Sunday, June 8, 2008
Jean D. CaldwellCommunity Activist
Jean D. Caldwell, 86, a community activist in Alexandria, died of a heart attack June 1 at Inova Alexandria Hospital.
Mrs. Caldwell, who had lived in Alexandria since 1958, was a founder of the NorthEast Citizens Association and participated in various projects to beautify Alexandria and make the city more livable. She was a leader of an effort to save the George Washington Memorial Parkway in the 1960s and 1970s.
Mrs. Caldwell was born in Seattle and grew up in Arkansas. She was a graduate of Arkansas College (now Lyon College) in Batesville, Ark., and came to Washington in 1943. She worked at the law library of the Library of Congress from 1943 to 1951.
Her husband of 46 years, Randolph F. Caldwell, died in 2001.
Survivors include a daughter, Anne Christoffel of Arlington; and a grandson.
-- Matt Schudel
Alejandro Francisco CastroSurgeon
Alejandro "Alex" Francisco Castro, 89, a colon and rectal surgeon who was a former chairman of the surgery department at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, died of congestive heart failure May 30 at the Mayo Clinic Hospice in Rochester, Minn.
Dr. Castro practiced for almost 40 years in the Washington and Bethesda areas. He was on the staff of Suburban Hospital from 1947 to 1985 and was team physician to the Washington Redskins in the 1950s.
He was born in El Salvador. His father, Dr. Hector David Castro, was the ambassador from El Salvador to the United States for 30 years and was a founding delegate of the United Nations in 1945.
Dr. Castro lived in the United States from the age of 1 to 8, returned to his homeland and then came back to this country at age 16 to become a naturalized citizen. He was often his mother's escort to diplomatic parties, which gave him a broad range of diplomatic exposure and a lifelong dislike of champagne.
He graduated from George Washington University and received a degree from its medical school in 1942. He did a four-year internship at the Mayo Clinic and returned to the area to practice medicine.
Dr. Castro was a founding member of the American Board of Colon and Rectal Surgery, president of the National Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons in 1975 and was twice named by his peers as one of the "best medical specialists in the U.S." The Montgomery County Medical Society named him its clinician of the year in 1984.
He was a founding member of the Pan American Medical Society and was once its president. He was also an associate professor of surgery at Georgetown University Medical Center.
Dr. Castro retired to Marathon, Fla., in the Florida Keys in 1985, where he enjoyed fishing, kayaking, snorkeling, swimming and walking the Seven Mile Bridge.
He also enjoyed fashioning butterflies out of semi-precious stones, which he gave as gifts, and he painted in oils and watercolors. He and his second wife traveled extensively, volunteering for research expeditions for conservation groups such as Earthwatch and as animal researchers in Borneo and Africa. They visited Antarctica several times.
His marriage to Fanchon Aldrich Castro ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife, Dr. Maryanna Dotson of Marathon; two sons from his first marriage, Alejandro Francisco Castro II of Baltimore and Robert J. Castro of Bethesda; a stepson, Gregory D. Bremer of Washington; a sister, Maria Teresa Everhart of Arlington; a brother, Benjamin Castro of Washington; and six grandchildren.
-- Patricia Sullivan
Walter George HansenTransportation Consultant
Walter George Hansen, 76, founder of a transportation planning consulting company, died of cancer May 15 at Inova Fairfax Hospital. He lived in Annandale.
Mr. Hansen co-founded Alan M. Voorhees and Associates in 1961. By the mid-1960s, it was operating worldwide. It was acquired by Planning Research, later Ashland Technology and finally AECOM Technology. He worked for each of those firms in executive positions, including chief operating officer. He retired in 1996.
He was born in Watertown, Wis., and graduated from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. He received a master's degree in 1959 in city and regional planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He began working for the Bureau of Public Roads, a predecessor of the Federal Highway Administration, until he started his firm.
He was a member of the George Washington University National Council for Education and Human Development, the Institute of Traffic Engineers and the Urban Land Institute.
His wife of 45 years, Peggy Lee Hansen, died in 1998. His son Gregory P. Hansen died in 1992, and son Corey J. Hansen in 1994.
Survivors include his wife of nine years, Marilyn Briggs Jackson of Annandale; a daughter, Danielle Briggs-Hansen of Annandale; a stepson, Tyler Jackson of Annandale; and a sister.
-- Patricia Sullivan
Lillian Kushner HurowitzBusinesswoman, Volunteer
Lillian Kushner Hurowitz, 92, a clothing store and pharmacy owner and volunteer, died of congestive heart failure May 25 at her Rockville home.
Mrs. Hurowitz owned and operated a women's clothing store in Adams Morgan in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and later, with her first husband, owned and operated Town House Pharmacy in downtown Washington.
She also volunteered at Suburban Hospital in the gift and thrift shops.
She was born in New York. Her family moved to Washington two years later, operating a grocery store in the Deanwood neighborhood in Northeast D.C., while she was growing up. Mrs. Hurowitz graduated from Eastern High School.
After marrying Meyer "Doc" Kushner, she and her husband ran a pharmacy across the street from the Old Executive Office Building. One of their most frequent customers was Adm. Richard Byrd, the Antarctic explorer.
She enjoyed painting china, art, knitting and needlepoint, as well as world travel, gardening and golf. She was a member of Hadassah, the Holocaust Museum and the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington.
Her first husband died in 1981. Her second husband, Fred Hurowitz, died in 1995.
Survivors include a daughter from her first marriage, Paula Bobys of Rockville; four sisters, Genevieve Gordon of Washington, Miriam Musher of Silver Spring, Fia Salzburg of North Port, Fla., and Anne Parmentola of Portsmouth, N.H.; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
-- Patricia Sullivan