Alexander Perry Morgan Jr.

Alexander Perry Morgan Jr. (Perry), architect and longtime member of the Princeton community, died peacefully on January 4th in his home after a Christmas full of family. He was 94 years old.

Perry will be remembered as a man of great integrity, with a deep, warm sense of humor who loved his work as an architect and was always helping others. He loved reading to his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, as well as sailing, playing tennis and golf, painting, and appreciating classical music. He was a loving father and devoted husband. He adored the natural world and cherished summers spent with his family on North Haven, Maine.

He was born May 8th, 1924, in Paris, France to Janet Croll Morgan and Alexander Perry Morgan. One of his earliest memories included seeing Charles Lindbergh parade through the streets of Paris after his first transatlantic solo flight. The family moved to New York City in 1927, where Perry attended the Buckley School and grew up with his two younger sisters, Margaret and Caroline.

Perry went off to boarding school, St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire, where he began a love of chemistry and rowing that continued at Princeton University. His college education was interrupted by World War II. He served three years in the Army, most of which was spent in Europe, rising to the rank of Staff Sergeant in the 283rd Engineering Combat Battalion.  

On returning to Princeton, he joined the Ivy Club and studied architecture like his father, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, Woodrow Wilson Scholar, and as valedictorian for the class of 1946. He was on the first Princeton Lightweight rowing team to win at the Royal Henley Regatta. After graduation he continued his studies at Princeton, earning his master’s degree in architecture in 1952, and was honored with a Fulbright Scholarship to study architecture in Italy.

Perry’s European travels brought him both education and love. While skiing in Austria, he met two American women who, on their return to New York, introduced him to their roommate, Elisabeth Harrison (Liz). During a hurricane, on August 13th, 1955, Liz and Perry were married — a formidable, happy union that was to last 63 years.

Perry and Liz settled in Princeton in his family’s longtime home, Constitution Hill, and he continued, for a short time, to work as an architect in New York City. In the ensuing years they had four children: Jamie, Lisa, Peter, and Matthew.

Perry and Phil Holt, architecture school classmates, formed a nationally recognized architecture firm — Holt Morgan Russell — where he worked until his retirement. In the 1980s, he converted Constitution Hill from a Jacobean style estate into an innovative clustered-housing community, the first of its kind in Princeton, inspired by northern European design that prioritized open space and privacy, while preserving the historic structures and grounds.

Throughout his entire career, Perry volunteered his time in the Princeton community and beyond. For many years he served on the Princeton Zoning Board and worked with Dorothea’s House, the local Italian-American organization. He was on the North Haven Golf Club Board of Directors and was on the architect’s advisory board for the design of the new North Haven Public School. He was also a longtime member of Pretty Brook Tennis Club, Springdale Golf Club, and the Nassau Club.

Perry is survived by his wife Liz, his sister Margaret, his four children and their spouses, 13 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. He is predeceased by his sister Caroline.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a contribution to one of the many causes for which he cared deeply: The Ocean Conservancy (oceanconservancy.org) or Habitat for Humanity (habitat.org).

A memorial service will be held at Trinity Church on Saturday, February 2nd at 1:30 p.m.  

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Herman S. Ermolaev

Herman S. Ermolaev, Professor Emeritus of the Princeton University Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, died peacefully on January 6, 2019 at the age of 94.

Born on November 14, 1924 in Tomsk, Siberia, Herman spent his youth in the Don region of southern Russia. During the turbulent years of World War II, Herman left the USSR. He was part of the forced repatriation of Cossacks form Lienz, Austria in 1945, from which he escaped. Herman then completed Russian secondary school in Salzburg and entered the University of Graz.

In 1949, Herman came to the United States to finish his undergraduate degree at Stanford University. He then pursued doctoral work at the University of California-Berkeley, from which he earned a Ph.D. from the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures in 1959.

