The Memorial Wall

George Vafiadis, who founded the Acadia Repertory Theatre in Mount Desert, the Penobscot Theatre in Bangor and L/A Public Theatre in the twin cities of Lewiston-Auburn, died Wednesday, March 9, from Parkinson’s disease complications in Bradenton, Fla. The actor, stage director, voice-actor and theater producer was 88.

Vafiadis, who performed as a regular on the HBO series “The Wire” among many highlights from his lengthy career, has been a major force in Maine’s theater world. In 1973, he and local artist and theatrical producer Louis Collier formed a summer stock company called the Acadia Repertory Theatre in the rustic Masonic Hall in the Mount Desert village of Somesville. That troupe has become one of Maine’s longest continually producing theaters (except for a 2020 COVID hiatus). As an offshoot of Acadia Rep, he founded the Penobscot Theatre Company in 1983. And in 1990, he started the L/A Public Theatre in the Lewiston-Auburn area. All three theaters continue to operate to this day and owe their existence to Vafiadis and his commitment to the concept of regional theater production.

Ken Stack, Husson University’s Director of Entertainment Production, worked as an actor and director with George for years. The two worked together on more than 60 theater productions.

“George had an amazing capacity to instill energy and creative passion into the process of making theater.  Even in the early days of the Acadia Rep.  We were working in horrible conditions.  We couldn’t afford to heat the winter theater unless we had an audience,” Stack recalled Friday. “So we would rehearse in our winter coats, which became rather cumbersome when practicing swordfights!  But George’s commitment to the story and the emotional line of each character kept us going at a fever pitch.  It was this passion that built the foundation of three separate theater companies here in Maine.”

“All of us benefit today from his boundless energy and dedication,” Stack continued. “And his respect for the craft of the actor never waivered.”

Born on Jan. 23, 1934, in Hackensack, N.J., George was the son of Nicholas Vafiadis and Xanthe Mamukari Vafiadis. After his father’s death, the family moved to San Antonio, Texas, where George would eventually study theater at the University of Texas at Austin. There, he worked with legends B. Iden Payne and Francis Hodge, who shaped so much of his views on theatre production and ensemble acting. Later he would continue his training by studying with Dimitris Rondiris at the Greek National Theatre in Epidaurus. That experience inspired him, throughout his life, to share the power, clarity and beauty of the classic Greek tragedies from his ancestral home.

As a professional actor, George worked for dozens of regional theaters across the country including the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Theatre Impact, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Cleveland Playhouse and the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival.

His film and television work began with a broadcast of “The Rivalry” produced by David Susskind for his series “Esso Repertory Theatre,” and originally staged by the Cleveland Playhouse. This was a dramatization of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and began George’s lifelong love of Abraham Lincoln, who was to reappear in his professional work for the rest of his life. George also appeared in the film “27 Dresses.”

His love, though, was with the theater and especially the classics, from Sophocles to Shakespeare. He would go on to perform in over 100 plays as well as produce and direct another 80 in regional theaters and colleges across the country.

One of his favorite accomplishments at the Penobscot Theatre was the creation of a foreign director program, presenting plays mounted by European directors Patrick Laffin (Abbey Theatre, Dublin), Vasek Simek (Prague, Czechoslovakia) and Dame Joan Knight (Perth, Scotland). George exchanged directorial duties with Joan Knight and traveled to Scotland to direct “The Gin Game” in 1988.

When the average artist would perhaps start to relax and reflect, George chose to enter into another career as a voice actor, recording audio books, including the complete and unabridged King James Version of both the Old and New Testaments, and Lincoln’s Letters, both of which won the national audiobook of the year award. His love of Lincoln led to his writing and performing “Mr. Lincoln’s Public Opinion Bath,” a full-length, one-person show which premiered at the Acadia Rep and was later performed for schools and theaters across New England.

Finally, the white sand beaches of Sarasota, Fla., called and George and his wife, Katherine Knowles, retired to this community in 2013 where both of them continued to contribute to the world of the performing arts, she as a grant writer and he as a guest lecturer and author, having completed his autobiography, “A Flame: The Fire of a Stage Actor.”

George is survived by his loving wife, Katherine, sister-in-law, Elaine Vafiadis, and by countless artists and audiences who have benefited from his passionate commitment to the world of live theater.

Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., an author and magazine editor who unsparingly scrutinized his fellow heirs to America’s aristocracy, primarily in “Old Money: The Mythology of Wealth in America,” which one reviewer called “a self-help book for those who have too much,” died on Tuesday at his home in North Stonington, in southeastern Connecticut. He was 86.

The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, his daughter Liberty Aldrich said.

Mr. Aldrich also edited “George, Being George” (2008), an oral history that lionized George Plimpton, a fellow patrician and literary journalist, and he wrote “Tommy Hitchcock: An American Hero” (1985), a biography of the famed polo player.

Mr. Aldrich “was driven by a need to understand, uncover, and explain to others the class he was born into; being a writer gave him the opportunity to do that,” Ms. Aldrich said in an email.

He did that most prominently and self-reflectively in “Old Money” (1988) and in a January 1979 cover story for The Atlantic magazine headlined “Preppies: The Last Upper Class?”

While the article parodied prep school students, it also described a “Preppie ideal” as “a collective yearning; with respect to money, it is a yearning for a triumph — of class over income, of grace over works, of being over doing.”

“Gracefulness is less a gift than a standard,” Mr. Aldrich wrote, “something to measure up to, a performance.”

He went on: “The delight of the thing comes from the knowledge that it’s all contrived, that the effect of effortlessness requires a good deal of strain, that negligence requires attention, that indifference requires concentration, that simplicity and naturalness require affectation. The most delicious ‘in’ joke of Preppiedom is the anxiety everyone feels about being carefree.”

Reviewing the book in The Los Angeles Times, the author Adam Hochschild wrote, “Aldrich’s voice is that of someone in a comfortable leather armchair, telling a story during a long evening over brandy and cigars at an elegant New York or Boston club — a men’s club, definitely.” He called the book “as thoughtful a psychological portrait of America’s aristocracy as we have.”

In The New York Times Book Review, it was Jane O’Reilly who called “Old Money” a “self-help book for those who have too much,” adding that wealthy people would be delighted “to discover that someone, one of their own, has defined both the essence and the existential quandary of being Old Money.”

Mr. Aldrich wrote insightfully about the drawbacks of too much freedom, as personified by the lament of a member of a self-help group for beneficiaries of inherited fortunes called the Dough Nuts, who complained, “Sometimes I feel as if everything I’ve done in my life has been a hobby.”

Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich Jr. was born on April 11, 1935, in Boston. His father was an architect and chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. His mother was Eleanor (Tweed) Aldrich.

“I was entitled to a IV rather than a Jr.,” Mr. Aldrich wrote in “Old Money,” but “I was persuaded that Roman numerals were pretentious.”

He dedicated the book to, among others, his great-grandfather Nelson W. Aldrich who after 30 years in politics — he was a Republican United States Senator from Rhode Island — turned a modest profit from his wholesale grocery business into a $12 million fortune thanks to good investment advice and favors from friendly robber barons.

Senator Aldrich, who was said to have become a millionaire shepherding legislation for those corporate titans, was considered the father of the direct federal income tax and the Federal Reserve System. His daughter Abigail married John D. Rockefeller Jr., the only son of the founder of Standard Oil. Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, the former governor of New York and former vice president, was a cousin.

After attending the exclusive St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire and graduating from Harvard with a degree in American history and literature in 1957, Nelson Jr. held a series of jobs: reporter for The Boston Globe, New York City public-school teacher, Paris editor of The Paris Review, senior editor at Harper’s Magazine and editor in chief of Civilization, the Library of Congress magazine.

Mike Marley, who went from Reno to the highest levels of professional boxing and won an Emmy for his work with legendary broadcaster Howard Cosell, died March 2 in Cape Cod, Mass., after battling Parkinson's disease.

He was 72.

Marley moved to Reno from Massachusetts to box for Jimmy Olivas at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he studied journalism.

As a teenager, Marley had been president of a Muhammad Ali fan club. He met Ali before his rematch with Sonny Liston in May 1965 in Lewiston, Maine, which Ali won via first-round knockout.

After leaving Reno, Marley went on to work as a sportswriter for the Las Vegas Sun, according to the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame, and later for the New York Post, mainly covering boxing.

