Obituaries of residents from the District, Maryland and Northern Virginia.
Ms. Swannack was born in Honolulu, and she moved to Washington in 1989. In 2018, she executive produced the documentary “Feminists: What Were They Thinking?”
Tom Scanlan, journalist, jazz critic
Tom Scanlan, 96, a journalist and jazz critic who was editor of Federal Times from 1973 to 1985, died March 16 at a retirement center in Silver Spring, Md. The cause was prostate cancer, said a son, John Scanlan.
Mr. Scanlan was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Washington. From 1951 to 1973, he was a reporter, a columnist and managing editor with Army Times. He also wrote jazz columns for Down Beat magazine, wrote scripts for broadcasts on the history of jazz for Voice of America and was author of books on jazz.
Elizabeth Spencer, school board president
Elizabeth Spencer, 93, who served on the Board of Education in Montgomery County, Md., from 1974 to 1982 and was its president in 1977 and 1978, died March 18 at a care center in Midlothian, Va. The cause was a stroke, said a daughter, Dorothy Wagener.
Mrs. Spencer was born Elizabeth Williams in Hopkinsville, Ky. In 1982, she ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1984, she moved from Gaithersburg, Md., to Hopkinsville and later to Midlothian.
William Fishbein, biochemistry chief
William Fishbein, 86, who retired as chief of biochemistry at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in 2004, died March 6 at a care center in Potomac, Md. The cause was respiratory failure, said a son, Thomas Fishbein.
Dr. Fishbein, who lived in Darnestown, Md., was born in Baltimore. He moved to the Washington area in 1960 and worked for two years at the National Cancer Institute before joining the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
George Hopkins Jr., mechanical engineer
George Hopkins Jr., 99, a mechanical engineer who was a civilian employee of the Army Department from 1955 to 1981, died March 7 at a care center in Woodbridge, Va. The cause was congestive heart failure, said a son, Paul Hopkins.
Mr. Hopkins was born in Chicago and settled in the Washington area in 1964. He was a founding member of the Capitol Harmonica Club and had played harmonica at the Kennedy Center.
Bradley Patterson, executive secretary
Bradley Patterson, 98, a retired government executive secretary who worked for three presidents and worked to advance the legal rights of Native Americans, died March 19 at a hospice center in Rockville, Md. The cause was congestive heart failure, said a son, Glenn Patterson.
Mr. Patterson, a resident of Bethesda, Md., was born in Wellesley, Mass. As President Richard M. Nixon’s special assistant for Native American programs, Mr. Patterson worked to restore tribal fishing rights, reached out to tribal leaders as American Indian militancy gained traction and helped win passage of the nearly $1 billion Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971.
His other assignments in his 32-year civil service career included executive secretary of the Peace Corps, national security assistant at the Treasury Department and deputy secretary of the Cabinet in the Eisenhower administration. He wrote “Ring of Power” and two other books on the inner workings of the White House while employed for 11 years, until 1988, as a senior staff member of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Public Policy Education.
— From staff reports