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Vol. LXIII, No. 35
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Wednesday, September 2, 2009
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Vol. LXIII, No. 35
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Wednesday, September 2, 2009
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Dr. Chester R Stroup, former superintendent of the Princeton Borough schools, died at Stonebridge on Sunday, August 23, just short of his 94th birthday. Chet, as he liked to be called, died from an aggressive form of prostate cancer. He lived a long, eventful, meaningful life, his wife Catherine said.
He was born on November 5, 1915, in the mining town of Kulpmont, Pa., the youngest child of Ralph and Cora Stroup, and little brother to Edna, Helen, and Grace.
After graduation from West Chester State College in 1937 he began a memorable career in education, teaching both science and music in Georgetown, Delaware, where he developed marching bands for the junior and senior high schools. In 1938 he married his college sweetheart, Kathryn Hartzel. After nine years of leadership he received a job offer from Princeton, and in 1946 he became principal of the Nassau Street School. Known as an innovator with a broad imagination, he helped lay the groundwork for team teaching and school camping, with the focus on child development, which contributed to the school’s reputation as a place kids loved to go. In 1948 he and Howard Waxwood were leaders in the integration of the elementary schools that became known as The Princeton Plan. Their thoughtful leadership received national attention.
He had a commitment to his community as a caring Princeton resident, serving on over 14 different boards, including being a trustee of Princeton United Methodist Church, president of Princeton Rotary, and a board member of the Westminster Choir College for 12 years.
After he earned a Ph.D. in education administration from Rutgers in 1960, the faculty awarded his dissertation with special honors. He led a successful effort to merge the Borough and Township schools, and after 20 years of service, he accepted an offer to become superintendent of the Haddonfield School System in 1966.
His beloved wife, Kay, died in 1987. Their three children followed the family tradition; first born, Ralph, became a doctor and served on the faculty of Yale Medical School; the second son, Fred, attained a Ph.D. and served on the faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham as Director of Choral Music; and daughter, Janet, became an elementary school teacher.
In 1990 he married Catherine Fredericks. They celebrated their 19th wedding anniversary on August 11. He is survived by his three children and their spouses, with five grandchildren, and four great-granddaughters. In addition, by two stepchildren and their spouses, and six step-grandchildren.
A Memorial Service will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, October 17 at the Princeton United Methodist Church, to which memorial contributions may be made for the Stroup Music Fund, which provides concerts for public enjoyment.
Longtime Princeton resident Leonard Grey, 72, died suddenly at his home on August 27.
He came to Princeton in 1972 as a mid-career graduate student, having graduated from Williams College and Yale Law School; he had also studied with Leo Strauss at the University of Chicago before practicing law in New York City, where he had been born and raised.
He taught political philosophy at Queens College, CUNY, and was managing editor of Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy. In retirement he continued his own studies, enjoyed long walks on the towpath, and was a steady and enthusiastic volunteer at the Bryn Mawr/Wellesley book sale.
His widow and wife of 39 years, Marianne Clark Grey, plans a memorial service in the fall.
Suen Lu-Shien Yeh, 92, of Princeton, died Tuesday, August 25, at the Pavilions at Forrestal surrounded by her loving family. Born in China, she resided most of her life in Taiwan before moving to California in 1997 and later to Princeton in 2001.
Mrs. Yeh’s excellent cooking skills were known to all of her relatives. She also painted beautiful Chinese paintings that family members were eager to have signed and dedicated to them. She enjoyed taking walks, and kept active in the Buddhist community. Not only was she a devoted mother to her three children, she was a second mother to her sisters’ children and grandchildren as well.
Her great zeal for life kept her active and young, and her willingness to try new things was not once hindered by her age. Mrs. Yeh also unselfishly shared her wisdom, kindness, and love with her family and relatives, which will be immensely missed.
Daughter of the late Rong Chang and Hai-Chu Ong Sun, wife of the late Hsueh-Si Yeh, she is survived by a son, Eugene I-Ching Yeh of Union City, California; two daughters, Yvonne Yeh Lee and I-Li Yeh Wang of Princeton; a sister, Laura Yu of Seattle, Washington; six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, September 5, at the Mather-Hodge Funeral Home, 40 Vandeventer Avenue, Princeton. Burial will follow in the Princeton Cemetery.
Anne Paton Dimock died on Thursday July 30 at the age of 79 from an Alzheimer’s type of dementia.
She was born in Greybull, Wyoming, on March 20, 1930, to Rowena and William Paton. Her whole family, which later included her grandmother ‘Grammy Jean,’ ran the Paton Ranch, a dude ranch at the foot of the Big Horn Mountains in Shell, Wyoming. She attended the Shell School, a two-room country school, through 8th grade.
She grew up working hard on the dude ranch, helping to attend to the guests and care for the horses and various livestock along with her three sisters Peggy, Rowena and Fran. Although sometimes the work was hard, she found great pleasure in the outdoors and loved exploring the area both on foot and horseback. On the summer evenings, once the chores were done, she would sometimes sneak out of the bedroom window and climb out back behind the corrals to the hoodoo rocks. There she would sit on her favorite perch, the ‘queen’s throne’ and read her book until it was too dark to see.
