of Prince Frederick, Md., Leigh Buchanan of Sudbury, Mass., and Harriet Engel of Frankfort, Ky.; and two grandchildren.
-- Patricia Sullivan
Louise S. HeidClub President, Volunteer
Louise Shoemaker Heid, 92, a former Falls Church resident and president of the Lake Barcroft Woman's Club, died Aug. 10 at Asbury Methodist Village in Gaithersburg. She had adenocarcinoma, a form of cancer.
Mrs. Heid was a member of Arlington Forest United Methodist Church in Arlington County and the pilots' wives club of United Airlines.
She was a volunteer with a National Symphony Orchestra fund-raising event called the Decorators' Show House.
Eddis Louise Shoemaker was a third-generation Washingtonian and graduated in 1931 from Western High School. She attended George Washington University before graduating from the Washington School for Secretaries.
She spent a few years as a legal secretary for the Cromelin & Laws law firm in Washington. After the United Stated entered World War II, Mrs. Heid was briefly a legal secretary in the Justice Department's alien enemy control unit.
In 1991, she moved from Falls Church to Asbury Methodist Village.
Her husband, Francis P. Heid, whom she married in 1939, died in 1973.
Survivors include two sons, Paul M. Heid of Baltimore and Charles F. "Chuck" Heid of Warrenton; four grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
-- Adam Bernstein
Virginia S. PierceSecretary, Volunteer
Virginia Shepherd Pierce, 91, a Federal Aviation Administration secretary and American Red Cross volunteer, died Aug. 10 at her home in Falls Church. She had leukemia.
Mrs. Pierce worked for the FAA from 1968 to 1971 and from 1977 to 1981.
Over the years, she was a secretary for the American Red Cross chapter in Arlington; ran a cake-decoration business; co-owned and operated with her husband a Dairy Queen in Falls Church; and was an aide at Arlington Hospital, where she also was a maternity ward volunteer.
She also was a Red Cross volunteer, giving more than six gallons of blood during her lifetime and checking in with "shut-ins" over the phone.
Mrs. Pierce was born in La Grande, Ore., and won a scholarship to Reed College in Portland. She was unable to attend Reed because of the Depression and received a business college certificate in La Grande in 1934.
The next year, she came to the Washington area as an Interstate Commerce Commission stenographer.
She was a troop leader for scouting groups and in later years participated in senior Olympics. Her avocations included playing piano and sewing.
Her marriage to William R. Pierce ended in divorce.
Survivors include three children, Raiford S. Pierce of McLean, Meredith P. Dozier of Herndon and Alycon T. Pierce of Falls Church; three grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
-- Adam Bernstein
Arnold ShostakPhysicist
Arnold Shostak, 93, a physicist who promoted many of the early developments in radio astronomy, died of respiratory failure Aug. 4 at Inova Alexandria Hospital. He lived in Fairfax County.
Dr. Shostak was director of the electronics research program at the Office of Naval Research, where he invested in research for the development of the maser and laser, submarine detection, microelectronics, the atomic clock and radio astronomy.
Many of the major radio telescopes constructed in the 1960s, including those operated by the University of California and the California Institute of Technology, were built with support from Dr. Shostak's office. These instruments eventually mapped the skies and uncovered such phenomena as quasars and clues to dark matter, a still-mysterious constituent of the cosmos that is of greater mass than the totality of all stars.
Dr. Shostak worked at the Office of Naval Research until 1974, then became a consultant to several technology and defense contractors, including Anser Corp. in Crystal City. He retired in 1999.
He was born in Syracuse, N.Y., and graduated from City College of New York in 1936. He landed a job with the Federal Communications Commission's office in Kansas City, Mo., which led to his position as a regional officer in charge of the FCC's Radio Intelligence Division during World War II. He used radio direction-finding equipment to locate spies transmitting reports to Germany. Near the end of the war, he joined the Navy, and later the Navy Reserve.
He received a doctorate in physics from Catholic University in 1955.
Survivors include his wife of 65 years, Bertha Shostak of Falls Church; three sons, Seth Shostak of Mountain View, Calif., Robert Shostak of Portola Valley, Calif., and David Shostak of Fairfax County; and two granddaughters.
-- Patricia Sullivan
Lorenzo VillacortaArtist
Lorenzo Villacorta, 71, an artist who directed the art department at Washington's International School during the 1980s, died of lung cancer Aug. 5 in a hospital in Turin, Italy.
Mr. Villacorta was born in Ciclayo, Peru, and studied law at the University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru, and medicine in Cordoba, Argentina. After he moved to the United States in 1961, he received a master's degree in fine arts from what is now California College of the Arts in 1977.
He worked at the Washington school from 1979 to 1987, while creating brilliantly colored acrylic abstract works. His paintings were shown in the Musee du Luxembourg and Palais des Congrès in Paris, the National Gallery of Thailand in Bangkok, the Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes in Cordoba and Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano in Lima.
In the Washington area, he exhibited his works at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, the Inter-American Development Bank and the Arlington Arts Center. His work is currently displayed at the Turin Cultural Center in Italy.
His marriage to Sharon Tate ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife, Lynn Ellingston of Turin; two daughters from his first marriage, Connie Kimpel of Spokane, Wash., and Lixa James of Calistoga, Calif.; a daughter from his second marriage, Laura Villacorta of Turin; and five grandchildren.
-- Patricia Sullivan