In 1959, Herman started teaching in the Slavic Department at Princeton, where he spent his entire academic career. As an expert on Soviet literature and the Nobel-prize winning author Mikhail Sholokhov, Professor Ermolaev was widely published in both the United States and in Russia. He was particularly fond of teaching, and was known for his survey course on Soviet literature, which he brought alive through personal reminiscence, history, and literature. As many as 350 students a semester enrolled in this course. He also offered upper-level undergraduate courses on the Russian short story and advanced Russian courses. Professor Ermolaev retired in 2007.

Professor Ermolaev is survived by his loving wife Tatiana (Kusubova); son Michael Stigler (and his wife Mireille) of Lausanne, Switzerland; daughters Natalia (and her husband Theodor Brasoveanu) and Katya Ermolaeva, both of Princeton, NJ; four grandchildren, Natacha, Matthieu, Grégoire, and Nadezhda; and one great-grandchild, Alissa.   

A Russian Orthodox funeral service will be held on Saturday, January 12, 2019 at 9:30 a.m. at St. Vladimir’s Russian Orthodox Church in Jackson, NJ. Burial will follow at St. Vladimir’s Cemetery in Jackson. Flowers may be ordered through Narcissus Florals (732) 281-0333.

Funeral arrangements are under the direction of the Timothy E. Ryan Home for Funerals (732) 505-1900. Condolences may be sent to www.ryanfuneralhome.com.

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Jane Spencer Hand Bonthron

Jane Spencer Hand Bonthron, 96, died in Princeton, New Jersey, on December 15th, 2018. Born in Cape May, NJ, in 1922, she grew up in Cape May and Jenkintown, PA. She graduated from Swarthmore College as an English major in 1943 and joined the Navy that same year. She was a Lieutenant Junior Grade stationed at Naval Supply Depot Mechanicsburg, PA, where she worked in Communications as a coder/decoder on the Enigma machine. There she met her future husband, the well-known Princeton miler Lt. William Robert Bonthron (d. 1983), a Naval Supply Officer recently returned from a lengthy tour in Oran, Algeria. They were married in 1946, lived briefly in Williamsville, NY, and moved to Princeton, where they raised four children: Jennifer Bonthron Waters, of Easton, MD; Susan Jane Bonthron of Guilford, VT; William Deas Bonthron of Hopewell, NJ (d. 2016); and Thomas Spencer Bonthron of Pittsburgh, PA (d. 2009). She was also a beloved stepmother to William Bonthron’s son William James Bonthron of Ottawa, Ontario (d. 2002), and daughter Katherine Katama Bonthron of Munich, Germany (d. 2014), and aunt of Jill Arace of Waitsfield, VT.

Jane enjoyed bridge and golf and was a longtime volunteer with the Princeton Hospital Aid Society and Meals on Wheels. She is survived by her two daughters; four grandchildren, Beatrice Waters Kalinich, Robert Knight Waters, Caitlin Bonthron Roper, and Anna Jane Ruff; three step-granddaughters, Alexandra and Fiona Bonthron and Catriona Gannon; and great-grandchildren, Emily and Helen Kalinich and Wyatt and June Kroyer. Her life will be celebrated at a private gathering in Cape May, NJ, in the late spring.

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Patricia Anne Peacock

August 5, 1944 – December 29, 2018

Dr. Patricia Anne Peacock (Speelman), 74, beloved mother, grandmother, and sister, passed away on December 29, 2018, after a long and bravely fought battle against cancer.

Pat was born in Crestline, Ohio, but spent her youth in Piscataway, New Jersey, where she, her three brothers and sister all participated in building their family home. She graduated from St. Peter’s High School in New Brunswick, New Jersey. An avid lifelong learner, she received advanced degrees from Colorado State University and Rutgers University, ultimately earning her doctorate in adult vocational education. She taught adult education classes at George Mason University and Strayer University. Prior to being diagnosed with cancer, Pat had gone back to school at The College of New Jersey to pursue a teaching certificate in early childhood education.

