The Memorial Wall

Ruth Hagen Alper, of Baltimore, MD, passed away on Wednesday, January 4th, 2023 at the age of 90. She is survived by her children, Ronald (Lisa) Alper and Lynn (David) Stander, her brother, Max (Barbara) Hagen, her grandchildren, Marissa Alper, Michael Alper, Rebecca (Brian) Scarpelli, and Jeffrey Stander, and her great-grandchildren, Daniel Scarpelli and Allison Scarpelli. She was predeceased by her husband, Dr. Clifford D. Alper, Ph.D.

Ruth Hagen Alper, a retired Baltimore County teacher who fled Nazi Germany and witnessed the aftermath of Kristallnacht as a six-year-old, died of Parkinson’s disease complications and COVID-19 at Brightview Fallsgrove in Rockville on Jan. 4. The former Randallstown resident was 90.

Born in Magdeburg, Germany, she was the daughter of Izaak Hagen, a clothing salesperson, and Berta Weissenberg, a homemaker.

Mrs. Alper’s son, Ronald “Ron” Alper, said she and her family became aware of the danger the German government posed to Jews in the late 1930s.

“Her aunt Ester was street smart and prescient,” he said. “She worked in a lawyer’s office and learned how to bribe Nazi officials to get the papers to leave the country.”

Mrs. Alper also shared memories of Nazi persecution like Kristallnacht, which was Germany’s widespread attacks on Jews in November 1938 and is seen as the start of the Holocaust.

“My mother remembered being told she had to leave her German elementary school because she was Jewish. She also remembered Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, and walking through Magdeburg and seeing burned-out buildings and broken glass on the street.”

She joined her parents, her brother Max, two aunts and uncles, and three first cousins, on the steamship Orinoco at Hamburg. One cousin, an infant, died on the voyage and was buried at sea.

“My mother was aware of the incident and how it affected Berta, her mother, all her life,” said her son.

Mrs. Alper arrived in Havana, Cuba in Feb. 1939 because she was not allowed in the U.S. due to immigration quotas being filled. She and she and her parents lived in Havana until the family was able to gain entry into the U.S. in the summer of 1941.

She recalled seeing the steamship Saint Louis idling in the Havana harbor. The ship carried Jews and oppressed minorities but was unable to find a home for its passengers. The Cuban government canceled their landing permits and the U.S. would also not accept the passengers.

“My mother and her family and one aunt settled in Miami, Florida,” her son said. “Her native language was German. She learned Spanish while in Cuba and then had to learn English when the family finally settled in the U.S.”

Her aunts and uncles, a number of cousins, and her grandmother remained in Germany and disappeared. Mrs. Alper believed they were likely killed at the Belzec extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

She graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School and in June 1950 received a bachelor of education degree at the University of Miami.There she met her future husband Clifford D. Alper in 1951. She saw him hitchhiking and gave him a lift. They married in 1953.

Mrs. Alper began teaching elementary school in Miami after graduation.

The family settled in Baltimore in 1960 when her husband began teaching at what was then Towson State Teachers College. They moved to Flagtree Lane in Baltimore County in 1963. She later earned a master’s degree at Towson University.

In 1966, she began teaching elementary school in the Baltimore County system. Over a career of about 30 years, she taught at Scott’s Branch Elementary and Franklin Elementary schools.“She was an optimist and her students liked her. She was a thoroughly sweet person,” said fellow Baltimore County teacher, Robert “Bob” Cohen.

Her daughter, Lynn Stander, said her parents bought a season subscription to the Washington Opera. Mrs. Alper was a member of two book clubs and enjoyed tennis, golf, and bridge. She was also a docent at the Hopkins Evergreen Museum on Charles Street.

“She was a docent for 20 years and the experience mixed her love of teaching with art,” said Stander. “She was masterful in her personal interactions with people. It was about them, not her.”

When she moved to Springhouse assisted living facility in Pikesville due to her Parkinson’s, she arranged to have the Baltimore County Public Library bookmobile come to the facility.

After moving to Brightview Fallsgrove in Rockville, she began a bridge group there.

In September 2022 artist Gunter Demnig installed a “Stolperstein” or stumbling stone memorial at her last home in Magdeburg. The artist has erected many of these stone memorials to Jews, homosexuals, the disabled, and Romani who died as a result of Nazi persecution.

Survivors include a son, Ronald “Ron” Alper of Columbia; a daughter, Lynn Stander of Rockville; a brother, Max Hagen of Charlotte, North Carolina; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Her husband, Clifford D. Alper, a Towson University music education professor, died in 2019.

Services were held on Jan. 8 at Sol Levinson and Brothers in Pikesville.

Joseph C. “Joe" Buzzetta, 86, of Saint James, NY, passed away on Sunday, January 15th, 2023, of dementia and Parkinson's disease.

He was born on December 30th, 1936, in Ozone Park, NewYork to John and Anna Buzzetta. His parents were from Italian immigrant families and he grew up with a wonderful close extended family and his maternal grandmother, Anna DiGennaro, was a second mother to Joe and his younger sister Johann.