According to a story-filled obituary from Phil Mushnick in the New York Post, and other accounts, Marley left the Post after 13 years to work for Cosell on ABCs "SportsBeat" TV show, while also attending Fordham Law School. He won an Emmy while working as a producer for "SportsBeat."

He later became a criminal defense attorney. His slogan was, "Reasonable doubt for a reasonable price."

In 1992, Marley went to work doing publicity for boxing promoter Don King, who was Ali's manager.

In 1997, he left to become the manager for boxer Terry Norris. Norris had been set to fight Oscar De La Hoya, but lost a tune-up fight and never faced De La Hoya.

Boxing matchmaker Eric Bottjer wrote that Marley "was pure New York Post — brash and funny, usually with a wink." He said Marley was quick-witted but had a deeper side and was never mean-spirited.

In 2015, the RGJ spoke with Marley prior to the U.S. Olympic Trials coming to Reno in a story chronicling the Biggest Little City's rich history with the sport of boxing.

In the story, Marley spoke about Cuban heavyweight Teofilo Stevenson — a three-time Olympic gold medalist who was arguably the greatest amateur to fight in Reno.

“This guy was like Franklin D. Roosevelt, he was in power so long,” Marley said in the story. “For 16 years, from 1970 to 1986, he was the top amateur in the world. There was all this speculation about how he would have fared against Muhammad Ali.

"When he fought his last fight against Alex Garcia (in Reno in 1986), he had more belts than Macy’s department store.”

Mike Marley, who went from Reno to the highest levels of professional boxing and won an Emmy for his work with legendary broadcaster Howard Cosell, died March 2 in Cape Cod, Mass., after battling Parkinson's disease.

He was 72.

Marley moved to Reno from Massachusetts to box for Jimmy Olivas at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he studied journalism.

As a teenager, Marley had been president of a Muhammad Ali fan club. He met Ali before his rematch with Sonny Liston in May 1965 in Lewiston, Maine, which Ali won via first-round knockout.

After leaving Reno, Marley went on to work as a sportswriter for the Las Vegas Sun, according to the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame, and later for the New York Post, mainly covering boxing.

According to a story-filled obituary from Phil Mushnick in the New York Post, and other accounts, Marley left the Post after 13 years to work for Cosell on ABCs "SportsBeat" TV show, while also attending Fordham Law School. He won an Emmy while working as a producer for "SportsBeat."

He later became a criminal defense attorney. His slogan was, "Reasonable doubt for a reasonable price."

In 1992, Marley went to work doing publicity for boxing promoter Don King, who was Ali's manager.

In 1997, he left to become the manager for boxer Terry Norris. Norris had been set to fight Oscar De La Hoya, but lost a tune-up fight and never faced De La Hoya.

Boxing matchmaker Eric Bottjer wrote that Marley "was pure New York Post — brash and funny, usually with a wink." He said Marley was quick-witted but had a deeper side and was never mean-spirited.

In 2015, the RGJ spoke with Marley prior to the U.S. Olympic Trials coming to Reno in a story chronicling the Biggest Little City's rich history with the sport of boxing.

In the story, Marley spoke about Cuban heavyweight Teofilo Stevenson — a three-time Olympic gold medalist who was arguably the greatest amateur to fight in Reno.

“This guy was like Franklin D. Roosevelt, he was in power so long,” Marley said in the story. “For 16 years, from 1970 to 1986, he was the top amateur in the world. There was all this speculation about how he would have fared against Muhammad Ali.

"When he fought his last fight against Alex Garcia (in Reno in 1986), he had more belts than Macy’s department store.”

Rona Cader Rosenbaum, an advocate for Parkinson’s disease patients who had been an analyst for a Johns Hopkins teen pregnancy study, died of complications of lung cancer March 2 at University of Maryland St. Joseph’s Medical Center. She was 89 and lived in Lutherville.

“She was a force of nature,” her son Michael Cader said. “She was a strong, persistent woman — in her small way, she was a groundbreaker without trying to be one.”

Another son, Andrew Cader, said: “Her wiring involved intelligence and high energy and compassion. She worked relentlessly. Right from the beginning, she was good at whatever she wanted to do. She had a well-organized mind and well-organized plan for what she had to be.”

Born in Baltimore, she was the daughter of Selma Cummins, a homemaker, and Herman Blumenthal, who owned Chesapeake Insurance. Raised near Druid Hill Park, she was a 1950 Western High School graduate and earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at Goucher College.

