Ruth Carr Denise

Ruth Carr Denise died Thursday, February 2, 2017 at home in Hightstown. She was 90.

Born and raised on Staten Island, she graduated from Curtis High School in 1944 and attended Packard’s Business College in Manhattan. In May of 1947, she married John Vanderveer Denise II. They were Princeton residents from 1964-1978, later living in Brick and Rossmoor. She was a devoted wife and a loving mother and grandmother. She cherished her time at the shore, and shared her love of crabbing and boating with friends and relatives alike. She was also a member of the “Swimming Women” group who met for conversation and lunch once a month long after their children had stopped swimming.

Daughter of the late William Snell Carr and Laura Alice Charles Carr; she is survived by her son and daughter-in-law David C. and Gail Denise of Princeton, and their children and spouses; John-Garrett Denise of Princeton; Will and Meg Denise of Manhattan; and Conrad Denise of Princeton; daughter and son-in-law Susan Denise Harris and Stanley A. Harris of Isle of Palms and their children, spouses, and grandchildren; Jack and Laura Harris of Atlanta, and their children Tyler, Hallie, Leighton and Foster; Jason and Ashley Harris of Manhattan, and their children Luke, Olivia, Eliza and Charlotte; Emily Harris Dreas and Chad Dreas of Rowayton, and their children Savannah, Skylar, and Charlie; Megan Harris Mahoney and Michael Mahoney of Daniels Island, and their children Ryleigh and Garrett; Thomas and Shanna Harris of Mount Pleasant, and their children TJ and Nate; and Christian and Bethany Harris of Savannah; and daughter and son-in-law Jan Denise Loughran and Christopher R. Loughran and their children and spouses; Lt. JG Rory and Kerry Loughran of Millbury, Mass.; Laura Loughran of Manhattan; Shannon Loughran of Port Royal; and David Loughran of Hightstown.

A memorial service with graveside service to follow will be held at 1 p.m. Friday, February 10, 2017 at Old Tennent Church, Tennent, N.J.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Peddie School, 201 South Main Street, Hightstown, NJ 08520-3349 or Princeton Hospice, 88 Princeton-Hightstown Road, Princeton Junction, NJ 08550.

Arrangements are by Mather-Hodge Funeral Home, Princeton.

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Edward Berger

Edward Berger died suddenly January 22 of apparent heart failure in his Princeton home. He was 67 years old.

Ed held numerous positions at the Institute for Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, Newark, and was associate director there for many years. A jazz expert, he was a respected author of four books and many articles and liner notes; editor; producer of Grammy-nominated recordings; founder of a jazz record label; road manager; right-hand man and confidant to several leading jazz musicians; and an accomplished, published jazz photographer. He was also a fixture on the basketball courts at Dillon Gym.

Edward Morris Berger was born in Manhattan to Morroe and Paula Berger. He is survived by brothers Ken of Rocky Hill and Larry of San Francisco. All three brothers remained close throughout Ed’s entire life.

A memorial gathering will be planned.

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Judith Marie Goodman

Judith Marie Goodman, 86, died on February 3 surrounded by her beloved family.

Judy was a resident of Verona, N.J. for more than 40 years before moving to Monroe Township, N.J. for three years, Boca Raton Fla. for three years, and Princeton for almost four years.

Born and raised in Flushing Meadows, N.Y., Judy was the second eldest of seven children. She was the first in her family to graduate college, and she did so in less than four years, receiving her Bachelors of Science degree in childhood education from New York State Teacher’s College in Oswego, N.Y. Judy taught kindergarten in New Port, N.Y. in 1953.

She met her husband, Hilton Goodman, while a college student. The couple, who raised four children, were married for 49 years; Hilton died in 2003.

Judy lived an active life. She was a member of the Belleville Synagogue Sisterhood, the Jewish Community Center of Verona Sisterhood, a Cub Scout Den mother, a Girl Scout Leader, a member of the Montclair Historical Society, and a Docent at the Israel Crane House, where she demonstrated colonial cooking, quilting and needlework, and where she shared her great love of colonial history.

Judy enjoyed running, hiking, biking, tennis, ping-pong, ice skating, kayaking, cross country skiing, and rowing. She loved to travel but most of all she loved her family and spending time with her children and grandchildren. She enjoyed travelling out West with her family, and through the Adirondacks, Florida, and to the Jersey Shore.