After completing high school in Greybull in 1948, she went to Antioch College in Ohio and earned her degree in geology. She said that her love of rocks and fossils was inevitable because she grew up where she could see the history of the earth right in front of her in the folds of the Big Horn mountains and the plains of the Big Horn Basin.
At Antioch she met a young scientist, Dirck Dimock, whom she married at the end of her junior year. After college, the couple moved to Baltimore, where Mr. Dimock worked towards his graduate degree in physics. Their first two children, Allyn and Lisa Shea, were born during their years in Baltimore. When Mr. Dimock was offered a job with Princeton University upon completing his doctorate, the family relocated to Princeton, where their third child, Christopher, was born.
After caring for her children until her youngest was in high school, she then went back to college at Rutgers University and earned her Master’s degree in Library Sciences, a second career based on her great love of books.
At the time she and Mr. Dimock divorced in 1975, she was working for the Princeton High School library. After many years as a high school librarian, she was transferred to the Riverside Elementary School, where she spent hours researching the subject, reading book reviews, clipping and filing away newspaper articles, and checking out vast amounts of children’s books from the public library.
A year after retiring from the Princeton Public School System at age 65, she moved to Haverhill, Mass. to be closer to her children and their families. She lived for the next ten years in Haverhill, moving into Absaroka Assisted Living in the fall of 2005. In the fall of 2006 she took a significant turn for the worse and was admitted into West Park Long Term Care Center, which has been her home for the last two and a half years.
She is survived by her sisters Rowena and Fran; her children Allyn, Chris, and Shea; four grandchildren; by many of her ‘Crones’ group; and by numerous nieces and nephews, cousins and friends.
Because it was her wish to have her ashes scattered in an area overlooking the original family ranch, the family will hold a private memorial gathering to carry out her wishes at a later date.
Remembrances in Anne’s name may be made to the Alzheimer’s Organization (www.alz.org) with the hopes that by the next generation, this disease & related dementias will only be found in history books.
Arrangements were handled by Ballard’s Funeral Home in Cody, Wyoming.
Alphonse J. Cartusciello, a self-educated scholar and poet, died August 20. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y. on November 3, 1922, he worked for the New York City Department of Public Works until he retired in 1984. He moved to Princeton in 1995 where, using the resources of the University and the Princeton Public Libraries, he pursued lifelong interests in two main areas: American black poetry and the life of Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi. Both topics were linked by the common threads of compassion for the oppressed and respect for those who work for their freedom.
His collection of works related to Garibaldi is housed largely in the Valente Italian Library Collection of Seton Hall University and at the Garibaldi Muecci Museum on Staten Island. His compilations of materials related to black poetry in America are found primarily at Princeton University as well as at the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
His own poetry was published for many years in Bell’s Letters Poet, a national quarterly. That journal’s editor recently commented that the central element in his poetry is a “grand appreciation of the human race.”
He said that he lived according to Goethe’s maxim: “A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful implanted in the human soul.” He openly shared his love of life, music, art, and history with his many friends. His ability to turn strangers into friends for life was unique. Throughout life he loved nature and the outdoors, walking when young with friends in Prospect Park or jogging along the Coney Island boardwalk, and later strolling the D&R Canal towpath. For as long as his legs could carry him, he would often be seen taking his long morning walk to Nassau Street for a morning cup of coffee with his buddies. A regular at local bookshops, he will be missed by clerks and patrons alike.
He is survived by his sisters, Gloria Cartusciello of Princeton, Antoinette Goyena of Brooklyn, as well as two nieces and four nephews. Donations may be made in Al’s name to the Princeton Public Library Foundation, 65 Witherspoon Street, Princeton, NJ, 08540. Arrangements were handled by the Cromwell-Immordino Memorial Home, Hopewell.
Joyce Martin Braswell, of Princeton, died on Monday, August 24. She received wonderful support from her church community and other friends during her year-long illness.
Born in Nashville Tennessee on October 2, 1938, to Nellie and Bill Martin, she received her Bachelor’s degree from George Peabody College for Teachers, now part of Vanderbilt University. She taught for 17 years at Joyce Kilmer Elementary School in Trenton, working hard to provide high quality education to all of her students. She enjoyed gardening, knitting, baking, and thoroughly spoiling her children and grandchildren. She was an active member of the Pennington United Methodist Church and loved her volunteer work at Princeton Hospital.
She is survived by her husband of 47 years, James, her sister Billie Sue Medling, and her four children, Tama, John, Krista, and Craig, and their families. A very special grandma to her ten grandchildren, she was well-loved by family and friends and will be deeply missed.
A memorial service was held on August 28, at the Pennington United Methodist Church. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to: St Jude Children’s Hospital Tribute Program, PO Box 1000, Dept 142, Memphis, Tenn. 38101 Tribute #24339714.
Arrangements were handled by the Blackwell Memorial Home, 21 N. Main Street, Pennington.