She then taught math in the Baltimore City Schools system. In 1964, she became a mainframe computer programmer and faculty member at the Johns Hopkins University.

She worked alongside Dr. Janet Hardy and ran the statistical analysis component of a public health study, the Adolescent Pregnancy and Pregnancy Prevention Program. The program targeted two city schools, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School and Lombard Junior High. Students received counseling and were taught sex education and birth control.

“She was charmingly forthright and canny about being heard. She had a clear and distinctive voice that would not be quieted,” her son Michael said.

On a blind date, she met her future husband, Gordon Cader, a physician who was also a faculty member of Johns Hopkins Medical School. They married in 1954. Living on Chilham Road in Mount Washington, she and her neighbors founded the Mount Washington Swimming Club, and she was its treasurer.

She also became involved with Mount Washington Elementary School and started a program that provided free milk and a snack for children who didn’t have lunch money.

“She didn’t want kids to go through school without some nutrition,” her son Michael said. “She was an organizer and activist and worked for other people. There was a line from her providing peanut butter crackers and milk at the school to her later work with Parkinson’s patients.”

After her husband died in 1974, she married Arthur E. Rosenbaum, a neuroradiologist.

Their first meeting was arranged by friends. “We agreed to have a drink,” Dr. Rosenbaum said. “I was hoping it would lead to dinner but it didn’t.”

He added: “Rona was direct, kind, thoughtful and smart. She could multitask easily.”

They married in 1981 and she served on the boards of The Park School, Kennedy Krieger Institute and the Glimmerglass Festival in New York state.

She was a lifelong activist and advocated for abortion rights and racial equality. She was also an enthusiastic Baltimore Colts season ticket holder.

After many years of helping her husband live with Parkinson’s disease, she founded the nonprofit Maryland Association for Parkinson Support in 2014, where she served as president and chair of the board until her death.

“My mother realized there was a void of understanding about Parkinson’s and a lack of resources available to people like herself and her husband, Arthur,” her son Michael said. “She vowed to change that.”

The organization provides free programs and support to thousands of those affected by Parkinson’s disease, Michael said.

“As a hands-on problem solver, she educated herself and found that Parkinson’s means learning to live with change,” he said. “She knew Parkinson’s could be isolating for the caregivers as well as their loved ones.”

She became an advocate for Rock Steady Boxing, a program aimed at helping to ease the symptoms of the neurodegenerative disorder that leads to tremors and movement problems.

Rock Steady Boxing is one of the exercise programs supported financially by the Maryland Association for Parkinson Support Inc.

“The research shows that exercise is as important as the medicine in quality of life with people with Parkinson’s,” she said in the 2018 Sun story. “We want to get people involved in exercise as soon after diagnosis as we can.”

Her son recalled his mother’s ability to overcome adversity.

“She found a way to make some good out of a bad hand,” her son Michael said. “She was a brilliant adviser, organizer, strategist and constant friend, with consummate organizational skills, determination, and a charmingly no-nonsense style.”

Ms. Rosenbaum was an opera lover and supporter of Native American artists and collector of their works. She played bridge and was a member of the Hamilton Street Club. She and her husband endowed a fellowship at Glimmerglass Festival for young opera singers.

“They loved young talent and wanted to nurture it,” her son Michael said.

Ms. Rosenbaum is survived by her husband of nearly 40 years, Arthur Rosenbaum; three sons, Andrew Cader of Aspen, Colorado, Michael Cader of Bronxville, New York, and Jeff Rosenbaum of Boston; two daughters, Anne Myers of the Bronx, New York, and Lisa Rosenbaum of New York City; and seven grandchildren.

From the Baltimore Sun

HALBFINGER--Andrea Sue (Kanner), age 81, an artist and journalist who lavished her family with love, died March 1, 2022 of pancreatic cancer and Parkinson's in Manhattan. She left behind a vast trove of abstract artwork produced as a student at Bennington, in the basement of her Freeport home, in New York City studios and, finally, beside the window of her East 96th Street apartment. She painted vividly colored acrylics and oils with bold, expressive shapes on large canvases, seeking "order in chaos." Born February 17, 1941, in Brooklyn, to S. Lee and Elsie Kanner, she studied art and criticism at Bennington and journalism at Columbia and was married to M. William Halbfinger, who died in 1999. As an art critic for The Washington Post in 1964-65, she wrote authoritative, unsparing reviews. Besides her daughter, Caren, of New Rochelle, and son, David, of Montclair, NJ she is survived by her brother, Dr. Steven Kanner of Lincoln, MA; sister, Dr. Ellen Kanner, of Manhattan, and six grandchildren. Hope fueled her, even when her illness became untreatable. Asked about being reunited with her husband, she smiled and said: "It's gonna be great."