When Joe was in his early teens, his family moved out to Centerport, New York around 1950, as his parents had purchased a partnership in a budding new Italian restaurant, the Bella Vista, a beautiful old Victorian once owned by the Whitney family. The Buzzetta family was "all hands-on deck" at the restaurant, making their home in its upstairs bedrooms for the first 5 or so years they were in business. Joe got a first-hand education there on how to run a family business from his father John, who was as great with people as he was meticulous in his record keeping and accounting.

The Bella Vista soon became a hot-spot for car clubs meetings and sports car rallies, which fueled Joe's love for automobiles. In addition to working at the restaurant, Joe got many car-relatedjobs around town and thus started his foray into the car business.

He attended and graduated from Huntington High School and met the love of his life, Valerie, on a blind date. The pair married soon after they met in 1957 as Joe was about to ship off to his Army post in Frankfurt, Germany. While Joe had to attend to his military duties during the week,weekends were often spent exploring Germany and bordering countries by car. Joe and Val's adventure really gained traction when they bought an Austin-Healey and started participating in club racing events and touring Europe. After seeing the successful results of his competitors driving the Porsche 356, they made the switch and thus began Joe’s racing legacy.After returning to the US at the end of his service, Joe’s love for racing continued.

As his amateur racing achievements started to add up, Joe gained national and international notoriety and his racing career really took off after getting contracted to race for the factory Porsche racing team in 1964. His success continued throughout his career with the brand, where he earned a reputation for being fast, earning consistent results, and always bringing the car home in one piece. Joe’s most notable success was winning the 1967 Nürburgring 1000KM race and multiple class victories at Daytona, Sebring and other races. He raced for Porsche through 1969.

While enjoying much success on the racetrack, Joe realized that his passion was in cars, and left the Bella Vista with his father’s blessing to start a repair shop called Competition Engineering with his racing mechanic and partner, Oscar Rubio. As he built his reputation on the racetrack, he also worked on growing the business and raising his family with Valerie. They welcomed three children during the 1960’s; Joseph Jr in 1963; James in 1966, and Nancy in 1968. Realizing that their growing family needed to put down some roots in the community, they built a beautiful home in Nissequogue in the early 70’s where they resided for many happy years before moving just one village over to Head of the Harbor, which they called home for the rest of their lives.

Due to his incredible success racing Porsches, he was able to get an audience with the franchise and the Porsche family itself granted him a retail point in Smithtown. Once he had a foothold, he worked hard to grow the tiny business and nurtured it into a successful enterprise, adding BMW, Mercedes, and Datsun (later Nissan) over the years.

During those formative years Joe also joined the Nissequogue Golf Club, which was very near and dear to him and he served on some early boards there to help guide and shape the foundling club.

In addition to his growing love for golf, Joe learned to fly and became an excellent pilot, he also grew to love Vermont and was an avid skier, and was equally interested in boats and enjoyed navigating the waters of the Northeast. Fitness was another of his interests, and not a day went by that he did not work out in some capacity.

Eventually, he and Oscar went their separate ways and the business continued growing,eventually spanning multiple locations for Mercedes and Sprinter Vans, BMW, Infiniti, and Subaru stores and employing approximately 550 Long Islanders on staff.

Joe treasured his time at the office, continuing to go in on a consistent basis up until his final couple of years. Even in his last months, he would often ask his children how business was, and expressed interest in getting back to the office as soon as he could. His family believes that the business was indeed the central passion that drove his life, and there was never a day that went by that he wasn’t thinking on it.

Joe was predeceased many years ago by his beloved younger sister Johann, his parents, and in 2015 by his beloved wife Valerie. He is survived by his sons Joseph Jr. (Hasmik) James (Laura) and daughter Nancy (Pablo); his beloved grandchildren; James, Daniel, Christopher, Valerie, Jennifer, Isabella, Joseph III, Pablo, and Lailla, and his great- grandchildren, Blair and James III.

In addition, he leaves behind many other beloved family, friends, and business associates. He was both beloved by, and loved, his team at the dealerships, and will be greatly missed but neverforgotten.

Daly, William, - 83, of Port Republic, passed away at home on January 31, 2023, after battling Parkinson's Dementia.

He was born in Doylestown, Ohio on April 4, 1939 to John Ralph and Margaret Daly. After high school graduation, Bill attended George Washington University for his undergraduate degree and then went on to Princeton University to pursue his doctoral degree. Bill was a professor of political science for nearly 50 years; first at the University of Missouri Kansas City in 1966, then at Grinnell College in Iowa in 1970, and finally at his beloved Stockton University , where he was a founding faculty member.