Judy always had a great way of making people feel special and bringing out the best in everyone she met. She was our coach. She was a joy to be with. She is survived by her children Deb Gold of West Palm Beach, Fla.; Joel Goodman of Princeton; Dave Goodman of Sugar Land, Tex.; and Sue Fiedler of Rockaway, N.J.; and six grandchildren and one great grandchild. She will be greatly missed.

Funeral services were held Sunday February 5, 2017 at the Jewish Memorial Chapel 841 Allwood Road in Clifton, N.J. Interment followed at King Solomon Memorial Park in Clifton.

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Dorothy Spirer Beach

Dorothy “Dee” Spirer Beach of Lawrenceville passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on Thursday, February 3^rd, 2017, 13 days shy of her 67th birthday.

Born in North Bergen, N.J., she was a graduate of Mamaroneck High School in Westchester County New York and the University of New Hampshire where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology.

Dee was an outgoing, kind and generous free spirit who greeted everyone, friends and strangers alike with a warm smile.

She loved animals of all kinds and over the years rescued numerous dogs, cats, and rabbits and either found or provided them with a loving home. She was also a frequent volunteer at SAVE, A Friend to Homeless Animals in Montgomery.

A talented graphic artist, Dee worked as a freelance photographer for the Princeton Packet, a weekly newspaper in Mercer County. She also worked briefly for Berlitz languages and most recently as a caregiver for children and the elderly.

She spent many hours over the last several years at the Princeton Senior Resource Center where she shared stories and a laugh with her many friends over a cup of coffee or a game of table tennis.

Dee is predeceased by her parents, Etta and Lawrence Spirer and is survived by her son Scott Smude of Yardley, Pa. and brother, Alan Spirer of Wilton, Conn.

In lieu of flowers donations in Dee’s memory can be made to SAVE, A Friend for Homeless Animals in Skillman, N.J.

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Dorothy Hemphill

Following a short illness, Dorothy Louise Gadberry Irwin Hemphill passed away in her home at Princeton Windrows on Saturday, January 28, at the age of 100 years and five months. She was attended by her daughter, Joyce Irwin, and son, Galen Irwin.

Dorothy Gadberry was born in Carthage, Missouri, on August 26, 1916, the daughter of William and Ethel Gadberry. During elementary school a teacher discovered Dorothy’s talent for public performance. She was given elocution lessons and performed for various local civic groups. During high school, she was active in the drama society and graduated in 1934 as co-valedictorian of her class.

Dorothy would have liked to become a minister, but this career was not open to women, so she chose teaching and attended Kansas State Teachers College in Pittsburg, Kansas. She was again active in drama and it was during one production that she met her future husband, Arnold Irwin. Upon receiving a two-year teaching certificate she taught for one year at the Lone Star School, one-room schoolhouse in rural Missouri.

In June 1937 she married Arnold Irwin and they moved to Joplin, Missouri, where he was teaching secondary school. Two children, Galen and Joyce, were born to this union. In 1954, Arnold became ill with lymphatic cancer and Dorothy returned to school, completing her bachelor in education in 1958. She then began teaching in the Joplin Public Schools.

Upon the death of Arnold in 1959, she became the first woman to serve on the Joplin City Council, finishing out Arnold’s term. However, politics was not her passion and she did not choose to run for re-election. She directed her talents to other civic activities, serving, for example, as the president of the Joplin Teachers Association. In 1970 she received a Master’s degree in elementary counseling and guidance from Southwest Missouri State College in Springfield, Missouri, and began serving as an elementary counselor, first in Joplin, and later in Carthage, Missouri.

In 1973 she met and married Morris Dean Hemphill of Leann, Missouri, and Corona, California. In 1974 they invited all of their children to their farm to unite them into a single family. Since then all have been treated equally and have functioned as a single family unit, demonstrating that it is not necessarily blood that defines a family, but the love that all have for one another.

With Morris, Dorothy moved to Carthage, Missouri, where, in addition to her employment in the school system, she was active in civic groups, helping to organize Crisis Intervention, serving on the Board of the United Way, and helping with Crosslines and the Friends of the Library.

She also revived her interest in speech and drama, giving book reviews and speaking to various groups. She was active in the Joplin Little Theater and the Stone’s Throw Theater of Carthage, performing often in leading roles until close to 80 years old.

Dorothy was a woman of strong faith and an active church member, serving variously as Sunday School teacher, board member, committee member, and elder. She was a member of the Missouri State Teachers Association, Delta Kappa Gamma, and PEO.