"I love you"- these words were so often spoken by Alan "Dusty" G. Dustin. Just shy of 93 years, he rode peacefully into the setting sun on February 27, 2022. Parkinson's Disease had taken his strength, and his indomitable spirit could no longer be contained.

Born into this beautiful world in Plattsburgh, NY in 1929, his devoted parents were Edith Hyde Dustin and Grant Dustin. Although he was an extremely serious man regarding projects or ventures embarked upon, he had a lighter, compassionate side and was remembered for his leadership without the pedestal. His highly inquisitive nature, intelligence and keen mind were perpetual, as was his warmth and beaming smile.

At age 15, Dusty gained his fine business sense employed by Zahn's grocery store in Plattsburgh after his parents had passed. His railroad career began at age 16 as a baggage clerk in Ticonderoga NY (where he met his future wife, Elsie!), then onto the Delaware and Hudson Railroad where he became fluent as a Morse Code Telegrapher. In 1970 he joined the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad as Vice President and CEO, and in 1974 became the President of the Boston & Maine Railroad, where he led the charge out of the depths of the 1970 bankruptcy by dramatically repairing infrastructure, improving service, and repairing the B&M's reputation. In 1984 he became the Vice President of the New Jersey Transit until his retirement in 1988. Dusty had become a renowned figure to both B&M fans and railroad enthusiasts, garnering immense respect. He had become the very picture of a railroad executive whose kindness and love for his industry helped to guide the railroad through a difficult point in its history. He continued to travel the world where he was a valued railway business consultant in Alaska, Africa, Argentina, and Czechoslovakia; he also had a major hand in the restructuring of the Chunnel between France and England.

Dusty (given the name "Pops" by his grandchildren!) was wild about being outside - an avid runner, camper, swimmer, tennis player, hiker, cyclist, fisherman, gardener. After the removal of a benign brain tumor in 1979, his quest for wellness increased, and he began organic gardening. He felt a great kinship with the wild west, cowboys, and the high nautical sea - Dusty loved reading Louis L'Amour, and Zane Grey. When his daughter Sandy joined him in an adventure to Alaska and the Great West, together they joyfully participated in hijinks such as climbing over fences to access areas not listed in guidebooks. Sharing big band music, enjoying a whiskey sour, Dusty had a great love for his family, friends, and church community- and he made sure we felt his love. That is his true legacy.

Dusty was predeceased by his brother Kenneth who was shot down while flying a B-29 over Tokyo in 1944, his older sister Virginia Keyser, and loving wife Elsie of 63 years of marriage. Having lost his brother during the war, he was not obligated to join the armed forces. However, he felt it was his duty, so he joined the Army and served in the Korean War. In 1952 he returned home, married Elsie and they had four children. Dusty took pride in being a 7th generation direct descendant of Hannah Emerson Dustin, the first woman in the United States to have a statue erected in her honor as a “Colonial Mother” during early America.

He leaves his sister Helen Philips, daughter Diane Itasaka, daughter Carol Nadeau and her husband Robert Nadeau, son Alan K. Dustin, daughter Sandra Dustin and her husband Chris O’Connor, daughter-in-law Hako Itasaka, and four grandchildren; Alexandria Itasaka, Kenji Dustin, Masami Dustin and Kiyoshi Dustin.

Dusty's family is grateful for the care and sense of community that Riverwoods Manchester lovingly provided for him over the past 4 years.

Happy Trails to our immensely beloved dad.

Born in Melbourne, Victoria, on 12 April 1930, Landy attended Malvern Memorial Grammar School and Geelong Grammar School. He graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1954, receiving a Bachelor of Agricultural Science.

