Sunday, March 2, 2008
Elizabeth Spencer RoachHealth Writer, CIA Official
Elizabeth Cass Spencer Roach, 90, who co-wrote a medical book for the National Institutes of Health and later worked at the Central Intelligence Agency, died Feb. 19 of pneumonia at the Mount Vernon Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Alexandria.
Mrs. Roach was born in Leeds, England, to American parents and grew up in Louisiana. She graduated from Newcomb College, now a part of Tulane University in New Orleans. She received a master's degree in endocrinology from Louisiana State University in 1939.
After a year of teaching high school, she became a research chemist with Lever Brothers in Baltimore. She moved to Washington at the beginning of World War II and was an executive with the War Production Board, War Assets Administration and Department of Commerce.
In the late 1940s, she began working at NIH and was the co-author of "A Dictionary of Antibiosis," published in 1951. She then became an official with the CIA.
In 1960, Mrs. Roach moved to Nashville. In 1980, she settled in Alameda, Calif. In 2003, she returned to Alexandria, where she had lived in the 1950s.
She tutored young people, was active in educational and cultural programs for senior citizens, and volunteered with the Kappa Kappa Gamma fraternity. She was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union. Her interests included English literature, word origins, knitting and international travel.
Her husband of 39 years, Francis Joseph Roach, died in 1983.
Survivors include a son, retired Army Brig. Gen. Lewis Spencer Roach of Alexandria; three sisters; and three grandchildren.
-- Matt Schudel
Edward G. MilneEngineer
Edward G. Milne, 80, a mechanical engineer who worked on aeronautical projects and later entered the plumbing business, died Feb. 9 at his home in McLean. He had hypertension.
Mr. Milne was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and grew up on a farm in New Jersey. He graduated in 1948 from Cornell University, where he was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity.
He worked for the Bendix and Curtiss-Wright corporations in New Jersey, designing aircraft and helping develop solid rocket fuel. In 1967, he moved to McLean after taking an engineering job with Atlantic Research.
Mr. Milne left engineering in the early 1980s to pursue a lifelong fascination with plumbing. One of Mr. Milne's daughters said he enjoyed tinkering, kept the family home's drains in good working order and drove a station wagon crammed with pipes, wrenches and other plumbing equipment.
He worked for more than 10 years as a sales representative with Apex Plumbing Supply before retiring about 15 years ago.
Mr. Milne was a model railroad enthusiast and had an extensive train layout in his basement. He also had an attachment to New England and visited a family home in Deer Isle, Maine, several times a year.
His wife of 54 years, Nancy Milne, died in 2004.
Survivors include three children, Linda Carter of Reston, Deborah Stoken of Sterling and David Milne of Springfield; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
-- Matt Schudel
Maria Teresa ParcellsMusician, Teacher
Maria Teresa Parcells, 88, a musician and piano teacher, died of complications from dementia Feb. 20 at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care in Baltimore. She lived in Columbia.
Mrs. Parcells, who was born in Chicago, went by her middle name. She was an accomplished pianist and violist and toured the country with a women's orchestra during World War II.
She and her husband, Robert Parcells, a fellow musician who was a member of the Air Force Strolling Strings, settled in the Washington area in the 1940s. Mrs. Parcells was a freelance classical violist and pianist and participated in programs of the Friday Morning Music Club and other organizations. She also had many piano students.
In 1963, she and her husband moved to Atlanta, where they both played viola with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Mrs. Parcells also played piano for the orchestra and studied at Georgia State University.
Her husband, to whom she had been married for 42 years, died in 1985. Mrs. Parcells then moved to Beltsville and resumed her career as a freelance violist, pianist and piano teacher and performed with church groups and orchestras. She had lived in Columbia for the past six years.
Survivors include four children, Ramon Parcells of Detroit, Anita Thomas of Santa Cruz, Calif., Natalie Willett of Atlanta and Julie Parcells of Ellicott City; and three grandchildren.
-- Matt Schudel