correction
In an obituary about Samuel Meerkreebs on Dec. 20, the first name of his late wife, Dona Meerkreebs, was misspelled. (Published 12/ 21/95)
William J. Curtin, 64, chairman of the labor and employment law section of the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius who was active in professional and volunteer groups, died of cancer Dec. 19 at his home, Oak Ridge, in Potomac.
Mr. Curtin, who joined the law firm in 1960, was a past chairman of the firm and had been a member of its executive committee for more than a dozen years. Morgan, Lewis is a national firm with other major offices in New York and Philadelphia.
During his years with the firm, Mr. Curtin was involved in some of the major labor-management disputes of the time. In 1966, he represented the airline industry when it was struck by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in a strike that challenged Johnson Administration wage-price guidelines.
In 1970, he was a special counsel to the new U.S. Postal Service, working on the first negotiations between that entity and the postal unions. He also had represented organized trucking in negotiations leading to a National Master Freight Agreement and had helped negotiate collective bargaining agreements dealing with such historic construction projects as Disney World, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and the Boston Harbor cleanup. In the early 1990s, he counseled the railroad industry in its national labor negotiations.
Advertisement
Over the years, Mr. Curtin had chaired the American Bar Association's special committee on strikes in the transportation industry and the association's public utility, communications and transportation law section. He also had chaired the Railway Labor Act committee of the labor and employment law section.
Upon learning of Mr. Curtin's death, former Secretary of Labor John T. Dunlop hailed him as "a consummate labor relations professional" and as "a lawyer who understood the arts of problem solving and negotiation."
Another former Labor Secretary, William J. Usery, recalled Mr. Curtin as a "person of broad knowledge and integrity" and as someone who set "the standard of excellence for our field."
Mr. Curtin was a 1966 recipient of the American Arbitration Award for Labor Managing Peace. From 1968 to 1972, he had served as a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
Advertisement
Mr. Curtin was a native of Auburn, N.Y. He was a graduate of Georgetown University and its law school, where he also received a master's degree in labor law.
At the time of his death, he was chairman of the board of directors of Georgetown University and was a recipient of the school's John Carroll Award and its John Carroll Medal of Merit. In 1994, he was elected to the university's Phi Beta Kappa chapter. He also had chaired the Norwood School in Potomac and had chaired national parents programs of both Duke and Denison universities.
He was a member of the Knights of Malta, the Thomas More Society, the John Carroll Society and the Metropolitan and Chevy Chase clubs.
Survivors include his wife, the former Helen Bragg White, of Potomac; four children, Helen Bragg Cleary of Louisville, William Curtin III of Charlottesville and Christopher N. and Caroline G. Curtin, both of Washington; a brother, David M., of Vienna; and two grandchildren. PATRICIA LYNN SCHMID Teacher
Advertisement
Patricia Lynn Schmid, 28, a 1985 graduate of McLean High School who had taught English for the last two years in Namibia, died of hepatitis Dec. 17 at a hospital in Windhoek, Namibia.
Ms. Schmid was born in Washington and grew up in McLean. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 1989. She had worked on a kibbutz in Israel and toured Eastern Europe shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
She was a staff assistant on Capitol Hill and then worked three years as a legislative affairs specialist for the Council of Chief State School Officers before going to Africa for World Teach, an organization loosely affiliated with Harvard University that operates English teaching programs in foreign countries.
Ms. Schmid also had done volunteer counseling for disabled children at Camp Easter Seal and tutoring for Martha's Table.
Advertisement
Survivors include her parents, Stuart and Sharon Schmid of McLean; a sister, Pamela Schmid of St. Paul, Minn.; and two grandparents, Ted and Ruth Kristal of St. Louis. ROY M. GUSTAFSON Metallurgist
Roy M. Gustafson, 86, a retired Nuclear Regulatory Commission metallurgist and engineer, died of pneumonia Dec. 14 at Medbridge Rehabilitation Nursing Center in Wheaton.