Australian media reported that Landy had a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

During his school years, Landy enjoyed watching middle-distance track events. He became a serious runner during his university years, joining the Geelong Guild Athletic Club in 1949; he was a member of the Australian Olympic team at both the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki and 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, taking the Olympic Oath at the 1956 Olympics. On 21 June 1954, at an international meet at Turku, Finland, Landy became the second man, after Roger Bannister, to achieve a sub-4-minute mile, recording a world record time of 3:57.9, ratified by the IAAF as 3:58.0 owing to the rounding rules then in effect. That record held for more than three years.

Landy ran his second sub-4-minute mile at the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, held at Vancouver, British Columbia, in the mile race, but lost to Roger Bannister, who had his best-ever time. This meeting of the world's two fastest milers was alternately called "The Miracle Mile", the "Race of the Century", and the "Dream Race"; it was heard over the radio by 100 million people and seen on television by millions more. On the final turn of the last lap, as Landy looked over his left shoulder, Bannister passed him on the right. A larger-than-life bronze sculpture of the two men at this moment was created by Vancouver sculptor Jack Harman in 1967 from a photograph by Vancouver Sun photographer Charlie Warner and stood for many years at the entrance to Empire Stadium; after the stadium was demolished, the sculpture was moved to the Hastings and Renfrew entrance of the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) fairgrounds. In 2015, it returned to the site of the stadium. Regarding this sculpture, Landy quipped that "While Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt for looking back, I am probably the only one ever turned into bronze for looking back."

Landy ran a mile in 3:57.9 on June 21, 1954, just 46 days after British rival Roger Bannister became the first man to break four minutes. Landy’s time was faster, and he held the world record for three years.

Bannister died in 2018, seven years after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

At the 1956 Australian National Championships prior to the Melbourne Olympic Games, in the final of the mile race, Landy stopped and doubled back to check on fellow runner Ron Clarke after another runner clipped Clarke's heel, causing him to fall early in the third lap of the race. Landy, who was close behind, leaped to clear his body but scraped his spikes on Clarke's shoulder. Clarke, the then-junior mile world record holder, who had been leading the race, got back to his feet and started running again; Landy followed. In the final two laps Landy made up the deficit to win the race. The National Centre for History and Education in Australia said that "[i]t was a spontaneous gesture of sportsmanship, and it has never been forgotten." Sculptor Mitch Mitchell created a bronze sculpture of the moment when Landy helps Clarke to his feet. The sculpure was dedicated in June 2002 and is on Olympic Boulevard, Olympic Park in Melbourne.

On 1 January 2001, Landy was sworn in as the 26th Governor of Victoria, succeeding Sir James Gobbo. He was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II on the recommendation of Premier of Victoria Steve Bracks, who remained premier throughout his term. Landy retired as governor on 7 April 2006 and was succeeded by David de Kretser. On 15 March 2006, in the final month of his term as governor, Landy was the final runner in the Queen's Baton relay during the 2006 Commonwealth Games opening ceremony at the Melbourne Cricket Ground stadium in Melbourne, presenting the baton to the Queen.

It was a journey that seemed doomed from the start: An octogenarian couple, one spiriting the other away from a residential care home in a white Mazda pickup, the breadth of the treacherous Australian outback laid out before them.

Sometime before New Year’s Day, Ralph “Terry” Gibbs, 80, left Queensland, in northeastern Australia, to reunite with his partner of 15 years, Carol Lisle, 84, in Western Australia. Ms. Lisle, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease and dementia, had been moved to a care home there by her goddaughter. Mr. Gibbs, guided by a paper map, was determined to drive her 3,000 miles back to his home.

The star-crossed pair made headlines in Australia as a national manhunt got underway. Two days after the kidnapping, the couple was found by patrolling police officers in a remote Aboriginal community near the border with the Northern Territory, both in ailing health.

Now, nearly two months later, the saga has come to an even sadder end: Ms. Lisle and Mr. Gibbs died within days of each other this week, a friend of Ms. Lisle’s told Australia’s national broadcaster.

Ms. Lisle died in her sleep on Monday. Two days later, Mr. Gibbs was killed in Queensland in a head-on collision between his pickup truck and another vehicle.

Their lovelorn tale began in March, when Ms. Lisle’s goddaughter moved her into the care home near Mandurah in Western Australia because of concerns that Mr. Gibbs, who had been in the hospital, was unable to give her the care she needed, she told The Australian, a national newspaper.

