Washington-area obituaries of note - The Washington Post

Publish date: 2024-07-14

Obituaries of residents from the District, Maryland and Northern Virginia.

Katheryne LaPlace Burke, homemaker

Katheryne LaPlace Burke, 94, a homemaker and longtime member of North Chevy Chase Christian Church, died Oct. 14 at her home in Chevy Chase, Md. The cause was complications from dementia, said a cousin, William Thom.

Mrs. Burke was born Katheryne Thom LaPlace in the District. For many years she attended the old Ninth Street Christian Church in Washington.

Paul R. Peak Jr., Coast Guard captain

Paul R. Peak Jr., 91, who served in the Coast Guard for more than three decades, including in the Mediterranean during World War II, before retiring as a captain in 1974, died Oct. 19 at a military retirement residence in McLean, Va. The cause was congestive heart failure, said a daughter, Marty Peak Helman.

A Denver native, Capt. Peak served on assignments in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific, the Sea of Japan and the gulfs of Alaska and Mexico. He belonged to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington and held leadership positions with the group now known as the Military Officers Association of America and the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, as well as with the Clan Ross Association and Palatines to America, both genealogical and cultural heritage organizations.

Bob Nelson, book store owner

Bob Nelson, 82, a co-owner of Reiter’s Books, a downtown Washington store specializing in scientific, medical and technical texts, died Oct. 17 at his home in the District. The cause was esophageal cancer, said a daughter, Meg Dawson.

Mr. Nelson was born in Youngstown, Ohio, and settled in Washington after serving in the Navy. He was hired by the bookstore, then run by Al Reiter, in 1957. In 1974, Mr. Nelson bought the shop with his wife, Barbara Abraham Nelson, who continues to lead its operation. Together, they frequently held book talks at the store.

Alfred Reifman, Foreign Service officer

Alfred Reifman, 95, a Foreign Service officer who retired in 1996 as a senior specialist in international economics for the Library of Congress’s Congressional Research Service, died Oct. 15 at an assisted living facility in Chevy Chase, Md. The cause was pneumonia, said a daughter, Ann Reifman.

Mr. Reifman was born in Elizabeth, N.J., moved to Washington in the early 1940s and joined the State Department in 1946. During his 22 years with the Foreign Service, he twice served on the Council of Economic Advisers and was chief economist for the U.S. mission to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. He joined the Library of Congress in 1972 and wrote three books about international economic policy. He lived in the Bannockburn section of Bethesda and was the founder of the Bannockburn Spring Show, an annual community theater production.

William C. Loerke, art history scholar

William C. Loerke, 94, an art history scholar who was director of Byzantine studies at Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, died Oct. 2 at a daughter’s home in Chestertown, Md. The cause on the death certificate was listed as muscle weakness and arthritis, daughter Ellen Loerke said.

Dr. Loerke, who was born in Toledo, was an art history professor at Brown University, Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and the University of Pittsburgh before coming to Washington in 1971. He directed the Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine studies program from 1971 to 1977 and remained on the faculty until 1988. He wrote or co-wrote several books, including “The Place of Book Illumination in Byzantine Art” (1975). He was a visiting professor at Catholic University and the University of Maryland, and he served on an advisory board at the National Gallery of Art’s Center for the Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.

Felix A. Khin-Maung-Gyi, medical study expert

Felix A. Khin-Maung-Gyi, 58, who worked in the pharmaceutical industry and academia before starting a biomedical consulting firm that focused on protecting human volunteers in clinical research projects, died Oct. 2 at his home in Ellicott City, Md. He apparently suffered a heart attack, said his wife, Mary Therese Gyi. The state medical examiner’s office listed the cause of death as pending.

Dr. Gyi was born in Rangoon, Burma, and came to the United States in 1962. In 1993, he founded the Chesapeake Research Review, a company that monitors medical research projects conducted by hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other organizations. Among his previous work, Dr. Gyi supervised medical investigation studies at George Washington University Hospital.

Thomas R. Kenny, accountant

Thomas R. Kenny, 89, a certified public accountant who worked for the D.C. government’s assessment and taxation division for 30 years, died Oct. 18 at a hospital in Olney, Md. The cause was a bacterial infection, said a son, Terry Kenny.

Mr. Kenny was born in Enon Valley, Pa., and moved to the Washington area at age 10. He worked for the D.C. government from 1952 to 1982. He worked for the Paul J. Gillis accounting firm in Wheaton, Md., from 1984 until his retirement in 2000. He lived in Silver Spring, Md., where he was a member of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church and the Knights of Columbus. He was also treasurer of a Silver Spring bowling league.

William H. Allen, lawyer

William H. Allen, 87, a partner at the Covington & Burling law firm in Washington from 1964 until his retirement in 1992, died Oct. 11 at a retirement home in Washington. The cause was pulmonary fibrosis, said a son, former Washington Post copy editor Kent Allen.

Mr. Allen was born in Palo Alto, Calif. Early in his career, he was an Associated Press reporter in California before graduating from Stanford University’s law school in 1956. He then came to Washington to serve as chief law clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren. From 1972 to 1982, Mr. Allen led the judicial review committee of the Administrative Conference of the United States, an independent government agency that reviews the legal actions of other federal agencies. He helped draft Alexandria’s fair housing ordinance in the 1970s, was a past chairman of the American Bar Association’s administrative law section and taught at several law schools.

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Andrew A. Tonkovic, Navy captain

Andrew A. Tonkovic, 92, who served for 35 years in the Navy before retiring as a captain in 1975, died Oct. 13 at his home in Springfield, Va. The cause was congestive heart failure, said a son, Tim Tonkovic.

