Obituaries

Joseph A. SivignyArmy Officer, School Counselor

Joseph Anthony Sivigny, 99, an Army lieutenant colonel who retired in 1961 and spent 16 years as director of the counseling department at Robert E. Peary High School in Rockville, died Dec. 2 at Inova Mount Vernon Hospital. He had a heart ailment.

Lt. Col. Sivigny, a native of New Haven, Conn., moved to Washington in the late 1930s and became a teacher and coach at the former Montgomery Hills Junior High School in Silver Spring.

After serving with the Army in Europe during World War II, he returned briefly to Montgomery Hills as principal before rejoining the military.

He served in the Transportation Corps and spent a year on an expedition to the Greenland ice cap. His final active-duty assignment was at Fort Meade, and his decorations included the Bronze Star Medal.

After leaving Peary High School in the late 1970s, he spent several years as an owner and operator with other family members of a gift shop in Leesburg, Unique Affordables.

He graduated in the early 1930s from the Arnold College for Hygiene and Physical Education in New Haven and, after his military retirement, received a master's degree in education from the University of Maryland.

Lt. Col. Sivigny was a former Potomac resident and since 2000 had lived at the Fairfax, a retirement community at Fort Belvoir.

He held season tickets for the Washington Redskins since the franchise moved from Boston in 1937.

His wife, Thelma DeHart Sivigny, whom he married in 1938, died in 2003.

Survivors include three children, retired Army Lt. Col. Michael J. Sivigny of Burke, Michelle E. Huck of London, Ky., and retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Patrick A. Sivigny of Occoquan; six grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

-- Adam Bernstein