Saturday, April 5, 2008
Margaret H. WrightReal Estate Saleswoman
Margaret H. Wright, 87, a legal secretary and a real estate saleswoman, died March 4 at the Friends House retirement community in Sandy Spring of complications of a stroke that occurred last year.
Mrs. Wright sold property in the Wesley Heights neighborhood of Northwest Washington from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. She previously had worked for her husband's legal practice.
She was born in Starkville, Miss., and moved with her family to Washington when she was a child. She graduated from American University, married and lived in Richmond, Pennsylvania and Cape May, N.J.
Mrs. Wright returned to her childhood home in Wesley Heights in 1970 and lived there until she moved to Friends House in 1996.
For most of her life, she was a member of the Friends Meeting of Washington. For several years in the 1980s, she served on the board of the William Penn House, a Quaker hospitality and seminar center on Capitol Hill.
Her husband, Walter C. Wright Jr., died in 1981. Her companion, Ted Pritzker, died in 2006.
Survivors include three children, Diana Wright Barlow of Dunstable, Mass., Walter Wright of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Melanie Wright Tripp of Pleasantville, N.Y.; eight grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
-- Patricia Sullivan
Norman Earl LangmaidHome Builder
Norman Earl Langmaid, 93, a retired home builder and collector of antiques, died March 16 at his home in Washington of complications of bladder cancer.
Mr. Langmaid was born in Edmonton, Alberta. He lived in Baltimore and later Washington as a young man. He served in a Navy Seabees construction unit during World War II.
From 1945 to 1960, he lived in Los Angeles and worked in the construction industry. He returned to Washington in 1960 and worked as an independent contractor, building and remodeling homes on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in the area. He built his own home, which he lived in for 47 years. He retired in the 1980s.
Mr. Langmaid collected and restored antique watches, clocks, furniture and armor. For a time, he operated an antiques business. He made more than 150 trips to Europe to search for antiques and was a member of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors and the British Horological Institute.
His wife of more than 50 years, Ruth Langmaid, died in 2000.
Survivors include two daughters, Sharon Langmaid of Washington and Marilyn Moriarty of Arlington, and two granddaughters.
-- Matt Schudel
Suzanne Kay WhitehurstAssociation Executive
Suzanne Kay Whitehurst, 51, an executive with the Independent Petroleum Association of America, died of cancer March 20 at Pitt County Memorial Hospital in Greenville, N.C.
Mrs. Whitehurst was born in Bethel, N.C., and graduated from Peace College in North Carolina in 1976. She moved to Alexandria in 1977 and worked for the Senate Energy Committee and various energy-related lobbying groups on Capitol Hill.
At the Independent Petroleum Association of America, where she had worked since the mid-1990s, she was vice president of crude oil and technology.
In addition to her love of government and politics, she enjoyed the arts, sports, historic preservation, travel and antiques.
Survivors include her father, W.C. Whitehurst Jr. of Bethel; a sister; and a brother.
-- Joe Holley
Alfred 'Boosh' LucianiFootball Coach
Alfred Mario "Boosh" Luciani, 81, an assistant football coach at Archbishop John Carroll High School, died of complications of renal cancer March 15 at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis. He lived in Odenton.
Mr. Luciani coached for more than 30 years, including a dozen years for the grade school teams at St. Anthony of Padua in Northeast Washington. He was honored as "man of the year" in 1975 by the Brookland Club. Carroll High School alumni in 2005 named him to their Hall of Honor.
The Hall of Honor award said: "On and off the field, the number of young men he influenced will never be known. Nor does he want it known. He simply wanted to give during his free time to those he coached and mentored."
Mr. Luciani was born in Steubenville, Ohio, and he excelled on his high school football team. After graduation, he joined the Army in 1944 and served in Europe under Gen. George Patton during World War II and helped liberate concentration camps. He remained in the Army after the war ended and served in the Korean War. He retired from the service as a master sergeant in 1952.
He worked for 26 years at the Railway Express Agency in Washington.
Mr. Luciani was a volunteer with the Big Brothers program and was a member of the Knights of Columbus.
Survivors include two sisters, Rita Giovenco of Odenton and Elsie Fallica of Ruckersville, Va.; and two brothers, John Lucian of Lynchburg and Robert Lucian of Hyattsville.
-- Patricia Sullivan
Harrison B. McCawley Jr.Tax Attorney
Harrison Byington McCawley Jr., 84, a tax attorney who wrote and edited tax management portfolios, died March 8 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at the Washington Home in the District. He was a Fort Washington resident.
