Sunday, May 18, 2008
Esther H. KempDocent, Volunteer
Esther H. Kemp, 80, a National Gallery of Art docent and Washington Home hospice volunteer, died May 2 at Community Hospice of Northeast Florida in Jacksonville. She had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Mrs. Kemp was a District resident and was in Florida visiting a stepdaughter.
Her memberships included the Junior League of Washington, the Sulgrave Club and the Chevy Chase Club, where she won golf championships. She was active in the effort to create the Art Barn gallery in Rock Creek Park.
At other times, she worked as a kitchen designer and office administrator.
Esther Hamilton was born in Manhattan, N.Y. She was 12 when her mother died, and she was raised by her father, a surgeon, in Europe. At 16, she went to live with family friends in Brattleboro, Vt.
She was a 1949 graduate of Vassar College and settled in the Washington area in 1952.
Her hobbies included playing bridge and taking cruises.
Her marriage to William C. Bennett Jr. ended in divorce. She next married Clinton C. Kemp, who died in 1987.
Survivors include three children from her first marriage, William C. Bennett III of Foster City, Calif., Kim B. Rinehart of Longmont, Colo., and Douglas H. Bennett of Alameda, Calif.; two stepchildren, Clinton W. Kemp of Lancaster, Pa., and Linda K. Couch of Ponte Vedra, Fla.; and six grandchildren.
-- Adam Bernstein
Margaret Fenlon KuhOffice Manager
Margaret Fenlon Kuh, 83, a retired office manager with a public opinion research company, died May 10 of a blood disease at Collingswood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rockville. She was a Rockville resident.
Mrs. Kuh came to Washington in 1962 and held positions with the League of Women Voters and Woman's National Democratic Club in the 1960s. In 1973, she became the office administrator and personnel manager of Peter D. Hart Research Associates, a public opinion research firm where she worked for 11 years. She then spent five years as a paralegal and office manager at the Bethesda law firm of Furey, Doolan & Abell.
Mrs. Kuh was born in Chicago and served in the Marine Corps from 1945 to 1949. She later worked as a paralegal and office manager for a Chicago law firm. She was a founder and president of an association of legal office managers in Chicago.
She lived in Washington and Bethesda before settling in Rockville 10 years ago. She volunteered for Democratic political candidates from the 1960s until 2006.
In her 70s, Mrs. Kuh began painting and sculpting and became a devotee of water aerobics.
Her husband of 37 years, Peter G. Kuh, died in 1993.
Survivors include five children, Jerome Kuh of Seattle, Rita Stoops of Prosser, Wash., Monica Hogge of Harveys Lake, Pa., Anne Kuh of Kensington and Mary Ambulos of Chilmark, Mass.; three stepchildren, Charlotte Kuh of Washington, Audrey Straight of Rockville and Peter M. Kuh of Wingrave, England; five sisters; 18 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
-- Matt Schudel
Walter W. KreimannAdministrative Services Director
Walter W. Kreimann, 87, a retired director of administrative services at the Federal Reserve Board and a World War II fighter pilot, died May 7 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) at his home in Bethesda.
Mr. Kreimann was born on a farm in South Dakota and grew up in an orphanage in Sioux Falls, S.D. He enlisted in the Army Air Forces in 1943 and was assigned to the 78th Fighter Squadron. He flew a number of combat missions over Japan and survived a fiery bailout from a P-51 Mustang over uncharted waters of the North Pacific.
He graduated in 1946 from Dakota Wesleyan University and moved to Washington that same year for graduate work in economics at George Washington University.
His first job in the District was as manager of a veterans cooperative housing project in Southeast Washington called Naylor Gardens. That experience led to a position in real estate management and an appointment in 1956 as executive vice president of the Building Owners and Managers Association.
In 1966, he became director of the maintenance division of what is today the U.S. Postal Service. From 1972 until his retirement in 1987, he was director of administrative services at the Federal Reserve Board.
Mr. Kreimann was a nationally ranked distance runner, and he continued competing into his 80s. He and his wife enjoyed traveling in their motor home and visited all 50 states and much of Canada and Mexico.
Survivors include his wife of 64 years, Ellen C. Kreimann of Bethesda; three daughters, Lynwa Kreimann of Nyack, N.Y., Joan Ecclesine of North Hollywood, Calif., and Wendy Bocci of Studio City, Calif.; a brother; and a grandson.
-- Joe Holley
William LowenthalForeign Service Officer
William Lowenthal, 87, a Foreign Service officer who specialized in Latin American economic affairs and was assigned mostly to the U.S. Agency for International Development and its predecessors, died May 6 at Inova Fairfax Hospital. He had cancer.
Dr. Lowenthal spent about 30 years working for the State Department, with assignments that included deputy director of the USAID economic development office for many of the Southern Cone countries of South America.
He retired in 1981 as economic development officer for the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in Paris.
He was a native of Manhattan, N.Y., and a 1942 graduate of Dartmouth College. He received a master's degree in economics from Columbia University in 1951 and a doctorate in Latin American history and economics from Georgetown University in 1966.
During World War II, he was a Navy fighter pilot and flew more than 25 combat missions in the Pacific. His decorations included the Distinguished Flying Cross and five awards of the Air Medal.