Mr. Gustafson, who lived in Rockville, was born in Worcester, Mass. He graduated from Northeastern University. During World War II, he served in the Army. After the war, he was a Navy Department metallurgist in Rhode Island, then in 1956 he was transferred to the Washington area. In the 1960s, he began working for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, where he retired about 20 years ago.
Survivors include his wife, Edith A. Akesson Gustafson, of Rockville; a daughter, Donna G. Jones of Wexford, Pa.; and two granddaughters. HENRY W. EDMONDS Pathologist
Advertisement
Henry Wolfner Edmonds, 84, who retired in 1972 as chief of pathology at Washington Hospital Center, died of a heart ailment Dec. 15 at Suburban Hospital. He lived in Bethesda.
He settled in the Washington area in 1949 and spent the rest of his career working on the staffs of what became Washington Hospital Center.
Dr. Edmonds was a graduate of Washington University and its medical school in his native St. Louis. He also served his hospital residency in pathology in St. Louis. During World War II, he was a civilian pathologist with the Army pathology lab at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Survivors include his wife, Dr. Dorothy Gill Edmonds, whom he married in 1939 and who lives in Bethesda; three daughters, Nancy Nelson of Denver, Amy Christaldi of New York and Bonny Dickinson of Portland, Ore.; a sister, Mary Betty Rule of San Leandro, Calif.; and five grandchildren. CAROL JUNE MARIE KASMALA LOKEY Benefits Specialist
Advertisement
Carol June Marie Kasmala Lokey, 52, a retired benefits specialist with Bell Atlantic, died of breast cancer Dec. 16 at Suburban Hospital.
Earlier this year, she retired from Bell Atlantic after 33 years of service.
Mrs. Lokey, who lived in Silver Spring, was born in Globe, Ariz. She moved to the Washington area as a child. She graduated from Northwood High School in Montgomery County.
She was a member of St. Bernadette's Catholic Church in Silver Spring.
Survivors include her husband of 37 years, Richard Glenn Lokey, and a brother, Robert William Hungerford, both of Silver Spring. SAMUEL MEERKREEBS Patent Attorney
Samuel Meerkreebs, 76, a patent attorney who specialized in trademark, patent, copyright and unfair competition matters, died of pancreatic cancer Dec. 17 at the Washington Home hospice.
Advertisement
Mr. Meerkreebs, who lived in Chevy Chase and Frederick, Md., was born in Toledo. He graduated from the University of Toledo and served in the Army Air Forces during World War II.
After the war, he settled in Washington and began working at the U.S. Patent Office while attending George Washington University law school. After receiving a law degree there, he opened a private practice in patent law. In recent years, he had been semi-retired.
Mr. Meerkreebs was an enthusiastic race-walker and had participated in race-walk marathons in Hawaii, Boston and London.
His first wife, Dora Wertheimer Meerkreebs, died in 1991. Survivors include his wife, Ellen Hildegarde Vache Meerkreebs of Frederick; two children from his first marriage, Lynn Dona Simpson of Rochdale, England, and Gary David Meerkreebs of Colorado Springs; a brother, Dr. Gerald Meerkreebs of Sierra Madre, Calif.; a sister, Molly Heidleberg of Toledo; and seven grandchildren. J. HAROLD NICKENS SR. Physician
Advertisement
J. Harold Nickens Sr., 82, a retired Washington physician who specialized in otolaryngology, died of cancer Dec. 15 at Howard University Hospital.
Dr. Nickens, a resident of Washington, was born in Gainesville. He attended Manassas Industrial School and then Dunbar High School in Washington, where he graduated in 1931.
He graduated from Howard University and its medical school and did his medical internship at Freedman's Hospital. During World War II, he served at an Army hospital in North Africa.