In the months afterward, the couple had been able to see each other only four times, Mr. Gibbs later told reporters, because of Western Australia’s rigorous coronavirus restrictions, which have left the state closed to the rest of the country for months at a time.

“All day every day, she says, ‘Please take me out of here, please take me out of here,’ and when I would leave to go home, she would say, ‘Can I come with you?’” Mr. Gibbs told The Guardian last week. “She even wanted to walk to the airport.”

Mr. Gibbs, his truck loaded with jerrycans of diesel and water, absconded with Ms. Lisle on Jan. 2.

After more than 24 hours on the road in temperatures that sometimes exceeded 105 degrees Fahrenheit, they were apprehended. Both were suffering from dehydration, a spokesman for the police said. Ms. Lisle, a wheelchair user, was reportedly distressed, smelled of urine and was wearing the same outfit she had on when Mr. Gibbs took her from her care home.

“The area they were found in is extremely remote,” Detective Senior Constable James Stewart said at a news conference last month. He added: “What they were doing is extremely risky. They are both very frail, their mobility isn’t good and they didn’t have sufficient water and supplies to go on that sort of journey. But thankfully they’ve been found and are OK.”

Last week, Mr. Gibbs pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawfully detaining a mentally ill person. He was given a seven-month suspended sentence and a two-year restraining order that barred him from visiting his partner.

Speaking to reporters outside the court, Mr. Gibbs said he worried that he and Ms. Lisle would not be reunited. “I fear that I might never see my little girl again,” he said. “She is fading quickly.”

Raelene Johnston, the magistrate, acknowledged that Mr. Gibbs had absconded with his partner out of a desire to be with her.

“The ending of your cohabitation with Ms. Lisle must have been heartbreaking for you, given the bond you had with your partner,” she said. “I accept your motive was one of love and affection. I do not doubt that.”

via nytimes.com

Dee Helfgott was a dedicated mother and wife, hardworking businesswoman, lifelong advocate for women, social action, Democratic politics, and Judaism, and a great friend to many. After health challenges related to Parkinson's disease, she died peacefully at home in Palm Desert on February 22, 2022. Born in Madison, Wisconsin to Harold and Ida Blachman, Dee and her family moved to Los Angeles in 1944 and she attended John Burroughs Middle School and Los Angeles High School. In 1964, she married Marvin Helfgott, a pharmacist, in Beverly Hills. They raised their family in the West LA neighborhood of Beverlywood, where they lived for over 30 years. Dee left college to start a family and would later earn two degrees from USC, a BS in Public Affairs in 1978 and a Master of Public Administration in 1981. The centerpieces of the Helfgott's life in LA were Temple Isaiah and Dennis Pharmacy, both on Pico Boulevard. One of Dee's proudest moments was becoming Isaiah's first woman president, in 1981-82. Another major accomplishment, though a trying one, was her formation of the Coalition for Handgun Control in 1975, which brought together community groups, politicians, religious leaders, teachers, and Hollywood stars, to fight the scourge of gun violence. In 1998, Dee and Marv moved to the Sun City retirement community in Palm Desert, remaining there for 22 years. There, they made a whole new circle of friends and Dee became actively involved at the Palm Springs International Film Festival and the Desert Jewish Film Festival, which brought her tremendous fulfillment. Dee was a warm, affectionate, incredibly strong and beautiful human being who always saw the good in people. She was both fun and funny and could always take a joke. She and Marv were always the first ones out on the dancefloor. She was an elegant lady who loved Chico's clothing and jewelry and would never leave the house without lipstick. Dee was preceded in death by Marvin, who died on January 11, 2021. She is survived by her daughter Hali Helfgott, son Jason Helfgott, and brother Larry Blachman. 

John R. “Jack” Breihan, emeritus professor of history at Loyola University Maryland who wrote several books and numerous articles on Maryland aviation history, Baltimore history and architectural preservation, died of complications from Parkinson’s disease Friday at Edenwald Retirement Community in Towson. The former Roland Park and Ellicott City resident was 74.

“Jack was a very talented teacher and got a lot of students excited about history and put a great deal of emphasis on writing,” said Dr. Matthew Mulcahy, a colleague of Mr. Breihan’s for 22 years at Loyola.