Morris Hemphill died in 1994 and in 1996 Dorothy moved to Oneida, New York, to be near her daughter Joyce. She was immediately welcomed by Joyce’s step-children, Debby, Brian, and Lisa Smith, and their children, all of whom became part of her loving extended family. In 2000 Joyce and Dorothy moved to DeWitt, New York, and in 2012 to Princeton, New Jersey. In August 2016, Dorothy celebrated her 100^th birthday. Almost all of her extended family was in attendance in a two-day event at Princeton Windrows and a local hotel. She was presented with a book of her reminiscences of her 100 years. She is survived by her daughters, Janice Verity of Los Osos, California; Sandra Hunt of San Francisco, California; Joyce Irwin of Princeton, New Jersey; and Letitia Garrison of Riverside, California; and son Galen Irwin of Wassenaar, the Netherlands; as well as nine grandchildren and sixteen great-grandchildren.

Services to celebrate her life will be held at Plainsboro Presbyterian Church, 500 Plainsboro Rd., Plainsboro Township, 08536 at 1 p.m. on Monday, February 20. Her ashes will later be buried in Ozark Memorial Cemetery in Joplin, Missouri. A generous supporter of a wide variety of charitable organizations, Dorothy could be appropriately remembered through a contribution to your preferred charity, or to the Plainsboro Presbyterian Church, or to Doctors Without Borders https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org.

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Margaret White Dodge

Margaret White Dodge, a resident of Princeton for over 20 years, died on February 1, 2017 at 84 years of age. Known as Peggy, she was born on June 4, 1932 in Buffalo, New York, to Irene Margaret Lee and Emmet Daniel Hurley. Peggy was raised in Erie, Pennsylvania, and attended The Villa Maria Academy in Erie and Convent of the Sacred Heart, Noroton, Connecticut. She returned to Erie following the death of her father and graduated as valedictorian from Mercyhurst Academy. She then attended Manhattanville College and moved to New York City following graduation.

In 1959 she married Dr. Richard (Dick) L. White, a graduate of Princeton University and the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. Peggy and Dick moved to Tenafly, New Jersey where they raised three children: Richard L. White Jr., John E. White, and Lee White Galvis. Dick died of melanoma in 1966 at the age of 37.

The department of surgery at Columbia hired Peggy and she began her pioneering life as a working, single mother of three. Over the years, her career path led her to become head of public relations at Fairleigh-Dickinson University. Aside from work, Peggy spent countless hours at hockey rinks, car-pooling, and generally encouraging her children to do well in school. In 1979, she met and married Dr. John H. Keating who had retired from practice as a doctor at St. Luke’s hospital in New York City. They moved to Rumson, New Jersey and enjoyed many trips to far-flung places including China, Australia, and New Zealand.

Peggy was actively engaged in her community and made many friends wherever she lived. She joined the Rumson garden club, played paddle tennis and tennis, and was particularly happy at the beach and near the ocean. Summers at the Sea Bright Beach Club were rejuvenating and sustained her through many difficult winters and times of loneliness. Alas, Jack, too, became ill and died in 1991. Always taking charge of her destiny, Peggy moved to what she hoped would be a vibrant and welcoming community: Princeton, New Jersey. She joined the Aquinas Institute, Bedens Brook Club, Pretty Brook Club, and the Nassau Club.

A lover of art, she audited classes at the University and eventually became a docent at the Princeton University Art Museum. Later in life, Peggy loved to play bridge and seized on any opportunity to use her mind and continue to learn.

Through her association with Columbia Presbyterian, she was introduced to David and Doris Dodge who became good friends. Following the death of Doris, Peggy had the good fortune to marry a remarkable man, David Dodge. Peggy and David spent seven happy years together. She particularly enjoyed getting to know his children — Nina, Bayard, Melissa, and Simon — David’s extended family, and the many organizations to which he had devoted his time and considerable talents. While being widowed three times seemed a burdensome fate, Peggy’s faith propelled her to seek a higher purpose. She was dedicated for over 50 years to her service for the New York-Presbyterian/Columbia Auxiliary, which supports the hospital through philanthropy and volunteerism. She helped establish The Richard L. White Memorial, which supports cancer research in the department of surgery at Columbia University Medical Center. She received the United Hospital Fund’s Hospital Auxiliary and Volunteer Achievement Award in 1998.