Capt. Tonkovic, who was born in Czechoslovakia, served as a fighter pilot during World War II and the Korean War. Afterward, he was a landing signal officer aboard aircraft carriers, and he served as an executive assistant to the naval inspector general and senior staff at the Federal Aviation Administration until shortly before his retirement. He volunteered with the American Red Cross, St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Falls Church, Va., and the Greenspring retirement community in Springfield.

William L. Gibson, restaurateur

William L. Gibson, 77, who owned and operated two restaurants in Washington from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, died Sept. 9 at a hospital in Cleveland. He had lung disease, said a daughter, Kara Hawley.

Mr. Gibson was born in North Lima, Ohio, and moved to Washington in 1963. He worked in the bulk-mail division at the U.S. Postal Service in Landover, Md., in the 1970s and 1980s. He managed the Riverside Cafe for several years in the early 1980s and Union Station Pizza House from 1985 to 1995, when he sold the business and retired.

Robert S. Isenstein, Agriculture Dept. research biologist

Robert S. Isenstein, 81, a research biologist who specialized in parasitology at the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1955 until his retirement in 1990, died Oct. 21 at his home in Silver Spring. He had prostate cancer, said his wife, Margaret Isenstein.

Dr. Isenstein, a Boston native, was a past president of the Helminthological Society of Washington. After retiring, he volunteered as a publications researcher in aquaculture at the National Agricultural Library in Beltsville, Md., and the Smithsonian Associates Program. He was a docent at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington.

John R. Labovitz, lawyer

John R. Labovitz, 70, a retired Washington lawyer and partner in the firm of Steptoe & Johnson who specialized in administrative law and matters involving financial and economic issues, died Oct. 3 at his home in Washington. The cause was a heart attack, said a brother, Peter Labovitz.

Mr. Labovitz was born in Washington. In the early 1970s, he was counsel to the Richard M. Nixon impeachment inquiry staff of the House Judiciary Committee. He was author of a 1978 book, “Presidential Impeachment.” He retired from legal practice in 2004 and ran an apple farm in West Virginia.

Beverly E. Coleman, education officer

Beverly E. Coleman, 75, an officer of the U.S. Department of Education who specialized in programs for the gifted and talented, the at-risk, historically black colleges and educational research, died Oct. 6 at a hospital in Annapolis, Md. She died of complications of bladder cancer and an infection of the aorta, said a brother, Richard K. Bowden.

Dr. Coleman, a resident of Bowie, Md., was born in Memphis. She was principal of an elementary school in southern Illinois and a specialist in Chicago in equal educational opportunities for the former Office of Education before moving to the Washington area and joining the Department of Education in 1980. She retired in 2006.

Doris B. Wallace, Army wife

Doris B. Wallace, 98, an Army wife and homemaker, died Oct. 15 at a nursing home in Alexandria, Va. The cause was cardiac and respiratory arrest, said a son, Scott Cairns.

Mrs. Wallace, an Alexandria resident, was born Doris Brougher at an Army base in the Panama Canal Zone, where her father was serving. Mrs. Wallace, who was widowed three times, accompanied her husbands, two of whom died in military aircraft accidents, on Army assignments throughout the United States and Europe before settling in Alexandria in 1958.

Charles S. Springate, pathologist

Charles S. Springate, 82, who retired in 1994 as a staff pathologist at the former Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Washington, died Oct. 16 at a nursing care center in Gaithersburg, Md. The cause was pneumonia, said a daughter, Grace Leonard.

Dr. Springate was born in Manchester, Iowa. He was the chief deputy medical examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia and an assistant pathology professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Va., before he moved to Silver Spring and joined AFIP’s aerospace division in 1981. There, he conducted about 130 investigations of fatal aircraft accidents around the world. His cases included the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.

Robert T. Watson, Commerce Dept. physicist

Robert T. Watson, 92, a physicist at the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration from 1971 until his retirement in 1987, died Oct. 19 at a medical center in Annapolis, Md. The cause of death was pneumonia, said a son, Todd Watson.

Dr. Watson, a resident of Crofton, Md., was born in Columbus, Ohio, and moved to the Washington area in 1971 to join the Commerce Department. From the early 1960s to 1971, he was division president of ITT Industrial Laboratories in Fort Wayne, Ind. At ITT, he helped oversee the development of the corporation’s Videx satellite system, which transmitted still images of the Gemini 5 satellite recovery to television, and an early space-based, high-resolution, night-vision camera.

Susan S. Ellis, State Dept. information officer

Susan S. Ellis, 82, a U.S. Information Agency and State Department information officer from 1978 until her retirement in 2002, died Oct. 21 at a daughter’s home in Allentown, Pa. The cause was a glioblastoma, a brain tumor, said a daughter, Suzy Ellis Wild.

Mrs. Ellis, a Washington resident, was born Susan Stimus in Camden, N.J. Earlier in her career, she was a reporter at the former Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. She was the press secretary of the American Federation of Government Employees in Washington from 1974 to 1977 and worked in the press office at Peace Corps headquarters in Washington before joining USIA and later the State Department in 1999. She specialized in African affairs. She was a member of Friends Meeting of Washington.

Sally Kux, State Dept. adviser

Sally Kux, 51, a senior adviser for democracy and governance issues in the State Department’s Office of the Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance, died Oct. 1 at her home in Washington. The cause was breast cancer, said her husband, David Weiner.

A native Washingtonian, Ms. Kux spent part of her childhood in Germany, Pakistan and Turkey, where her father was posted with the State Department. In 1994, she joined the U.S. Information Agency, where she helped develop civic education programs in Russia and Eastern Europe. After the USIA was folded into the State Department in 1999, she became the director of democracy programs in the Office of the Coordinator of U.S. Assistance to Europe and Eurasia. In the late 2000s, she joined the Office of the Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance, where she worked until she left for medical reasons in April.

— from staff reports

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