Thomas S. Fulmer

Thomas S. Fulmer, 79, of Princeton, New Jersey died on Thursday, July 31, 2014 at the University Medical Center of Princeton from complications related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Born August 31, 1934, in Cleveland, Ohio to O. Kline Fulmer and Lois Fulmer (nee Hoover), Tom attended elementary and high school in Douglaston, Long Island, New York. He graduated from Princeton University in 1956 with a BA degree in architecture, and in 1961 completed a graduate degree at the MIT school of architecture.

Tom served in the United States Navy from 1956 to 1960 and retired with a rank of Lt. JG. While in the Navy, Tom was stationed aboard the Destroyer U.S.S. Ault (DD698) spending most of his time in the Mediterranean and the North Sea as the Operations Department Head.

After graduating from MIT, Tom joined his father’s firm Fulmer and Bowers, Architects in Princeton. The partnership became Fulmer, Bowers & Wolfe in 1980 and Fulmer and Wolfe Architects in 1984. Tom practiced as Thomas S. Fulmer, consulting architect from 1993 until his retirement in 2006. He was a member of the American Institute of Architects and several other professional organizations.

His firms produced construction designs for business, health care, education, government, institutional and television buildings in the Northeastern U.S. and elsewhere. In the Princeton area a list of projects would include: four of the first five office buildings at Carnegie Center; the Princeton Medical Group; Mercer Engine Company No. 3 firehouse; additions and renovations for the Little Brook, Community Park, Johnson Park, and Hun schools. Fulmer and Bowers was the architect of record for Jean Labatut’s design of Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart, and Tom’s parents were members of the school’s Council of Founders.

Tom lived in Princeton for all of his adult life, including 15 years in a house on The Great Road which he designed. He was an active participant and leader in the Princeton community, serving on the Township Zoning Board, the Affordable Housing Board and was a director of Princeton Area Family and Children’s Services. He served for a term as president of the Princeton Ski Club, where he met his first wife. Tom sang bass in the Nassau Presbyterian Church choir and he was a long-time member of the Bedens Brook Club and the Rotary Club, and was a trustee of the Nassau Club. He joined the Old Guard of Princeton in 2008.

Tom was also a trustee of the Princeton University Campus Club and served in many roles for the Princeton Class of 1956, receiving the Distinguished Classmate Award in 2014. He was inducted into the Society of the Claw for his 19-year service to the P-rade Marshal Corps, an honor only bestowed on high performing Reunion leaders. For the past seven years Tom enthusiastically served as a touring docent for the Princeton University Art Museum, a position he found highly rewarding.

All who knew Tom will remember him as a true gentleman and devoted father who always put family first. He had an amazing ability to solve problems and expressed himself beautifully in prose as well as poetry. Tom was a world traveler studying the architecture and art history of each locale. He enjoyed his early morning walks, dancing, sailing, tennis, skiing, music, theater, design, and reading. He was a wine connoisseur and faithfully tried to complete the New York Times crossword puzzle each day.

Tom was preceded in death by his first wife, Julia Fulmer (nee Hemminger); his parents; and his sister Lois Sonya Fulmer. Survivors include his wife Eleanor Hughes-Fulmer (Peggy), his son Scott Fulmer, his daughter Christine Goss (Oliver), and his beloved granddaughter Thea Goss. He is also survived by his brother David Fulmer (Carol Ann), step children Margaret (Gary) Bender, James Hughes III, Susan Hughes, Mary Beth Tevebaugh (Peter), and Katie Redmond (Aiden) and 14 additional grandchildren.

Services will be held at on 4 p.m., Thursday, August 21, 2014 at the Nassau Presbyterian Church, 61 Nassau Street, Princeton, New Jersey. Condolences may be left at www.matherhodge.com/OBITS.htm.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made in his name to the Thomas S. Fulmer Memorial Fund at the Princeton Area Community Foundation, 15 Princess Road, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, 08648.

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Leonard Frank Newton

Leonard Frank Newton, 88, of Princeton, passed away peacefully in the early hours of Saturday, July 19, 2014 in his home, surrounded by his family. He is survived by his wife, Ruby; daughter Julie; sons Alex and Lee Eric; and eight grandchildren. Len is predeceased by his second son, David Smith.

Introduced to Ruby Marr from Loami, Illinois by Len’s sister and Ruby’s Northwestern college roommate, Len and Ruby married in 1956.

Len was born on October 12, 1925, in Bradford, Pennsylvania, to father, Frank, and mother Hazel. Len joined the US army in 1944, and served in Thailand, Burma, and China, where he remained until the war ended. He forged life-long connections with China and returned there many times later in life.

Len attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, where he earned a degree in industrial engineering, after serving in the Army in between his college years. Len was one of the founding members of the MIT Alumni Club of Princeton and served as club president several times.

After graduating MIT, Len served as a top marketing consultant for Opinion Research and then became a partner with Response Analysis Corporation during the years of 1951 to 1975.

