Obituaries

Miriam SellersDance Teacher

Miriam Sellers, 87, a matriarch of dance instruction who taught generations of mothers and daughters how to tap and slide with grace, died Sept. 4 at Collingswood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rockville after a series of strokes.

From 1950 to 1988, she owned and operated the Sellers School of Dance in Wheaton. She spent another decade teaching dance at Montgomery County senior centers after overhearing a woman at a nursing home say she had wanted all her life to learn to dance.

Mrs. Sellers won the 1990 Miss Senior Maryland award as well as a talent contest in the Ms. Senior America pageant.

Born Miriam Ehrmantraut, the native Washingtonian was the daughter of dance teachers with a studio in Georgetown. Her three daughters now have dance studios in Maryland.

She began learning tap at 2 and a decade later joined her older brother in a ballroom act known professionally as Ed and Ann Crystal; her brother's name was Ed, and she used her middle name. They entertained at churches and theaters along the East Coast.

She later danced in vaudeville shows and clubs and entertained servicemen in USO shows during World War II. She attended the old Western High School.

Her husband of 61 years, Garland Sellers, died in 1999.

Survivors include three daughters, Dawn Crafton-Rawlings of Washington, Diane Herbert of Dunkirk and Denise Shores Schattenberg of Adamstown; a sister; seven grandchildren; 15 great-grandchildren; and a great-great-granddaughter.

-- Adam Bernstein

Herbert H. FocklerDevelopment Director

Herbert Hill Fockler, 86, Georgetown University's development director from 1975 to 1985, died of pneumonia Aug. 31 at Holy Cross Hospital. He was a Silver Spring resident.