Joanne Richmond

Joanne Mae (Amici) Richmond, 83, passed away peacefully, surrounded by her family, on Saturday, March 4^th 2017, at Brandywine Living in Princeton. Born in Barre, Vermont in 1934, Joanne grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey. Joanne married the late Albert Richmond at the Little Church of the West in Las Vegas in 1963 and they settled in Teaneck, New Jersey to raise their two children, Allison and Fredrick. They were married for 29 years until Al’s death in 1992. Joanne relocated to the Princeton area in 2002.

Joanne received her Bachelor of Science and Masters of Science degrees in piano from The Juilliard School of Music in 1957 and was an accomplished concert pianist. Shortly after receiving her degree, Joanne performed nationwide with a classical music group and worked summers performing for guests at the Green Mansions Resort in the Adirondacks. Joanne made her piano debut at the Steinway Concert Hall before age 10 and later performed at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. She was the first female pianist hired to perform with the Radio City Music Hall Orchestra, where she met her husband, Al, who was also a member of the orchestra. Shortly after graduation she was employed by Columbia Records for a short period of time prior to starting her family. Joanne and her husband Al also performed with a small, local musicale group in Teaneck. Joanne had the privilege of knowing many famous artists including Van Cliburn, Charles Strouse, and Jerome Robbins. Joanne also had the privilege of working with conductor Eugene Ormandy and many other famous music artists. She was a lifelong union member of the Local 802, Associated Musicians of Greater New York having joined in 1954, and was also a retired piano teacher.

Joanne was the daughter of the late Alfred and Iole (Lotti) Amici and twin sister of the late Lucille Amici, who died shortly after childbirth. She is survived by her daughter Allison J. Richmond (of Belle Mead) and her husband William A. Beschner, and her son Fredrick J. Richmond (of Skillman) and his wife Mary A. Richmond. In addition, Joanne leaves behind five beautiful grandchildren including Christopher Beschner (18), Caroline Beschner (15), Sean Richmond (14), Scott Richmond (12), and Alexis Beschner (12), as well as her furry grandchildren Bailey and Henry.

Joanne’s family was the single most important thing in her life and she always put others needs ahead of her own. She treasured her children and grandchildren and was immensely proud of them. As a classically trained pianist, she shared her love of music with them and often frequented their school concerts, shows, and recitals. Joanne could also be found cheering for her grandchildren at the baseball fields, hockey arena, basketball court, softball fields, football games (marching band and cheerleading) and other school related events. She was their biggest supporter. Joanne was an avid tennis fan and followed the pro circuit on television and enjoyed watching her son Fred and her grandchildren on the courts. She was the consummate homemaker and loved to cook and bake, especially during the Christmas holidays. Joanne also wrote the most wonderful notes. Every card she sent did not just contain the obligatory salutation and signature. She personalized each card with an often lengthy, well-thought out, newsy letter. And no Christmas holiday would be complete without Joanne playing traditional Christmas carols while her family sang joyfully around the piano.

Joanne and her family have wonderful memories from their travels with her husband Al during his musical tours with Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli, Pablo Casals, Philip Glass, the New York City Ballet, and the Composers Conference.

Joanne and her family spent many wonderful vacations together. During the summer, visits to Long Beach Island and Atlantic City took place. Summer vacations were also spent in the Barre/Montpelier area of Vermont with her extended family. Joanne and her family cruised the Caribbean several times and for her 75^th birthday, her family surprised her with a week-long trip to Orlando to celebrate at Sea World and Disneyworld.

Joanne was a loving, kind and compassionate individual. She will be remembered for her creativity and generosity and her spirit will live on in her children and grandchildren. She would often say she would go to the ends of the earth for her family and she loved them to the moon and back.

