Town Topics

Elaine Simko

Elaine "Lainie" Simko, 53, of Princeton, died November 29 at home, surrounded by her family. She had battled breast cancer for more than eight years.

Born in Somerville, she was a graduate of Boston University.

For several years she was a manager in the marketing department of the American Stock Exchange. There she coordinated the Exchange's marketing programs between listed companies, analysts, and portfolio managers. She also managed the AMEX Club program in New York and Houston.

She was active in numerous area charities including those supporting Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart, St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton, and the Princeton University Art Museum. She was also an active member of the Junior League in Manhattan and Houston, where she lived before moving to Princeton.

She was a member of The Bedens Brook Club, The Nassau Club, and the Trenton Country Club.

Daughter of Jean France and the late Wesley N. France, she is survived by her husband of 21 years, Michael Simko; three daughters, Kathleen, Caroline, and Julia, all of Princeton; a brother, Wesley France; and a sister, Leslie France.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, December 6, at Stuart Country Day School. A private graveside service will be held at Princeton Cemetery.

Memorial donations may be made to Stuart Country Day School, 1200 The Great Road, Princeton 08540; or to St. Francis Medical Center, 601 Hamilton Avenue, Trenton 08629-1986.

Arrangements are by the M. William Murphy Funeral Home, Hamilton.

Max F. Zullig

Max Frank Zullig, 92, of Hoover Ala., died November 28. A longtime Princeton resident, where he was a parishioner of St. Paul's Catholic Church, he retired from Alpine Aromatics in 1992 and moved to Birmingham, Ala., to be near his daughter and her family.

Born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, he emigrated to the United States when he was four years old. He attended public and private schools in New Jersey, then received his college education as an organic chemist at Newark College of Engineering, becoming a registered professional engineer in the State of New Jersey.

As a chemist, he worked primarily in the area of fine specialty organics. During World War II, he was the first in the United States to synthesize the painkiller Demerol.

He was a member of the American Chemical Society and the Knights of Columbus.

He had a special fondness for travel, having journeyed all over the United States and five continents, often taking members of his family with him.

While in Birmingham, he was a member of St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church.

Predeceased by his wife of 43 years, Mary, and a brother, Irwin, he is survived by a daughter, Lois Ellen Laura Greene of Mountain Brook, Ala.; a brother, Charles of Naples, Fla.; and four grandchildren.

Friends may call on Wednesday, December 10, from 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Kimble Funeral Home, 1 Hamilton Avenue. A Christian Wake service will be held during this time. Interment will follow in Princeton Cemetery.

Memorial contributions may be made to St. Jude Children Research Hospital, P.0. Box 1000, Dept. 300, Memphis, Tenn. 38148-0552.

Helena B. Nowicki

Helena B. Nowicki, 90, of Princeton Junction, died November 27 at Princeton HealthCare System.

Born in Poland, she came to the United States in 1923 and was a longtime resident of Princeton Junction.

She enjoyed crocheting, knitting, and gardening.

She was a member of St. Anthony of Padua Church, Hightstown.

Predeceased by her daughter, Catherine J. Nowicki, she is survived by two sisters, Laura Schaeffer of New Jersey and Genevieve Pillis of Queens, N.Y.; and her companion of 42 years, Phyllis Sabella.

A Mass of Christian Burial took place December 2 at St. Anthony of Padua Church. Burial was in Holy Cross Cemetery in East Brunswick.

Anne L. DeCicco

Anne L. DeCicco, 53, of Plainsboro, died November 26 at home, following a long battle with cancer.

For the past seven years she was president of the Travel Goods Association, a Princeton-based national trade group representing the luggage and leather goods industry. In that capacity she was credited with forging alliances and building consensus on a variety of policy and regulatory issues. She was also publisher of the industry's trade publication, Travel Goods Showcase.

In the early 1990s she was president and CEO of New Jersey Health, a non-profit healthcare organization in Somerville that integrated hospital and physician services. Prior to that, she was a corporate vice president for the New Jersey Hospital Association in West Windsor. During her 14-year tenure at NJHA she oversaw the association's strategic planning and developed its marketing, public outreach, and continuing education functions. She also served on a number of advisory and professional boards, most notably as a trustee and officer of the Somerset Medical Center, Somerville.

The recipient of numerous professional awards, she was recognized by the American Society of Association Executives in 1999 with its highest honor, the ASAE Key Award. She was the first American and first woman to hold both American and European certifications in association management.

She is survived by her four children, Geoff DeCicco, Melanie Tindall, Benjamin Hydo and Wynne Hydo; her mother, Nancy Lommel of Whitehouse Station; and three sisters, Laura Millen of Readington, Cris Thompson of Hull, Mass., and Sue Tavaglione of St. Petersburg, Fla.

A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, December 6 at the First Presbyterian Church of Cranbury, 22 Main Street, Cranbury.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey, 31 Evans Terminal Road, Hillside 07205.

Arrangements are by the Kimble Funeral Home.

Jerome W. Clinton

Jerome W. Clinton, 66, of Princeton, died of cancer November 7. He was a professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies and a scholar of Iranian culture and society at Princeton University.

A native of San Jose, Calif., he earned his A.B. from Stanford University, an M.A. in English and American literature from the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Persian and Arabic literature from the University of Michigan.

He served in the Peace Corps in Iran from 1962 to 1964 and taught in schools in Tehran and Amman, Jordan, from 1964 to 1970. He returned to the United States in 1970 to teach at the University of Minnesota. In 1972, he was named director of the Tehran Center of the American Institute of Iranian Studies. He joined the Princeton faculty in 1974 and was granted emeritus status in 2002.

Prof. Clinton taught Persian language and literature, as well as courses in Near Eastern literature, translation, classical Islamic civilization and the cultural history of Iran. His most widely acclaimed work was the study and translation of the Iranian national epic, the Shahnama (The Book of Kings). He was the author of The Divan of Manuchihri Damghani: A Critical Study, co-author of Modern Persian: Spoken and Written. He also translated The Tragedy of Sohrab and Rostam and In the Dragon's Claws from the Shahnama, winning the Lois Roth Persian Translation Prize in 2002 from the American Institute of Iranian Studies for Dragon Claws.

He was the recipient of two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the J. Paul Getty Grant Program for translation of Persian works and curriculum development. He was awarded the Princeton 250th Anniversary Curriculum Development Grant.

"He was a treasured colleague, whose humanity and profound integrity was respected by all who knew him," said Andras Hamori, chair of the Department of Near Eastern Studies.

In an obituary that appeared in the online publication, The Iranian, Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, professor of Persian language and literature at the University of Washington, wrote: "Jerry, a man of impeccable integrity and great decency, was a meticulous and impressively forward-looking scholar of Persian literature whose professional interests spanned literary theory and criticism, translation and translation theory and, in recent years, the esthetics of word-image relations."

He is survived by his wife, Asha; three children, Julia, Matthew and Gabriella; and two grandchildren.

A memorial service was held on November 30 in New Lebanon, N.Y.

Memorial contributions may be made to Therapists with Wings, 84 Best Street, Portland, Maine 04103; or Sufi Order Center at The Abode, 5 Abode Road, New Lebanon, N.Y. 12125.