An ardent believer in working to achieve one’s dreams, Pat directed the George Mason University Enterprise Center on the Manassas, Virginia, campus. She also served as the Director of the Rutgers University Regional Small Business Development Center in Camden, New Jersey. At both of these centers, Pat helped small business owners develop business plans and launch their start-up companies.

A trailblazer for women, Pat was named Melita’s New Jersey Woman of the Year in 1993. In 1999, the YWCA honored her with the TWIN award, a Tribute to Women and INdustry.

Pat is predeceased by her parents, Daniel and Roseanne Speelman, sister Christine Spears, and brother, Jim Speelman. She is survived by her two daughters and sons-in-law, Carolyn and David Kwieraga and Kristin and Ron Menapace; her six grandchildren, Amanda and Noelle Kwieraga and Paige, Henry, Claire, and Julianne Menapace; as well as her brother Steve Speelman and brother and sister-in-law Tom and Sally Speelman.

Throughout her life, family was Pat’s inspiration and joy. She was always ready to play a game, design a craft, read a story, go on an adventure, or just spend time with her children and grandchildren. In 2011, Pat retired to join her daughter, Kristin, and son-in-law, Ron, in Princeton to help raise their four children.

Pat cherished her Christian family in the various places she lived. As a member of Trinity Episcopal Church in Princeton, New Jersey, she spoke fondly and with affection for her fellow parishioners, especially the children that participated in the Children’s Chapel services she helped lead. She also inspired her daughter, Kristin, and son-in-law, Ron, in supporting the Princeton community, including the opening of their gift and furniture store, Homestead Princeton. In her free time, Pat enjoyed reading, sewing, knitting, listening to music, and spending time with family and friends.

A memorial service will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church on Saturday, January 12, 2019, at 11 a.m., followed by a reception in the Parish House. Friends of all ages are welcome to share in the celebration of Pat’s life. Afterwards, Pat will be interred in the church’s memorial garden in a private family ceremony. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Trinity Episcopal Church children’s program.

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Fredric J. Spar

Fredric J. Spar, 70, died at home in Princeton, NJ, on December 22, 2018.

Born in Brooklyn, NY, Fred was a student-athlete who ran track at Midwood High School and Cornell University. His career had many chapters: He worked as an elementary-school science teacher before completing a Ph.D. (1980) at Brown University, where he studied Chinese history and spent a year in Taipei, Taiwan at the Stanford Center. He lectured at Keene State College before working 36 years as a communications consultant at Kekst & Company in Manhattan. He was a member of the 2010 class at Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative and applied his experience thereafter advising or serving on the boards of environmental and education organizations: The Watershed Institute, Friends of Princeton Open Space, New York City Audubon Society, Generation Schools, and City Year New York. He was also chair of Friends of the Rogers Refuge, for which he worked tirelessly on improvements to wildlife habitat and accessibility for human visitors.

Fred moved to Princeton when he married Winifred Hughes, a fellow graduate student at Brown University. Together they spent many hours birding and hiking, rooting for the Boston Red Sox, and engaged in a lifelong intellectual discussion. Fred was dedicated to his garden and continued to read and speak Mandarin throughout his life. He shared his passion for sports and the outdoors with his children through skiing, fishing, tennis, and coaching soccer and Little League baseball. Fred will be remembered as a loving husband and father, a great intellect in both scholarship and business, an environmentalist, a man of understated wit, and a soul of exceptional kindness and generosity of spirit.

He is survived by his wife of 38 years, Winifred Hughes Spar; his sons Adam and Alex; his sister Laurie, and her husband John Pierce. He also leaves his aunt, Edith Gilitos; cousins; sisters- and brothers-in-law; and nieces and nephews.

Burial was in Princeton Cemetery on December 24, 2018. A memorial service will be Sunday, January 27, 1 p.m., at the The Jewish Center, 435 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ. Donations in his memory would be welcomed at the organizations he served.

Arrangements by Orland’s Ewing Memorial Chapel, 1534 Pennington Road, Ewing Township.

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Elias Menachem Stein

Elias Menachem Stein, a towering figure in mathematics for over half a century, died on December 23. He was 87.