Len was active in the civil rights movement and attended the 1963 march on Washington in which Dr. Martin Luther King made his unforgettable “I have a Dream” speech; and Len marched again in D.C. for its 50^th anniversary. A deeply-held sense of fairness characterized Len’s approach to engage in numerous social justice causes in Princeton. He was a founding member of the Princeton chapter of Common Cause, the non-partisan citizen advocacy organization, the coordinator of the Movement for New Congress, and the Commissioner of the Princeton Housing Commission for three years, and an active member of the local nuclear disarmament committee.

He acted as the director of the Princeton YMCA/YWCA for five years; and as the president and director of the New Jersey and United States JAYCEES, Len actively encouraged underrepresented minorities to join the group.

In the mid-1950’s, upon discovering that Princeton realtors would not show houses to families of different ethnic and religious backgrounds, Newton and his friends organized the “Princeton Housing Group”, raised capital to buy land in the Walnut Lane/Dempsey Avenue neighborhoods, and contracted an outside builder to erect houses. Len Newton and the Princeton Housing Group then arranged for private mortgages to be offered to those excluded families creating an integrated neighborhood in 1957, in which he and Ruby lived for 59 years. Len Newton truly was and is a man who saw goodness in everyone, sought fairness for all, and put others before himself.

On a more creative side, Len loved tennis, skiing, music, and theater. He played tennis throughout most of his life, skied Aspen/Vail, sang in barbershop quartets and even performed in the musical Show Boat at McCarter Theater in Princeton. He also spent over 70 summers at Chautauqua, a historic lakeside community dedicated to the exploration of the best in human values and to the enrichment of life.

During his life, Len’s conviction for fairness and truth influenced so many directly and will affect others to come. Above all, Leonard Newton was a loving husband and father and actually lived that life of fairness and truth.

In lieu of flowers, the family encourages donations to the following charities:

YMCA/YWCA of Princeton, Princeton Affordable Housing, and Chautauqua Institution.

Come celebrate Len’s life with the Newton family and friends on Friday, August 15 from 5 to 9 p.m. at Springdale Golf Club, 1895 Clubhouse Drive in Princeton. Call (609) 921-8790. We hope all those who were touched by Len will join us to share your stories and celebrate his life.

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Geraldine Steet Waskow

Geraldine Steet Waskow, longtime resident of Princeton, Long Beach Island, N.J. and Marco Island, Fla., passed away on the evening of July 31, 2014. Geraldine was born in Atlantic City to John E. and Dorothea Steet. After graduating from Atlantic City High School, Gerry attended Hahnemann Hospital Medical College and School of Nursing. Upon graduation she continued her education at Case Western Reserve and the University of Pennsylvania and then began her career as a nurse anesthetist. While at Hanhnemann, she met her loving husband, Dr. Walter H. Waskow who served as Chairman of the department of anesthesia at St. Francis Hospital in Trenton, and later at the Medical Center of Princeton. Most notably, Gerry was employed by the anesthesia department at the Medical Center of Princeton from 1972 until 2010.

Gerry and Walter were married on September 13, 1956 and together they had three children of whom she was very proud: Darryl Waskow married to Susan of Hopewell; Steven Waskow married to Valerie of Princeton; and Rosalind married to Michael Hansen of Princeton. Her greatest joy was being a grandmother to Harry and Dorothy Waskow. Geraldine was a devoted and loving daughter, wife, mother, and grandmother. In addition to her family and being a second mother to all who crossed her path, Gerry enjoyed a full life of travelling, sailing, and entertaining her friends and family.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro. There will be a private ceremony for the family.

Arrangements are under the direction of The Mather-Hodge Funeral Home in Princeton.

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Victoria Bernadette Sailliez Casey

Victoria Bernadette Sailliez Casey, 91, passed away peacefully on August 1, 2014 after a long illness. She was a lifelong resident of Princeton and a graduate of Princeton High School. She was married to Richard J. Casey, Esq. for 45 years.

Vicki, or “Dimps,” as her close friends called her, worked in the admissions office at Princeton University for 25 years, and was an assistant to the administrator for many of those years. After marrying, she worked as a legal secretary for her husband for 30 years until they retired.

She was a devoted lifelong member of St. Paul’s Church. She was a passionate sports fan, particularly of PU basketball. She was close friends with Coach Carril.

All those who knew her, loved her. She was always complimentary and positive.

Vicki was the daughter of the late Charles E. and Louise V. Sailliez. She is survived by her husband, Richard; son and daughter-in-law, Paul and Mary Casey, son and daughter-in-law, Michael and Jane Casey; son Stephen Casey; nephew Charles Sailliez; grandnieces Lynn and Dottie Sailliez; and eleven grandchildren. She was predeceased by a brother, Charles Sailliez, and a son, Edmund Casey.

A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated at St. Paul’s Church in Princeton on Monday, August 4 at 11 a.m. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to The Sisters of Mercy.

Arrangements are under the direction of the Mather-Hodge Funeral Home in Princeton.

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Alfred J. de Grazia

Alfred J. de Grazia, formerly of Princeton, died on July 13, 2014 in La Ferté Bernard, France, near the village of Villaines-la-Gonais where he had lived since 2008.