Funeral Service was held at 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 11th 2017, at MJ Murphy Funeral Home, 616 Ridge Road, Monmouth Junction. Friends may call from 2 p.m. until the time of the service at the funeral home. Burial will be private.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Juilliard Scholarship Fund in memory of Joanne Richmond, The Juilliard School of Music, Office of Development and Public Affairs, 60 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023.

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John Frederick Hagaman

After a long illness, cardiologist Dr. John Frederick Hagaman, MD died at his home in Princeton on March 6, 2017, at the age of 69. The cause of death was due to complications from a degenerative brain disease.

Born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania on December 15, 1947, he was the only child of Frederick Homer Hagaman and Virginia Gerding. He grew up in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania and graduated from the Episcopal Academy in Merion in 1966. From there he went on to earn a BS degree from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and an MD degree from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. He met his future wife, Andrea T. Hyde, while an undergraduate and they were married in Newtown, Connecticut, on May 25, 1974.

Further training took John to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Michigan. Moving back east, he spent a year working as an emergency room physician at the Danbury Hospital in Danbury, Connecticut, before moving south, where he completed a fellowship in noninvasive cardiology at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

In 1980 John came to Princeton, where he joined the medical practice of William F. Haynes, MD. Their partnership marked the beginning of Cardiology Associates of Princeton which in later years grew to include additional partners. He loved the practice of medicine and over the ensuing 32 years, his practice grew and he gained a reputation for his skills as a diagnostician, attentive listener, and compassionate healer with a deep seated interest in his patients, not just as cases, but as people with a wide range of interests and backgrounds. He also delighted in his professional relationships with medical colleagues and in teaching medical students rotating through the University Hospital of Princeton.

The hallmarks of John’s temperament were his boundless enthusiasm, energy, and cheerfulness. He embraced not only medicine but many other interests as well. He loved music; playing the guitar and banjo and singing in a cappella groups in school and college, in student produced musicals in medical school and, later in life, with the barbershop chorus, The Brothers in Harmony. As a sportsman, he was a competitive swimmer in high school, loved bike riding, downhill skiing, and especially, golf. He was a long time member of the Springdale Golf Club. He also had a passion for photography, and for American and European history and traced his genealogical roots back to Holland to the 1630s. He served for many years on the board of directors of the YMCA in Princeton and was the Scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 88 in the 1990s. And, throughout all his years in Princeton, he and his family were devoted members of Trinity Church.

John is survived by his wife of 42 years, Andrea T. Hyde; his sons Charles and William Hagaman and William’s wife, Ursula Bailey. A memorial service celebrating his life will be held at Trinity Church, 33 Mercer Street, Princeton, NJ 08540 on Saturday, March 18 at 1 p.m, to be followed by a reception. Those wishing to make memorial contributions in John’s name are encouraged to donate to either Trinity Church, or to the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s disease and the Aging Brain, Columbia University Medical Center, ATTN: Matt Reals, 516 West 168th Street, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10032. The email contact is mr3134@cumc.columbia.edu.

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

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Melanie Lucia Anatole

Melanie Lucia Anatole, a longtime resident of Trenton, passed away suddenly on Friday, March 9, 2017.

Born in Castries, Saint Lucia on March 13, 1961, she was the daughter of Joseph and Agneta Anatole.

Melanie relocated to the United States in 1988 in search of a better way of life for herself and her son, eventually becoming a U.S. citizen. Melanie was a devoted daughter, mother, and grandmother. She traveled every year to visit and care for her mother in St. Lucia. A deeply spiritual person, she was a dedicated and active member of Higher Ground Interdenominational Church under the leadership of Bishop Roosevelt Butler. Melanie was happiest when caring for her two young grandchildren, Dilan M. Anatole Jr. and Madison Denys Anatole, attending church and providing community service.

Melanie was the much-loved caregiver to several local families and their children whom she loved dearly. She is known by all for her kind heart, sense of humor, dedication, industriousness, and thoughtfulness. Simply, she was a special person and wonderful human being.