The cause of death was complications related to mantle cell lymphoma, according to his family.

Renowned for deep and highly original contributions to his field of mathematics as well as the mentor of generations of younger mathematicians, including two winners of the Fields Medal, the profession’s highest distinction. Mr. Stein was a professor at Princeton University for 55 years, teaching, by popular demand, until the age of 86.

Born on January 13, 1931 in Antwerp to Elkan Stein, a diamond merchant, and Chana Goldman, both Polish citizens, he and his family fled Belgium in 1940, following the German invasion. With diamonds hidden in the soles of his shoes as part of his father’s effort to protect the family’s assets, he entered the United States in April 1941 aboard the SS Nyassa from Lisbon, spending his first three weeks in the country living on Ellis Island. There he first witnessed boys playing “a strange game with sticks,” as he would later tell his children, something he would come to understand to be baseball, a sport he would admire for the rest of his life. It was the beginning of his fierce, if not uncritical, devotion to his adopted homeland, its strange new customs and, above all, the glorious intricacies of its democratic processes, which he monitored with what would become his signature intensity.

After his family settled on New York’s Upper West Side, he enrolled in Stuyvesant High School, where he was captain of the math team, graduating in 1949.

Stein attended college at the University of Chicago and stayed on to earn his PhD in 1955. Following teaching stints there and at MIT, where, among others, he befriended future Nobel Prize winner John Nash, turning, in a rare moment of professional overlap, to his father’s Diamond District connections to help Mr. Nash buy a ring for his future wife, according to Sylvia Nasar’s book, A Beautiful Mind. 

Later, Mr. Stein spent an academic year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. While there, he was offered a tenured position at Princeton University, joining the faculty in 1963. For decades, he held an endowed chair as the Albert Baldwin Dod Professor; at the time of his death he was Professor Emeritus. He served twice as chair of the mathematics department.

Stein’s research was primarily in harmonic analysis — roughly speaking, the study of vibrations — a basic tool in science and technology. Mr. Stein discovered new phenomena and unsuspected connections between seemingly unrelated problems. His work led to a deeper understanding of topics as varied as sound recording, the stock market, and gravitational waves. As Charles Fefferman, one of Stein’s star doctoral students and later a colleague at Princeton, has noted of his former thesis advisor, “[his] work often combines two remarkable qualities: an understanding of several branches of math, each of which normally is known only by specialists, and an astonishing ability to find connections between them. Before Stein tells you his solution, the problems involved look utterly hopeless…. Then, with exactly the right point of view and exactly the right few words, … [his] incredible insights … link everything together.”

Stein is the author of several books, now considered classics in their field. In his 70s he devoted his time to creating a series of advanced undergraduate mathematics courses at Princeton and writing, in collaboration with former student Rami Shakarchi, a four-volume textbook to accompany the course. One reviewer of the first volume referred to Stein as “certainly one of the great avatars and developers of Fourier Analysis in modern times.”

He was a prolific author and generous collaborator. His many honors include the Schock Prize from the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1993, the Wolf Prize in 1999, and the National Medal of Science awarded by President George W. Bush at a White House ceremony in 2002. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he received honorary degrees from Peking University in 1988 (after his effort to help rebuild the local mathematical community following the devastation of the Cultural Revolution), and from his alma mater, the University of Chicago, in 1992.

Stein is survived by Elly, his wife of 59 years; a brother, Daniel; a son, Jeremy, the Moise Y. Safra Professor of Economics at Harvard University and a member of the Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve from 2012-2014; a daughter, Karen, an architecture critic and former member of the jury of the Pritzker Architecture Prize; a daughter-in-law, Anne; and three grandchildren, Carolyn, Alison, and Jason.

As a collaborator and teacher, he was known for the clarity, elegance, and enthusiasm he brought to his research, writing, and teaching. 