She will be remembered for her generosity of spirit, sense of humor, resilience, a love of doctors (and the medical profession), and being a great mother — not only to her children but many of their friends. In addition to her children, she is survived by her brother, John Hurley, and her ten grandchildren who brought her joy and made her feel perpetually young. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Richard L. White Memorial Fund for Cancer Research, Trustees of Columbia University, Office of Development, 516 West 168th Street, 3rd Floor, NY, NY 10032 or by calling (212) 304-7612. A funeral mass will be held in the Princeton University Chapel on Friday, February 10 at 10 a.m.

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

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Joseph Robert Cleary

Joseph Robert (“Bob”) Cleary, 91 — beloved husband, father, and grandfather — passed away peacefully at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Hamilton, New Jersey on January 27^th, 2017.

Born in East Orange, New Jersey on November 6^th, 1925 to Joseph Denis Cleary and May O’Brien Cleary, Bob grew up in the Village of Lawrenceville and attended Princeton High School, where he served as the vice president of the Student Council and chief justice of the student court in his senior year. Following his graduation from Princeton High School in 1943, Bob intended to join the V-5 Naval Aviation Program — an aspiration that was promptly dashed after failing to pass his preliminary physical. Disappointed, but still determined to serve his country, he applied for and was awarded a prestigious appointment to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at King’s Point, New York. Rather serendipitously, the Academy proved to be a particularly formative experience for Bob, and instilled in him a lifelong passion for all things “maritime”.

While attending the Academy, Bob was a member of the King’s Point Glee Club, and after completing his basic training, he served as a cadet-midshipman for over nine months on a tanker supplying high octane gasoline to islands in the Pacific during World War II. When the war ended, he returned to King’s Point to complete his studies, and graduated from the Academy in February 1946. Upon graduation, Bob sailed as third mate for Grace Line, where he raised his license to second mate, and served in that capacity on a Liberty ship hauling coal to European ports under the Marshall Plan.

In 1951, Bob began his 35-year career in education as a mathematics teacher in the Jamesburg, New Jersey and, later, Princeton, New Jersey public school systems. That same year, he married his high school sweetheart, Helen Birch — an elementary school teacher herself. In 1956, Bob joined the staff of Educational Testing Services (“ETS”), and earned his Master of Education degree from Rutgers University in 1959. After brief stints as director of program and research with the Scarsdale, New York public school system and as director of research and student selection with Webster College in St. Louis, Missouri, Bob returned to ETS in 1962 where he was tasked with opening the Midwestern Regional Office in Evanston, Illinois.

In 1967, ETS received a substantial grant from the Ford Foundation to conduct examination reform in Malaysia, and Bob was transferred back to Princeton to assume the role of project director. In 1971, he was asked by the Ford Foundation to become a resident specialist in Malaysia, where he supported the newly-formed educational planning and research division of the Malaysian Ministry of Education. Following his return from Malaysia in 1973, Bob began the Mid-Atlantic Regional Office for ETS, and in 1980, accepted a position with the Greece, New York public school system as their director of research, evaluation and accountability, where he spent his remaining professional years.

In 1986, Bob retired to Hilton Head, South Carolina, and spent his “golden years” as an active volunteer for the PGA’s Heritage Golf Tournament, sponsored by The Heritage Classic Foundation. In 2010, he co-authored the book Reflections, a personal memoir inspired by his fond memories of growing up in the Village of Lawrenceville. Bob was a gifted statistician, a talented teacher, a devout Catholic, a voracious reader, an avid golfer, a salty mariner, and a courageous patriot. He will be remembered as much for his cunning wit and sharp tongue as he will be for his unrelenting dedication to family and friends. He was always proud to say — ever so modestly — that he was an archetypal member of the “Greatest Generation”. Bob left a permanent and undeniable mark on this earth; from the many students whose intellectual development he stewarded, to his family whose lives he endowed with love and support, to the country for which he risked his young life. To all who knew him, Bob will assuredly be missed.

Joseph Robert Cleary is survived by his loving wife Helen Birch Cleary, his faithful son Mark Cleary, his adoring grandsons William and James Cleary and their mother, Jenifer Cleary. A memorial service in celebration of his life will be held at The Edith Memorial Chapel at the Lawrenceville School on February 25^th at 11 a.m.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to his favorite charity, The Heritage Classic Foundation — a non-profit organization dedicated to improving lives throughout the state of South Carolina. Donations can be mailed to The Heritage Classic Foundation, P.O. Box 3244, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina 29928 or can be made by visiting the foundation’s website, www.heritageclassicfoundation.com.

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