Saturday, September 8, 2007
Ralph Scotty EdwardsEconomist, Trade Specialist
Ralph Scotty Edwards, 61, a federal economist and international trade specialist, died of pancreatic cancer Sept. 3 at his home in Montclair.
Mr. Edwards worked for the federal government for 33 years, as an economist in the Commerce Department and as an international trade specialist for the Maritime Administration in the Department of Transportation. He retired in 2003.
He was born in Manhattan, Kan., and grew up in various places as the son of an Air Force officer. He graduated from George Washington University and received a master's degree in international affairs from the University of Paris in 1970.
After his government retirement, Mr. Edwards turned his longtime hobby of nature photography into a business, displaying and selling his work at arts and crafts shows. "Canyon Light," one of his best works, is in a juried exhibit at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria. Mr. Edwards was past president of the Northern Virginia Photographic Society, from which he won numerous awards.
He also enjoyed tennis, skiing, traveling, hiking, biking, water sports and theater. He was well-read and loved discussing politics.
His marriage to Nancy Balles ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife of 21 years, Mary Jo Edwards of Montclair; a son from that marriage, Ryan Edwards of Montclair; his father, retired Air Force Col. Walter Scott Crum of Mesa, Ariz.; and two brothers.
-- Patricia Sullivan
Arthur W. HesseAir Force Colonel, Inspector
Arthur W. Hesse, 84, a retired Air Force colonel who became an electrical inspector for Prince George's County and Laurel, died Aug. 10 of leukemia at his home in Temple Hills.
Col. Hesse, who was born in Belle Plaine, Wis., joined the Army Air Forces in 1941 after briefly attending the University of Wisconsin. During World War II, the military sent him to study meteorology at Reed College in Portland, Ore., and communications at Yale University.
He transferred to the Air Force after that branch of the military was formed in 1947. He graduated from the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and taught mathematics there for several years. He received a master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University in the early 1950s.
Col. Hesse helped design weapons for the Air Force, directed research in satellite communications and headed a program for developing electronic intelligence devices. He had been based in the Washington area since 1958 and retired from the Air Force in 1975. His decorations included the Legion of Merit.
Col. Hesse joined the Prince George's County government as chief electrical inspector and worked there for 18 years. From 1993 until November 2006, he was the chief electrical inspector in Laurel, responsible for evaluating the electrical systems in homes and commercial and apartment buildings.
He was a member of Oxon Hill Lutheran Church in Temple Hills for more than 40 years. He was a vice president and elder of the church, a member of the property committee, an usher and coffee host.
Survivors include his wife of 62 years, Charlotte Hesse of Temple Hills; a son, Scott Hesse of Springfield; a brother; and two grandsons.
-- Matt Schudel
Cheryl A. SpectorCIA Employee, Gay Activist
Cheryl Ann Spector, 49, a CIA executive secretary who volunteered extensively in Washington's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community as an archivist and videographer, died Sept. 4 at George Washington University Hospital. She had acute myeloid leukemia.
Ms. Spector had worked for the CIA since 2000. Earlier, she did public relations work for the National Association of Realtors and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries.
For more than 20 years, she was known in the area's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community for taking pictures and videos of marches, parties, speeches, funerals and other gatherings.
Ms. Spector served on the board of the Rainbow History Project, an organization that documents gay life in the Washington area, and was active in an array of groups, including Queer Nation, the Lesbian Avengers and the Arlington Gay and Lesbian Alliance. She helped organize several marches and was grand marshal of a D.C. gay pride parade in 1998.
She attributed her activism to the 1985 suicide of a brother, who was gay and had AIDS.
Ms. Spector was a presence in the city's nightlife, having first worked as a disc jockey at gay clubs in the early 1980s. She was also part of an effort to bring to Washington the "drag king" performance culture of women who dress as men.
She was born in Lakewood, N.J., and raised in Toms River, N.J. She was a 1980 broadcast journalism graduate of American University.
She kept her archive at her Arlington County home, which in June was destroyed by an electrical fire. Many of her thousands of pictures, slides and videos survived. She was diagnosed with her illness just after the fire.
She received the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington's 2004 distinguished service award and is scheduled this month to receive a posthumous inspirational award from the Mautner Project, a national lesbian health organization.