Mr. McCawley was born in the District and served in Europe with the Army's 78th Division in Belgium and Germany during World War II. After being hospitalized for severe hearing loss as a result of being near artillery noise, he elected to stay in Europe. He commanded prisoner-of-war camps in and around Paris. He also learned French and a smattering of Russian despite his hearing difficulties.
He was accepted to Harvard Law School but decided to return to France to be near a woman he had met during the war. She was touring the Mediterranean with her sisters in a song-and-dance act. To be close to her, he landed a job with the U.S. Air Force in Chateauroux, France. The two married in 1953.
Mr. McCawley received a law degree at Harvard in 1951 and began a career in government as a staff attorney for the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation. He eventually became the committee's chief counsel.
Retiring from government service in the late 1970s, he joined the Washington firm of Silverstein and Mullens, where he wrote and edited tax management portfolios that were published by the Bureau of National Affairs as basic guidebooks for the nation's accounting firms.
He retired again in 2001 but continued to write and edit management portfolios and to provide tax advice and counsel.
Retirement gave him more time to indulge his one true passion -- horses. He spent hours analyzing the Daily Racing Form and would drag willing companions to Laurel, Pimlico or other tracks to watch races. He eventually switched to Internet betting and placed a wager from his hospital bed a few days before his death. His son planned to check his offshore account to see whether the bet came through.
A secondary passion was the actress Helen Mirren. Mr. McCawley had seen all of her movies and reviewed them for several online Mirren sites.
Survivors include his wife of 54 years, Lilette McCawley of Fort Washington; two children, Nicole Reidy of Trinidad, Colo., and Harry McCawley of Silver Spring; two granddaughters; and a brother.
-- Joe Holley
Grace A. RafajForeign Service Officer
Grace A. Rafaj, 80, a retired Foreign Service officer, died March 11 of a heart attack at her home in Arlington County.
Ms. Rafaj was born in Scranton, Pa. She joined the Foreign Service in 1948 and was an administrative officer in overseas postings in Beirut; Moscow; London; Rome; Kabul; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Brussels; Tegucigalpa, Honduras; Kinshasa, Zaire; Bogota, Colombia; Port-au-Prince, Haiti; New Delhi; Phnom Penh, Cambodia; and Seoul.
She continued to travel the world after retiring in 1981.
Survivors include a brother and four sisters.
-- Matt Schudel
Mark Lawrence SchillerElevator Adjuster
Mark Lawrence Schiller, 51, an elevator adjustor, died of blunt force trauma after falling into an elevator shaft March 10 at a work site at Fifth and K streets in Southeast Washington.
He was born in Washington and raised in Silver Spring. He graduated from Montgomery Blair High School and went to work for the elevator company then owned by Westinghouse and now Schindler Elevator.
Mr. Schiller, a sports car and NASCAR enthusiast, loved motorcycle riding with his son.
His marriage to Gail Schiller ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife of 27 years, Gaye E. Schiller; a son from his second marriage, Paul M. Schiller of Frederick; his parents, Lawrence and Mary Schiller of St. Petersburg, Fla.; and two sisters, Melanie Caperones of Mechanicsville and Debi Harvey of Ellicott City.
-- Patricia Sullivan
Robert A. SchuttNSA Employee
Robert A. Schutt, 88, a retired employee of the National Security Agency, died March 22 of congestive heart failure at his home in Springfield.
Mr. Schutt was born in Yonkers, N.Y., and graduated from Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y. He served as a Navy communications officer during World War II. He worked at Woodward & Lothrop department store before being recalled to the Navy for the Korean War.
He then worked at NSA from the early 1950s until his retirement in 1979.
He was a member of Mount Calvary Community Church in Alexandria and the volunteered with the Good News Jail & Prison Ministry of Fairfax County.
His wife of 56 years, Margaret Schutt, died in 1998.
Survivors include a son, Kenneth R. Schutt of Springfield; two grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
-- Matt Schudel
Ruth Moate WalkerVolunteer
Ruth Doris Moate Walker, 86, who volunteered with charity organizations and at retirement homes, died March 27 of pneumonia at Inova Fairfax Hospital. She lived in McLean.
Mrs. Walker was born in Yakima, Wash., and came to the Washington area in 1946. She lived in Arlington until 1963, when she moved to McLean.
She volunteered with the United Way, American Cancer Society and Camp Fire USA. For more than 20 years, she gave Hawaiian hula dancing performances at retirement homes.
Her husband of 66 years, Harold Walker, died in 2006.
Survivors include three children, Kathryn Walker of McLean, James Walker of San Diego and Janet Walker of Vienna; a sister; a brother; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
-- Matt Schudel