In retirement, he represented La Lucie, the Paris art gallery of a family friend, and marketed European impressionist art in the United States. His interest in genealogy led him to edit and publish a family history.
Dr. Lowenthal lived in the Lake Barcroft community of Falls Church and was an officer in the local community association. His memberships included the Cosmos Club.
Survivors include his wife of 60 years, Alice Messinger Lowenthal of Falls Church; four children, Sidney L. Maas of Manhattan, Peter S. Lowenthal of Bethesda, Harry S. Lowenthal of Dublin, N.H., and Jane L. Rothschild of Agawam, Mass.; and seven grandchildren.
-- Adam Bernstein
Harriet D. McLucasVolunteer
Harriet D. McLucas, 85, a former Alexandria resident who did extensive volunteer work, died of pulmonary failure May 5 at The Fairfax retirement community.
Mrs. McLucas volunteered for Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind; Arlington County Youth Employment Program; the American Horticultural Society; the Annandale Christian Community for Action, a coalition of churches that helps low-income families; and career and scholarship organizations for women.
During her last year, she taught English as a second language through a volunteer program at The Fairfax.
Harriet Dewey, the daughter of an Army eye surgeon, was born in San Antonio and raised at U.S. military bases worldwide.
She was a 1945 economics graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., where she later endowed a scholarship in environmental science. She received a master's degree in therapeutic recreation from George Washington University.
Her hobbies included photography.
She was a deacon at the Old Presbyterian Meeting House in Alexandria.
Her first marriage, to retired Army Lt. Col. Frederick H. Black Jr., ended in divorce.
Her second husband, John L. McLucas, whom she married in 1981, had served during the 1970s as secretary of the Air Force and administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration. He died in 2002.
Survivors include five children from her first marriage, Matthew Black of Seattle, Bruce Black of Yardley, Pa., Elizabeth Black of Arlington County, Beverly Roca of Haymarket and Robert Black of Alexandria; four stepchildren, Pam Byers of San Francisco, Susan McLucas of Somerville, Mass., John C. McLucas of Baltimore and Roderick K. McLucas of Manhattan, N.Y.; nine grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter.
-- Adam Bernstein
Elizabeth Jane Mills PaddockAdvocate, Pilot
Elizabeth Jane Mills Paddock, 85, who worked with her husband on world food issues and population growth, died May 3 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at her home in Antigua, Guatemala. She was a former resident of the District.
Mrs. Paddock was born in Sioux City, Iowa, and grew up in Bethany, Mo. She graduated with a home economics degree from Iowa State University in 1943 and taught home economics at Penn State University.
Mrs. Paddock's husband, William Carson Paddock -- who died in March -- was a plant pathologist who specialized in developing disease-resistant strains of corn for Third World agriculture. In 1952, the Paddocks and their children moved to Guatemala.
When she got her pilot's license in 1953, after taking flying lessons at the Guatemala City airport, officials told her that she was the first female licensed pilot in Central America.
After four years in Guatemala and five years in Honduras, the Paddocks settled in the District, where Mrs. Paddock served on the board of the Federation for American Immigration Reform and on the steering committee of the Center for Immigration Studies.
She also helped her husband write a book about famine and world population growth, "We Don't Know How" (1973). The couple returned to Guatemala in 1992.
Cherishing her roots in rural Iowa, Mrs. Paddock took her children and grandchildren on an annual trip to the farm her family had homesteaded in 1850.
Survivors include two children, Paul Mills Paddock of West Palm Beach, Fla., and Ana Livingston Paddock of Santa Fe, N.M.; a sister; and two granddaughters.
-- Joe Holley
John B. RicheyManagement Consultant
John B. Richey, 62, an international management consultant who worked for many nongovernmental organizations, died of a metastatic brain tumor April 21 at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, Calif. He had been a Washington resident since 1988.
As a consultant until the mid-1990s, Mr. Richey traveled to Africa, Asia and Latin America. His specialties included management training and human resource development, as well as strategic planning for public and private sector executives.
In the late 1990s, he was a National Science Foundation higher education research and policy administrator.
John Brooks Richey was born in Everett, Wash., and raised partly in Ethiopia, where his father worked as an engineer.
At the University of Washington, he received a bachelor's degree in personnel administration, corporate finance and economics. He pursued graduate studies in organizational development and public administration at the University of Southern California.
Early on, he held research administration and governmental affairs positions at Stanford University, the University of Rochester and the American University of Cairo in Egypt.
He was a board member of the Foreign Service Youth Foundation and a former board member of the Carrollsburg Condominium in Washington, where he lived.
His memberships included St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in the District.
His marriage to Laurel Downey Richey ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife of 21 years, Ardelle G. Foss of Washington and Sweden, Maine; three children from his first marriage, Matthew Richey and Stephen Richey, both of Laguna Niguel, Calif., and Karen Richey-Elliott of Stamford, Conn.; a stepson, P. Keith Griffin of Albany, Maine; his parents, Clarence and Ann Richey of Everett; a sister; and seven grandchildren.
-- Adam Bernstein