Her memberships included Metropolitan Community Church and Bet Mishpachah, houses of worship in Washington serving LGBT communities.
Survivors include a sister and two brothers.
-- Adam Bernstein
Helen M. WaymothAdministrative Secretary
Helen Elizabeth Mooney Waymoth, 88, a former administrative secretary with Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, died Aug. 25 at her home in Silver Spring. She had complications from a fall in June.
Mrs. Waymoth joined the Applied Physics Laboratory in 1951. When she retired in 1985, she was administrative secretary of the laboratory's fleet systems department in Howard County.
She was born in Evansville, Ind., and graduated from Lockyear's Business College there. After her marriage in 1940, she moved to Washington, where she worked as a secretary and department manager in the personnel branch of the Army Corps of Engineers. She later worked as a secretary with Transcontinental & Western Air, the forerunner of Trans World Airlines. She had lived in Silver Spring since 1951.
Mrs. Waymoth enjoyed caring for animals and had poodles and Siamese cats as pets. She also was fond of children and often went shopping with the children of friends and neighbors.
Survivors include her husband of 67 years, Paul S. Waymoth of Silver Spring.
-- Matt Schudel
Hertha Schlefer RoshalVolunteer
Hertha Maxine Googe Schlefer Roshal, 79, a volunteer who sang in a local chorale and sorted mail at the Clinton White House, died of cancer Aug. 29 at the house her grandfather built 99 years ago in Arlington.
Mrs. Roshal was born in Brownsville, Tex., and moved to Arlington at age 9. She graduated from Washington-Lee High School and was a 1949 graduate of the University of Chicago. She worked for the Social Security Administration in Baltimore and then in Brooklyn, N.Y., retiring from the agency in 1988.
She moved to Arlington the following year. She sang with the Arlington Senior Chorale and was a member of the Arlington Democratic Committee, from which she became a volunteer in the White House mailroom during the Clinton administration.
Mrs. Roshal also enjoyed working in her garden and mall-walking at Ballston Commons. She and her husband traveled and sampled the cuisines of China, Sweden, Norway, the Galapagos Islands, France, England and the United States.
Her first husband, William Schlefer, died in 1976. Her second husband, Dr. Jay "Hoodie" Roshal, died in 2004.
Survivors include two children, James Schlefer and Frederick Schlefer, both of Brooklyn; and three grandchildren.
-- Patricia Sullivan
Jean Marie StreeterElementary Teacher
Jean Marie Streeter, 90, a former Montgomery County elementary school teacher, died Aug. 28 of an intestinal disease at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Edgewood, Ky. A former resident of Silver Spring, she had lived in Fort Wright, Ky., since 2001.
Mrs. Streeter began teaching in the Montgomery County schools in the early 1950s. She taught fourth grade at Highland Elementary School in Silver Spring for many years and also taught at Darnestown and Barnesville elementary schools. She retired in 1976.
She was a member of Hughes United Methodist Church in Wheaton and the Maryland State Teachers Association.
Mrs. Streeter was born in Philadelphia and moved as a child with her family to Louisiana and Texas. After graduating from the University of Texas, she received a master's degree in English there in 1938. She did additional graduate work at the University of Maryland.
She served in the Women's Army Corps during World War II and first settled in Washington in 1943.
Her first husband, Herman M. Hall, died in 1968 after 24 years of marriage.
Her second husband, Wallace N. Streeter, whom she married in 1970, died in 1996.
Survivors include three children from her first marriage, Martha Kump of Midlothian, Va., Elizabeth Bernard of Crescent Springs, Ky., and David Hall of Frederick; a brother; four grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
-- Matt Schudel
Helen HarpoldAdministrative Assistant
Helen Balcar Harpold, 90, an administrative assistant for federal agencies who retired in 1973 from the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, died Sept. 1 at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington. She had congestive heart failure.
Mrs. Harpold was born in Fairpoint, Ohio, and graduated from a business college in Wheeling, W.Va., before settling in Washington in the early 1940s. She was a Falls Church resident.
Her avocations included growing flowers, and she grew enough to supply many neighbors. She also bowled and collected glass paperweights.
Her husband, Paul Harpold, whom she married in 1951, died in 1994.
Survivors include a sister, Agnes Paroulek of Arlington; and a brother, Frank Balcar of St. Clairsville, Ohio.
-- Adam Bernstein