“It just wasn’t about facts, but crafting arguments, and students just loved him,” Dr. Mulcahy said. “Our department was very small and he transformed it.”

Another colleague, Thomas Pegram, who also taught history, said in a university statement announcing Mr. Breihan’s death that “he was involved in so much during Loyola’s transformation into a regional comprehensive university.”

“Since I arrived at Loyola in 1990, Jack was the personification of Loyola’s mission to educate and serve. His energy and initiative were matched by his generosity and compassion. He was the best person I ever knew,” Mr. Pegram said.

John Robert Breihan, the son of Irwin Breihan, a civil engineer, and his wife, Antoinette, a homemaker, was born and raised in St. Louis, where he graduated in 1965 from St. John Vianney High School.

He was a cum laude graduate of Princeton University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1969 in history. He received his Ph.D., also in history, in 1978, from the University of Cambridge in England.

Mr. Breihan joined the Loyola faculty in 1977 as an assistant professor of history, a position he held until 1983, when he became an associate in the department and tenured.

“Jack came to Loyola just as it was becoming a powerhouse, and he was one of the first of the national hires,” said his wife of 52 years, Dr. Ann Whitney.

He served twice as history department chair, from 1983 to 1987, and again from 2001 to 2004.

Chris Kaltenbach, a retired Baltimore Sun reporter, was a freshman when Mr. Breihan began teaching at Loyola in 1977.

In a Facebook post, Mr. Kaltenbach wrote that Mr. Breihan was “one of the best teachers I ever had, a man who had an unrelenting passion for life and made learning seem like the best thing ever. It’s been said that a good teacher makes his subject come alive. Jack Breihan not only made history come alive, but he made it seem fun. And cool. I mean, with Jack as your guide, who wouldn’t want to learn this stuff?”

Mr. Breihan had high expectations for his students.

“Not that Jack’s courses were cakewalks. Far from it. He expected you to work hard, to ask questions about things you didn’t understand, to wrestle with the material until you mastered it,” Mr. Kaltenbach wrote.

During his tenure at Loyola, Mr. Breihan researched and taught military history, history through film, and historic preservation. He also played an influential role in launching the College Honors and writing-across-the-curriculum programs, while developing a deep interest in the World War II years and Maryland aviation.

At his death, Mr. Breihan was writing a book about World War II suburban development, his wife said.

“Jack taught a class on Baltimore history and architecture that was very popular,” said Dr. Mulcahy, who was history department chair from 2007 to 2014.

“When he taught his Baltimore History and Architecture class, one of the assignments was that students had to write a history of a neighborhood, and they got extra credit if they got it posted to Wikipedia,” Dr. Mulcahy said in the Loyola statement.

Mr. Breihan also wrote “Between Munich and Pearl Harbor: The Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Company Gears Up for War, 1938-1941,” an article published by the Maryland Historical Magazine in 1993.

In 1939 as France and Germany lurched toward war, the French government awarded the Martin Co. a rush contract for planes, and almost overnight, Mr. Breihan explained in a 2008 interview with The Sun, Martin’s employment went from 3,000 to 10,000, and by war’s end topped out at 54,000.

To accommodate war workers, the company built its first housing, named Stansburg Manor on Wilson Point Road, which was a garden-apartment complex.

With the coming of World War II, the Martin Co. built Aero Acres in Middle River in 1941 near its plant to house white war workers, and similarly in the early 1940s, the Housing Authority of Baltimore City constructed a planned community, Cherry Hill, the South Baltimore neighborhood that was ringed by parks and cul-de-sacs, for African Americans.

Intrigued by its history, Mr. Breihan and 17 of his students began documenting Cherry Hill’s background in 2000 when they interviewed original residents. The collaboration between teacher and students resulted in a 30-page document titled “Cherry Hill: A Community History.”

“This is an admirable community,” he told The Sun in a 2003 interview. “The real building of the community is done by the people who live in it. Each Cherry Hill club, church congregation, or recreation team was begun by Cherry Hill’s African American residents.”

“The neighborhood has been quite a powerhouse for producing powerful Black leaders,’” he explained in the newspaper article.

Interested in historic preservation and aviation, Mr. Breihan had served on the boards of Baltimore Heritage and the Glenn L. Martin Maryland Aviation Museum

via Frederick N. Rasmussen at the Baltimore Sun