Stein dated his interest in science to a memory from when he was three years old, as he watched the spinning wheel of his father’s diamond polishing machine, believing he had discovered proof of perpetual motion. He soon came to understand that his so-called theory was a youthful illusion, but one that nonetheless propelled his lifelong view of mathematics as a brilliant balance of imagination and rational investigation. His interest in solving problems never waned. When he received a lifetime achievement award from the American Mathematical Society, with characteristic modesty his response focused not on himself but on the field he so loved, saying: “We can be confident that we are far from the end of this enterprise and that many exciting and wonderful theorems still await our discovery.”

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Lorraine Erskine Garland

Lorraine Erskine Garland, 89, of Jamestown, RI, and Bradenton, FL, died peacefully with her family present on December 28, 2018 in Medway, MA.

She was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on December 9, 1929, the daughter of Madeleine Ellis and Frank Erskine. Lorraine spent her childhood in Massachusetts, Maine, and Virginia with her mother, Madeleine, and her stepfather, Alan D. Kinsley. She was an only child. Lorraine raised her children in Princeton, NJ. Later in life, she spent winters in Sarasota, FL, and summers in Jamestown, RI.

Lorraine was a graduate of Dana Hall School in Wellesley, MA.  She met her husband, Philip (“Pete”) Lincoln Garland, Jr., while studying Landscape Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI. She believed in civic engagement, participated in local government, and provided leadership to local associations including the Parent Teacher Association of her daughters’ school and the annual ‘fete,’ a fundraiser for the Princeton hospital. Lorraine was also a productive real estate agent in New Jersey’s Morris and Mercer counties, working for many years at Stockton Real Estate in Princeton, NJ. 

Lorraine lived her life surrounded by many beloved four-legged companions. She was a founding member of the Irish Wolfhound Association of the Delaware Valley. She was an equestrian and able coachwoman in her younger years, and an early supporter and frequent guest at polo matches in Newport, RI, and Sarasota, FL. Her final companion was Ares, a “rescue” poodle, who never left her side.

Lorraine was a loyal and devoted mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. She is survived by her former husband Philip Lincoln Garland, Jr., of Englewood, FL, and Chatham, MA, and her children, Thomas Alan Garland, Katherine Garland Presswood, and Elizabeth Garland Deardorff. She also leaves behind three beloved grandchildren, Taylor, Whitney, and Sam. Finally, she will be missed by five great-grandchildren, Winston, Madeleine, Aiden, Fiona, and Ethan.

In lieu of flowers, donations will be welcome to the memory of Lorraine Garland to the Irish Wolfhound Foundation, David Milne, Treasurer, 150 Creek Rd., Phillipsburg, NJ 08865; Florida Poodle Rescue, P.O. Box 7336, St. Petersburg, FL 33734; Salmon Hospice, 37 Birch St., Milford, MA 01757; or Milford Regional Healthcare Foundation, 14 Prospect St., Milford, MA 01757.

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Frances Brown Yokana

Frances Brown Yokana, 92, of Princeton and Greensboro, Vermont, passed away on Saturday, December 29, 2018.  

Frances was born in Princeton, NJ, and was a lifetime resident of Princeton. She graduated from Randolph-Macon College in 1948 and married Andre Yokana in 1954. In Princeton, she served as the president of the Present Day Club and was a member of Bedens Brook Country Club, the Nassau Club, and the Contemporary Garden Club of Princeton, and volunteered for numerous charitable organizations. She spent summers with her family in Greensboro, Vermont, where she was an active member of the community, and President of the Greensboro Association. She was an avid gardener and her gardens in Vermont were legendary. Her life was filled with family, friends, and flowers.

Predeceased by her parents Frederic Hamilton Brown and Frances Churchill (Woolaver) Brown; she is survived by her husband of 64 years, Andre Yokana; her son, Davis Yokana; her daughter and son-in-law, Lisa Yokana and Blake Auchincloss; and her granddaughters, Alice and Anne Longobardo.

A memorial service will be held on January 12, 2019 at 11 a.m. at Nassau Presbyterian Church, 61 Nassau St., Princeton, NJ 08542.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Nassau Presbyterian Church.

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