Obituaries

He worked for 22 years for the Arlington school system, retiring in 1996.

He enjoyed baseball and watching his grandchildren's soccer games.

His wife, Elisa Bezos Rodriguez, died in 1986.

Survivors include a daughter, Elisa Dacales of Haymarket; two brothers, Ceserino Rodriguez and Miguel Rodriguez, both of Springfield; and two grandchildren.

-- Patricia Sullivan

Jean M. TurpinNurseryman

Jean M. Turpin, 90, a longtime Washington landscaper and nurseryman, died of congestive heart failure March 29 at Laurel Regional Hospital.

Mr. Turpin was born in Mitchell, Ind., and was a 1938 botany graduate from the University of Iowa. He worked on a master's degree at the University of Washington and was a forest ranger in Yellowstone National Park before moving to the Washington area in 1940 to work as a gatherer of census information. During World War II, he worked at the Carnegie Institute and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in the development of the variable time fuse for artillery shells.

After the war, he worked for J.H. Small and Sons, a Chevy Chase nursery, before starting Turpin's Nursery in 1959. Over the years, his Silver Spring business designed and landscaped yards and gardens for a number of prominent Washingtonians, including Robert F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Marvin Kalb, John Chancellor and David Brinkley.

Mr. Turpin also landscaped Wheaton Plaza and the approaches to the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel and did plantings at the White House. He liked working with soil and did most of the plantings himself.

He retired in the mid-1980s, but he maintained his Christmas tree farm in Garrett County. He also enjoyed traveling, square dancing and reading.