United States High School Yearbooks by County
Anne Zimmermann, 88, of South Salem
Anne Zimmermann, who had lived in South Salem since 1956, died of natural causes in her home of many years on Friday, Oct. 5. She was 88 years old.
The third of four children, she was born Ann Dorothy Murray to Frank J. Murray and Ann D. Costello in Newton, Mass., where she was raised. After completing a secretarial program at the Katharine Gibbs School, she married
Philip Frank Zimmermann in 1941, and the couple moved to South Salem in 1956. For 20 years she worked in Pleasantville as an executive assistant and marketing analyst at Reader’s Digest. She retired from the company in 1984.
A spirited lifelong learner with a tenacious intellect, she demonstrated a keen and wide-ranging interest in literature, history, film, and gardening. She never ceased to amaze her family and friends with her ability to solve difficult crossword puzzles and answer Jeopardy! questions with the ease and speed of an onstage contestant, her family said. She was also an avid and skilled duplicate bridge player and achieved grandmaster status. She will be missed greatly by family and friends alike.
Ms. Zimmermann is survived by her brother, John Murray, of New Hampshire; her four children, Philip Zimmermann of Long Beach, Calif., Paul Zimmermann of Rensselaer, Nancy Barrows of Portland, Ore., and Peter Zimmermann of Norwalk, Conn.; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Her family and friends will celebrate her life in a private service. Donations may be made to Hospice of Westchester: hospiceofwestchester.com/donations.php.
William Jordan, 86, father of resident
William “Bill” Jordan, a Norwalk resident, died Tuesday, Oct. 2, at the Waveny Care Center in New Canaan, Conn. He was 86 years old, and the father of Colleen Wacha of South Salem.
Mr. Jordan was a graduate of New Canaan High School where he set many athletic records. Last year, he was honored in a ceremony that inducted him into the NCHS Hall of Fame.
He served for four years in the United States Marine Corps during World War II in the Pacific. He received the Purple Heart in 1945 after being wounded in action.
Mr. Jordan has been the New Canaan tree warden for the past 25 years. He had owned and operated Howard B. Toms Tree Surgery for more than 30 years. In addition, Mr. Jordan was the president of the New Canaan Old Timers Association, where he was instrumental in honoring and recording the achievements of many local athletes.
In addition to Ms. Wacha and her husband, Gary, survivors include his high school sweetheart, Cecilia Portwine Jordan, to whom he had been married
for 65 years; daughter Patricia White and her husband, Brian, of Apex, N.C.; two sisters, Lois Inwood of Trumbull, Conn., and Barbara Apy of New Canaan; three brothers, John Jordan of Boulder, Colo., Alfred Jordan of Flagler, Fla., and David Jordan of Lake Luzerne; seven grandchildren, Kevin Jordan, Renee Torre, Samantha Jordan, Brooke Wacha, Erik Wacha, Emily Profeta and Elizabeth Profeta; three great-grandchildren, Ashley Jordan, Brandon Jordan and Mason Yates; and several nieces and nephews. Mr. Jordan was predeceased by his son, William Donald Jordan, his sister Dorothy Courte and his brothers Ralph and Robert Jordan.
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on Friday, Oct. 5, at St. Matthew Church in Norwalk, Conn. Burial with military honors was private.
In lieu of flowers, donations in memory of Mr. Jordan may be made to Whittingham Cancer Center at Norwalk Hospital, the Waveny Care Center or to the New Canaan Old Timers Association High School Athletic Scholarship Fund, c/o Lauren Cerretani, P.O. Box 1642, New Canaan, CT 06840.
Arrangements were by the Bouton Funeral Home, 31 West Church Street, Georgetown, Conn.
Emily MacLachlin Carl, restaurateur and naturalist
Emily MacLachlin Carl died at her home in Waccabuc on Saturday, Aug. 11.
Born in Tuxedo, Mrs. Carl grew up in Newburgh, where she developed a life-long love of the Hudson River. After graduating from Skidmore College, she managed a group of 10 Consumers’ Cooperative Restaurants in New York City. In 1937, she married
R. Croxton Morris of White Plains. They moved to Valhalla in 1941. In 1954, following the death of Mr. Morris, she married
George Carl.
Mrs. Carl was very much a part of the community in Valhalla and raised her four daughters there. She taught home economics at Valhalla High School for 20 years. She loved teaching, and made learning a meaningful part of her students’ lives. One of the big events at the high school was Mrs. Carl’s annual fashion show, featuring students modeling the clothing they had made in class.