Melanie is survived by her mother, Agneta Anatole; son, Dilan Mario Anatole; daughter in law, Latrice Anatole; four grandchildren, Dilan Mario Anatole Jr., Madison Denys Anatole, Brandon Pannell and Shyler Smith; and her 10 siblings. She will be greatly missed by her family, her congregation, her many friends and the families she cared for.

Melanie will be buried in St. Lucia where her family will hold a private service. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions in her name may be made to Higher Ground Interdenominational Church at 1009 Whitehead Road, Ewing NJ 08638.

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Lindsey Christiansen

This is it, chaps. Take me home./I believe, my son, I am going. That’s it./Good-bye—drive on. Cut her loose, Doc.

I’m going, I’m going. At a gallop!/Clear the way. Good-bye. God bless you!/Good-bye, everybody. A general good-night.

The words of Annie Dillard’s poem Deathbeds, set to music by James Primosch, were the last words sung at the 2017 Westminster Art Song Festival at Westminster Choir College on February 25, 2017. Four days later, on March 1, 2017, Ash Wednesday, Lindsey Christiansen, a long-time leader of the Festival and one of Art Song’s most ardent performers and teachers, died peacefully at home after a five-month journey with brain cancer at the age of 70.

Just weeks before she knew she was sick, Lindsey collaborated with her colleague, pianist J. J. Penna, to plan a program of American song literature for the Festival that wed music to some of her favorite poems with spiritual themes: Jane Kenyon’s Otherwise and Briefly It Enters, and Briefly It Speaks, Denise Levertov’s “… That Passeth All Understanding.” For those at the Westminster Art Song Festival who knew her, the songs spoke of her living and her dying.

Lindsey Christiansen was professor of voice at Westminster Choir College of Rider University for 40 years, from 1977 to 2017, and chair of the voice and piano department for 18 years. She specialized in German lieder and was a life-long student and lover of the music of Franz Schubert. She was an exceptional voice teacher and a demanding professor of song literature classes, where she instilled in countless students a love for song. She taught thousands of young singers over her more than 45-year teaching career to find their voice, believe in their potential and flourish as musicians, teachers, performers and human beings. Her example has shaped a generation of voice teachers who are now inspiring the lives and voices of their students, Professor Christiansen’s musical grandchildren.

In the words of Matthew Shaftel, dean of Westminster Choir College, and Margaret Cusack, chair of the piano and voice department: “With an unrelenting commitment to musical excellence, intellectual rigor and the personal and musical growth of her students she enriched our community in countless ways …. She has been a fierce champion of students in every aspect of their education, both in nurturing and encouraging those with difficulties, and insisting upon and maintaining the high standards that she and the art of singing demand.”

Born Alice Lindsey Peters on October 3, 1946 in Roanoke, Va. to Alice and Howard Peters, she was the eldest of four children. As a young girl, she played piano and sang in churches served by her father, a Methodist minister in Virginia. It was these early experiences of music in the church that led her to devote her life to the study, teaching and making of music.

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Richmond, and completed her master’s degree in voice and organ from the University of Illinois. She then taught as a part of the voice faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and studied at the Hochschulle für Musik in Hamburg, Germany for a year as a part of an International Rotary Foundation Fellowship. She was twice an artist-in-residence for voice study at the Franz-Schubert-Institut in Baden bei Wien, Austria.

She met her husband, Knud Christiansen, in 1975 during the year she was in Germany. They were married the next year in Williamsburg, Va., and then moved to Princeton, where they raised their two children, Molly and Andreas. A voracious reader of theology, from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics to Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward, she was an elder at Nassau Presbyterian Church and, in her last year, a member of the choir at Trinity Episcopal Church. As her own grandmother had been a guiding light throughout her life, so she became an extraordinary grandmother to her three granddaughters, singing regularly to Maya, Anna, and Hazel.