Son of the late Alfred J. and Catherine de Grazia, who also lived in Princeton for many years, he was born in Chicago in 1919. In 1939, he graduated from the University of Chicago and then served in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II in psychological warfare. He earned his PhD in 1948 from the University of Chicago and went on to teach at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Brown University, and Stanford University before taking up an appointment as professor of social theory in government at New York University beginning in 1959. 

In part inspired by the intellectual environment at the University of Chicago in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s under the visionary Robert Maynard Hutchins and in part by his experiences in World War II, Prof. de Grazia became deeply engaged in the study of charismatic leadership and political organization. He was also an expert on the history and practice of representative government in the United States, and his early work was widely read in political science classrooms in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, including Public and Republic: Political Representation in America (1951) and The Elements of Political Science (1952, with revised editions in 1962 and 1965). In 1957 he founded PROD; Political Research: Organization and Design, later renamed The American Behavioral Scientist. Sold to Sage Publications in 1965, it is still a respected academic journal and continues the tradition of the Chicago school of behaviorist sociology. After retiring from New York University in 1977, he branched out into other fields. Influenced initially by another Princeton resident, the late Emmanuel Velikovsky, he explored theories of wide-ranging catastrophes affecting the history of the earth, solar system, and humankind, eventually creating a field he termed “Quantavolution,” a paradigm of sudden, widescale, intensive catastrophes.

In 1957 Prof. de Grazia moved his family from California to Princeton, where they took up residence in what is known locally as “The Captain’s House” at 306 Nassau Street, the first of his several homes in Princeton over the years, in between long stints in Europe. In 2008 he and his wife, French writer Anne-Marie Hueber de Grazia, settled permanently in a former 16^th century inn on a little square opposite Villaines-la-Gonais’ picturesque gothic Church of Saint-Hilaire. Their house became a meeting point for friends and family from all over. As an “ancien combattant” — a veteran of World War II — and as a recipient of the French Croix de Guerre in 1945, Prof. de Grazia became an honored guest at local VE Day (Victory in Europe) celebrations every Nov. 11. In December 2013, he was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by decree of French President François Hollande. On June 16, 2014, he gave his last salute at a memorial service in the neighboring village of Sceaux-sur-Huisne honoring an American B16 that had crashed nearby in 1944. At Prof. de Grazia’s funeral in Villaines-la-Gosnais just a month later, his coffin, draped in a French tricolor flag, was accompanied by an honor guard of “ancien combattants” carrying their unit flags side by side with the American flag.

Prof. de Grazia is survived by Anne-Marie; six of his seven children: Catherine Vanderpool of Princeton; Victoria de Grazia of New York City; Jessica de Grazia of London, U.K.; Paul de Grazia of Seattle; John de Grazia of Princeton; and Chris de Grazia, also of Seattle; six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren, as well as sons- and daughters-in-law. Prof. de Grazia was predeceased by his former wife Jill de Grazia, mother to his seven children; and son Carl de Grazia.

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Elizabeth Rorke Schorske

Elizabeth Rorke Schorske, of Hightstown, died peacefully on Sunday, July 27, 2014, at the Meadow Lakes Retirement Community in Hightstown. She was 95 years old. Elizabeth had lived with her husband, Carl, in Princeton for over 30 years.

Elizabeth was born in Cleveland, Ohio on May 13, 1919. She obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in government from Radcliffe University in 1942, and married Carl the same year.

The family moved to different university towns as Carl’s career advanced via employment at different universities. They lived together in Middletown Connecticut in the 1950’s (home of Wesleyan University) in Berkeley for most of the 1960’s, and in Princeton from approximately 1970 to 2005, when they retired to Meadow Lakes. During World War II Elizabeth worked for the Bureau of the Budget and then the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Washington, D.C.

Elizabeth was a volunteer for Hospice, and the Coalition for Peace Action. She helped establish a branch of the League of Women Voters in Middletown, Connecticut. An activist in human rights, Elizabeth was involved in the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, worked with Cesar Chavez on migrant workers’ rights and marched against the war in Vietnam.

In Princeton in the 1970s, she was employed for several years at the Center for Environmental Studies at the Princeton University Engineering School, where she collaborated with professors Harrison Fraker and Robert Socolow on a pioneering study of energy efficiency strategies in a planned multi-unit development (focusing on Twin Cities.)

If there was a community project, Elizabeth was involved. Her activities ran from stuffing envelopes and hosting gatherings for political campaigns of Democratic candidates, to developing summer youth programs. She was creative and cared about education. One year, she made a display of puppets in a bank window showing young people how the jury system functioned.

Elizabeth raised five children — Anne (residing in Maryland), John (in the Boston area), Ted (in Philadelphia), Richard (in the San Francisco Bay Area), and Stephen (from Oregon). She was a great friend to many more.

Most of all she was a wife to her husband Carl Schorske. Elizabeth says with pleasure, “My legacy is over 70 years of love.”

In lieu of flowers please send contributions to the Coalition for Peace Action in Princeton or to Hospice.

Arrangements are under the direction of the Mather-Hodge Funeral Home, Princeton.