Over the course of his career he earned countless accolades. At The University of Missouri Kansas City he received the Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching award in 1970. He was formally cited for Excellence in Teaching by the Political Science Department at Grinnell College in 1971. However, he spent the vast majority of his career at Stockton University where he was selected nine times as Professor of the Year in the Social Sciences. Outside of the classroom he initiated many educational programs which still carry on today, including the Educational Opportunity Fund program for disadvantaged students. He also wrote, and hosted the first video taped T.V. course of 26 half hour segments called America and Her Critics from 1973-1975 and rebroadcast from 1978-1979. He was also the first chairman of the New Jersey Department of Higher Education's Basic Skills Council from 1977-1982. He founded The Stockton Connection, which worked for years with high school teachers across the state to bridge the gap between college and high school. He was promoted to positions outside the classroom, including Dean of General Studies and Acting Academic Vice President. Ultimately, he decided to return to the classroom where he could help his "young scholars", which was where his true passion lay. He was also recognized for his excellence in education outside the Stockton community in 1989, winning the Alvin C. Erlich award for his educational innovations, a national award with a 10,000 dollar prize. He also served as a consultant for many other college programs, such as The Harvard Institute, The University of New Hampshire, The Vermont State College System and the New York State Department of Education, to name a few.

He had other titles as well, but the ones he cherished most were husband, daddy and grandpa. Bill will be sorely missed, but his love for his family, his passionate work ethic and his sense of humor will live on.

Bill is predeceased by his parents, John and Margaret Daly, and his older brother Dan. He is survived by his loving wife of 61 years, Nancy, his two daughters Beth (Jon) DeVos and Kit (John) Tidwell. He is also survived by his four grandchildren, Schuyler and Paige DeVos and Sarah and Emma Coe. Additionally, he is survived by his brother Jack (Barbara) Daly, his brother Bob (Sharon) Daly, his sister Dorothy (Michael) Cherry, his brother Tom, and many nieces and nephews.

Charles F. "Chuck" Koch died in early January following a brief illness. Chuck was a Los Angeles native, born in Glendale in 1946 and raised in the San Fernando Valley until his family moved to the San Jose area in 1957. After finishing high school there, Chuck returned to L.A. to attend Pepperdine, then in Watts, and never lived anywhere else again. With his BA in journalism and a life-long love of cars, he initially found work as a writer and editor for Motor Trend and several other automotive magazines. In the late 1970s he moved into public relations for racing teams and the automotive industry. Chuck took on the role of VP for Client Services at Vista Group, where he was responsible for product placement in films and television. He was also a founding member and former Executive Director of the Motor Press Guild.

Outside of work, Chuck loved sports (the Dodgers, 49ers, and, of course, auto racing) and music (he played the violin, subscribed to the LA Philharmonic for decades, and enjoyed the organ at church). His faith was important to him, as was his church, Calvary Presbyterian in Glendale, where he served as an elder. Chuck was a loyal friend to many people, and a loving son, brother, and uncle. His keen sense of humor entertained everyone and there was always a story to be told.

A memorial service will be held at his church on March 11th; please call the church for details. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Parkinson's Resource Organization (www.parkinsonsresource.org), of which Chuck was a founder.

He is survived by his sister Kathie Hagan, his niece Sara Hayden, and his beloved blood orange tree, raised from seeds smuggled from Italy. But, as Chuck would say, that's a story for another time.

Tommy Dubuque, born March 3, 1949 in Austin, TX, passed away peacefully in New Braunfels, TX on February 3, 2022, surrounded by his loved ones. Tommy was a proud US Navy veteran and served two tours in Vietnam from 1967-1971. He was the humble recipient of the Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, and the Vietnam Campaign Medal.

Tommy married his beautiful bride, Peggy Lewis, on March 4, 1980. Peggy was his inspiration for sobriety. He was proud of his sobriety of over 40 years.

Tommy was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2005, which prompted his tireless work building a vast and powerful community of support for people living with Parkinson’s and their families. He founded the Comal County Parkinson’s Support Group in 2007 and the non-profit organization Lone Star Parkinson Society in 2013. He was integral in bringing Rock Steady Boxing to the local Parkinson’s community, for the mobility and health of those living with the disease. His reach and mentorship crossed borders, and he is remembered by Parkinson’s friends internationally.

Tommy was an avid fisherman and enjoyed camping and spending time in nature with his family and friends. He was a born and raised loyal Texan. He had an unrivaled zest for life and believed strongly in taking life “one day at a time.” But more than anything, Tommy’s family was most important to him, and nothing compared to his unbridled love for his wife Peggy of 42 years.

Survived by the love of his life, Peggy, and his six children, Jennifer (Robert), Michael (Amanda), Tommi (Matt), Daniel (Kristen), Wil (Marilyn), and Carrie (Ricky), as well as his grandchildren, Charlie, Maxwell, Caitlyn, Danny, and Nevaeh. Also survived by his sisters Barbara and Dana, and his brother Johnny. Preceded in death by his son, Thomas Edward, and his parents, Elmer and Martha Kate.

His wishes were to be cremated. A Celebration of Life is planned for March 3rd, Tommy’s 73rd birthday. The Celebration of Life will be held at Oakwood Baptist Church at 3:00 pm. Please bring your stories and memories of Tommy’s life to share.