As a Girl Scout leader, Mrs. Carl introduced many of the local girls to the wonders of nature.
Mr. and Mrs. Carl reached out internationally, making many friends and welcoming them into their home. This included an American Field Service exchange student from Thailand. After her retirement from teaching in 1978, Mrs. Carl enjoyed traveling with her husband to visit friends and family around the United States and Europe.
In 1999, Mrs. Carl moved to Waccabuc to live with her daughter and son-in-law, Betsy and Jack Sinnott. Despite the move, Mrs. Carl maintained her membership in the White Plains Women’s Club. Mrs. Carl was a life-long Christian Scientist and a member of the First Church of Christ Scientist in White Plains and then in Katonah. Throughout her life, old friends and new were touched by Mrs. Carl’s warm and gracious manner.
Mrs. Carl is survived by her four daughters; Linda Kelley of Boston, Mass., Mary Becker of Acton, Mass., Janet Smith of Chicago, Ill., and Betsy Sinnott of Waccabuc, and their husbands; six grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.
Mrs. Carl loved the natural world: the flowers and trees, birds and animals. For those wishing to honor her memory, donations may be made to the National Audubon Society Living Tribute Program.
A memorial service for Emily MacLachlin Carl will be held on Oct. 7 at 2 at the Katonah Memorial House.
Robert Julian Penney, 75, former resident
Robert Julian Penney died on Thursday, Feb. 7 at the Hilton Head Regional Hospital, on Hilton Head Island, S.C. He was 75.
Mr. Penney was born in Elmira, N.Y., Dec. 1, 1932. He previously lived in South Salem. He was the son of the late Luke Julian and Mary Ellen Kimball Penney.
He was a 1954 graduate of Colgate University and attended Harvard Business School. He was a U.S. Air Force pilot veteran. He was a member of the North Salem Country Club for 34 years and was an avid golfer. Mr. Penney and his wife, Nancy, moved to Hilton Head Island in 2000 and were members of the Bear Creek Golf Club. He was owner of Penney Search Sales Consultants of Westchester and Hilton Head Island.
He was the husband of Nancy for 51 years, father of Marjorie and her husband, Peter Helmes, of New Fairfield, Conn., Robert Jr. and his wife, Sandra, of Flower Mound, Texas, Mimi of Danbury, Conn. and John of Hilton Head Island. He also leaves behind a sister, Ann and her husband, James Ross, of Kingston, R.I.; his grandchildren Sean, Alexandra, Molly, Sarah, Emily and Kirsten; and many nieces and nephews.
A memorial and reception was held at Bear Creek Golf Club in Hilton Head Plantation on Saturday, Feb. 9.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial donations be made to the American Heart Association, MAA Memorials, P.O. Box 5216, Glen Allen, VA 23058-5216.
Sauls Funeral Home of Bluffton, S.C. is assisting the family with their arrangements: saulsfh.com.
Robert Ford Francis Delaney, 81, father of residents
Robert Ford Francis Delaney died on Feb. 7, in Purdys. He was 81, and the father of two Lewisboro residents.
Mr. Delaney was a lifelong resident of New York City. He was an electrician, and an ardent and active member of Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Some of the achievements he was most proud of, came during a sabbatical from being an electrician, when he was director of the Community Action Workshop in Flushing, Queens, where he worked with the elderly and young in his local community providing social services. He was an amateur archeologist digging in construction sites of lower Manhattan as well as the area of Fort Montgomery, N.Y. He donated a collection of local arrowheads and artifacts to the Bear Mountain Museum.
Mr. Delaney’s family said his gregarious and generous heart will be missed by all he touched. He was the husband of the late Lila. Survivors include daughters Kathy Delaney-Donnery of Goldens Bridge and Patti Delaney-Epple of South Salem; three sisters; and eight grand children.
A memorial service will be held at St. John’s Episcopal Church on Spring Street in South Salem on Saturday, Feb. 16 at 11. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Robert Delaney Memorial Fund at St. John’s, P.O. box 394 South Salem, NY 10590.
Alberta Quinn, 93, former resident
Alberta “Miki” Quinn died on Monday, Jan. 28, in Catonsville, Md., of pneumonia. She was 93.
Mrs. Quinn was born on May 19, 1914 in East Arlington, Vt., to Peter Mikitas and Rose Dunducas, who had emigrated from Lithuania.
