Obituaries

Sara B. WheelerFairfax County Reading Teacher

Sara Brawley Wheeler, 85, a Fairfax County school system reading specialist who retired from McLean's Chesterbrook Elementary School in 1989, died Jan. 18 at Greenspring Village retirement community in Springfield. She had respiratory failure.

Mrs. Wheeler began teaching in Fairfax in 1967 after a career with North Carolina schools. She moved to Greenspring Village four years ago from Vienna.

She was a native of Troutman, N.C., and a 1944 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She received a master's degree in education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1951.

She was a founding member of the Church of the Good Shepherd United Methodist Church in Vienna, where she did volunteer work.

She played piano and organ, and her hobbies included antiquing and gardening.

Her husband, William C. Wheeler, whom she married in 1951, died in 1974.

Survivors include three children, William C. Wheeler and G. Lentz Wheeler, both of Herndon, and Sara Arey of Rockville; two brothers; a sister; and six grandchildren.

-- Adam Bernstein

Carl Vance McDanielResearch Chemist

Carl Vance McDaniel, a retired research chemist at W.R. Grace & Co., died of pneumonia Dec. 29 at Howard County General Hospital in Columbia. He was a Howard resident.

Dr. McDaniel, who went by Vance, was born in Grafton, W.Va. From 1952 to 1957, he worked at U.S. Steel Applied Research Laboratory in Pittsburgh, in the field of applied research on the physical and chemical properties of metals and films.

He graduated cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh in 1957 and received a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1962, both in chemistry. He was a member of Sigma Xi, the honorary scientific society.

Dr. McDaniel worked for 29 years as a research chemist at W.R. Grace in Columbia. His work on the production of high octane gasoline was a key component in the company's petroleum research.

He received 20 U.S. patents and additional foreign patents for discoveries related to petroleum catalysts, pollution control devices and catalysts and ion-exchange processes. Dr. McDaniel, who also had three scientific publications, retired in 1990.

Survivors include his wife of 55 years, Janie McDaniel of Howard County; two children, Janet Reeder of Ellicott City and Keith McDaniel of Laurel; a sister; and seven grandchildren.

-- Joe Holley