Lindsey Christiansen was a brilliant teacher and extraordinary musician, but she will be most remembered for her infectious energy, grace, strength, intellect, wit, joy for life, and generosity. Her strong, loving, vibrant spirit will continue to resound for years and years to come in the lives of those she taught and the lives of those she touched.

In addition to her husband, children and grandchildren, she is also survived by her brother John Peters, her sisters Mary Lee Peters and Liza Peters, her son-in-law John Gearen, and many nieces, nephews, and cousins.

A memorial service in celebration of Lindsey Christiansen’s life will be held at Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton, New Jersey, on Saturday, March 25^th at 11 a.m.

To honor her life and legacy, memorial contributions can be made to the Lindsey Christiansen Art Song Festival Endowed Fund, which has been established in her honor to sustain the study and performance of art song at Westminster Choir College of Rider University. Contributions may be made online at https://alumni.rider.edu/artsongfestival or sent to Westminster Choir College of Rider University, Attn: Art Song Festival, 101 Walnut Lane, Princeton NJ 08540. For assistance in making a gift, please contact Kate Wadley ‘02 at 609-921-7100 ext. 8213 or kwadley@rider.edu.

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Florence L. Dawes

Florence L. Dawes, 94, of Princeton passed away on March 7, 2017 at Merwick Care and Rehabilitation Center. She was born in Princeton and spent most of her life there until she moved to Florida when she was 85. She was a graduate of Princeton High School and attended Blackstone College in Virginia, majoring in journalism. In the late 1940s, Florence established Woodcroft Nursery School and Summer Day Camp, which she owned and operated for 15 years. In the early 1960s, she began selling real estate, working part time with George Sands soon after he established Hilton Realty.

The 1980s were Florence’s peak years selling real estate. She joined John T. Henderson Inc. Realtors, and in 1983 she won the Relocation Prize. In 1986, she sold over $10,000,000 of real estate, which broke the 30-year record for sales at Henderson Realtors. She later was associated for many years with N. T. Callaway Real Estate until she turned 80 and retired.

For many years, Florence was a volunteer at the Hospital Aide Shop at Princeton Hospital, where her chocolate milkshakes were legendary. She also was a past member of the Present Day Club.

Florence’s pride and joy over the years were the standard poodles she cherished. The last one died in 2016 shortly before she returned to Princeton.

Florence was predeceased by two sons, John Coffee and Janney Dawes and her sister Marjorie Weiland. She is survived by two children, Joseph Coffee (and his wife Laurie) and Colleen Hall (and her husband Bob), five grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to SAVE.

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Edward Levine

Edward L. (Ted) Levine of Skillman, died on February 25, at the age of 89. He was predeceased by Rosalie, his wife of 62 years. He is survived by his three brothers and their familie; his children Carol Lovseth (Tim) of Denver, Colo.; his sons, Alex (Joyce) and Jim (Lisa), of Princeton; seven adoring grandchildren, Matt, John, Nathalie, Zeke, Jade, Freddie, and Elijah; five great-grandchildren; and friends and relatives around the country. Ted was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, served in the Army Air Corps, and received his BS and law degrees from the University of Wisconsin. He practiced law with one firm in New York for 41 years, helping to build and lead Cole and Deitz, which became the New York Office of Winston and Strawn. He was one of the city’s ablest and most knowledgeable banking attorneys, and worked frequently with government agencies in addition to representing his clients. A career capstone came in 1980, when he was tapped by the U.N. to create the private banking system of the soon-to-be-independent Federated States of Micronesia. Upon moving to Princeton in 2001, he became a regular at 55 Plus, McCarter Theatre, Richardson Auditorium, and in the classrooms of Princeton University, auditing a variety of classes with great curiosity. In 2012, he and Rosalie moved to Stonebridge at Montgomery, where he became an active member of the community and made many new friends. Ted will be remembered for his sense of humor, his fierce sense of justice and of right and wrong, his generosity, and his love for his family, which misses him greatly and will hold him in our hearts forever. May his memory be a blessing.