She was an alumna of the Mount Sinai Hospital School of Nursing in New York City, worked at the Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital for some years and then served as a pediatric nurse at the Mount Kisco Medical Group until her retirement in 1974.
Ms. Quinn lived in Goldens Bridge with her late husband, Everett Quinn, and their family from 1938 to 1974.
She is survived by her three children, Joyce Nichols of Linthicum, Md., Susan Rohrs of Carlisle, Pa. and David Quinn of Hastings-on-Hudson; six grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
A quiet soul, she touched the lives of many: her family, her many grateful neighbors and colleagues, and generations of little pediatric patients who always left their fingerprints on her eyeglasses, her family said.
A Requiem Mass will be said on Monday, Feb. 4 at St. Joseph’s Monastery in Catonsville, and interment alongside her husband will follow in Clearwater, Fla. Donations in her memory may be made to the American Heart Association.
Irwin Gonshak, 80, father of resident
Irwin Gonshak died Friday, Jan. 11. He was 80, and the father of Lucretia Ryan of South Salem and grandfather of Sean and Jake Ryan of South Salem.
In addition to his daughter and grandsons, Mr. Gonshak is survived by his wife, Avis Gonshak; a son, Henry Gonshak; and a granddaughter, Becky Gonshak.
Mr. Gonshak was born on April 3, 1927, in Brooklyn, to Aaron and Thelma Gonshak. His parents were Polish Jewish immigrants who came to America at the start of the 20th Century. His father began by pushing a hot-dog stand on the Lower East Side, and, when he retired in middle age, was the owner of two New York clothing stores.
In 1943, Mr. Gonshak graduated at the age of 16 from Jamaica High School in Queens. He enrolled in the School of Agriculture at Cornell University, but left Cornell at 17 to enlist in the Navy. When World War II ended, he was stationed at Great Lakes Naval Station, and was assigned to a troop ship carrying soldiers home from the Far East.
After leaving the military, Mr. Gonshak enrolled in the liberal arts program at Adelphi University. Intent on becoming a writer, he wrote for the college literary magazine and newspaper, for the latter penning a popular weekly column called “Under the Sun, ” for which he won a Newspaper Guild Collegiate Press Award. He graduated with a bachelor of arts from Adelphi in 1949, and earned a master’s degree at Teachers College/Columbia, which qualified him to become a social studies teacher in the New York City public schools. In that capacity, he was appointed chapter chairman for his school’s teachers’ union, and became active in the successful effort to have the union recognized by the city.
While teaching junior high school, Mr. Gonshak began writing radio scripts for a Jewish program on NBC, “The Eternal Light.” He went on to write 41 scripts for the series, which were broadcast live across the country. He later served as script supervisor at WNYE-FM, and wrote hundreds of educational radio dramas that were heard in classrooms around the city.
After his retirement, Mr. Gonshak went on to work as a radio producer for Teachers and Writers Collaborative in Manhattan. He produced two radio series, “Everything Goes'” and “Teacher As Historian” (a program on American history coordinated with the Library of America). The former show, which broadcast creative writing by New Yorkers, was discussed in a Jan. 28, 2001 article by Andrea Higbie, appearing in the Arts Section of The New York Times, titled, “A Friendly Ear for Any and All New York Writers.” Ms. Higbie described “Everything Goes'” as a “stubbornly quirky radio show special ... that champions writers who are unpublished, and often unpublishable, ” along with best-selling writers such as Evan Hunter (also known as Ed McBain) and Lawrence Block, as well as a then-unknown Terry McMillan. The show, Ms. Higbie said, “is a perfect example of radio’s potential to be a democratic medium.”
Mr. Gonshak was also a member of the Writers Guild East for 49 years. As a guild member, he founded the Short Radio Drama Committee, dedicated to returning to the airwaves the radio dramas he had relished as a child. Mr. Gonshak’s quest on behalf of radio drama was discussed in an article in The Wall Street Journal. Before he died he was in the process of organizing a series with the Writers Guild called “College/School Radio Drama Festival ... Coast to Coast, ” which would broadcast short radio dramas written, produced and acted out by college students.
All in all, his family said Mr. Gonshak was a writer, a teacher, a mentor, a colleague, a friend, a husband, a father and a kind, generous man dedicated to making the world a little better place - his favorite motto will live on: “Stay tuned!”