After the war, Dr. Nickens returned to Washington and opened a private medical practice. He retired in 1979 after 33 years. For 20 years, Dr. Nickens was administrative medical officer at Freedman's Hospital, where he was also clinical instructor in otolaryngology.
He was a member of the Medical Chirurgical Society of Washington and the National Medical Society.
He was a member of Indian Spring Country Club and the Hausa social club. His hobbies included fishing, hunting, gardening, chess and golf.
His first wife, Doris Coleman Nickens, whom he married in 1941, died in 1976.
In 1977, he married Ethel Belcher, a former high school classmate, who survives.
Other survivors include four sons from his first marriage, J. Harold Nickens Jr. of Washington, Wayne C. Nickens of Nevada, Stephen Nickens of Rockville and Eric W. Nickens of Baltimore; three sisters; and four grandchildren. DONALD E. JONES Air Force Colonel
Donald E. Jones, 61, a retired Air Force colonel who devoted much of his 30-year career to the Office of Special Investigations, died of congestive heart failure Dec. 15 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He lived in Fort Washington.
Col. Jones, a Pittsburgh native, was a 1957 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. He was commissioned in the Air Force after graduating from the academy.
He served in this country, Europe, Turkey and Vietnam, including tours with the Air Force counterintelligence and criminal investigations divisions. His decorations included the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star.
Since retiring from active duty in 1987, he had worked for USATREX International as a security professional. In that capacity, he did work for the State Department's diplomatic security bureau as a senior program officer for its overseas security guard program.
Col. Jones had served as national secretary of the Association of Former Office of Special Investigations Special Agents and as vice chairman of the association's local chapter. He was an elder of the Southminster Presbyterian Church in Oxon Hill and a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars' chapter in Fort Washington.
Survivors include his wife of 39 years, Lois Roth Jones of Fort Washington; three children, Donald Jr., of Newark, Del., Lizbeth A. McClees of Orange Park, Fla., and Air Force Capt. Lynn Jones of Holloman Air Force Base, N.M.; and six grandchildren. LILLIAN GOODY' KEATING Church Volunteer
Lillian A. "Goody" Keating, 73, a longtime resident of Arlington, where she did volunteer work for church and school groups, died of cardiac arrest Dec. 17 at Mount Vernon Hospital.
Mrs. Keating, a Baltimore native, was a graduate of Mount St. Agnes College. She maintained a home in Arlington for 40 years before moving to the Fairfax Retirement Community, where she lived since 1992.
She did volunteer work for St. Ann's Catholic Church in Arlington and was a volunteer teacher's aide at Bishop O'Connell High School. Her hobbies included gardening.
Her husband, retired Navy Capt. William J. Keating, whom she married in 1943, died in 1994. Survivors include three sons, R. Mark, of Gladwyne, Pa., Navy Capt. William Jr., of Pensacola, Fla., and John A., of Annandale; two daughters, Betsy Meehan of Arlington and Judith M. Keating of Alexandria; a brother, John F. Ahern of Dallas; and four grandchildren. THOMAS B. DOUGLAS Physical Chemist
Thomas B. Douglas, 86, a physical chemist who had worked for what was then the National Bureau of Standards for 27 years before retiring in 1974, died of respiratory arrest Dec. 13 at the Fernwood nursing home in Bethesda. He lived in Washington.
During his years with the bureau, he took part in tests on solid rocket fuels.
Dr. Douglas, a West Virginia native, was a graduate of the University of North Carolina, where he also received a master's degree in physics. He received a doctorate in physical chemistry from Ohio State University, taught physics and chemistry at Montana State University and worked on the Manhattan Project before coming to Washington and joining the NBS in 1947.
He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the American Chemical Society, the American Physical Society and the Cosmos Club. His hobbies included classical music and history.
His first marriage, to Cora Douglas, ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife of 46 years, Susan, and a sister, Dr. Edna Douglas of Pullman, Wash. ROSE WEINER HENKIN Zionist
Rose Weiner Henkin, 93, a volunteer in the World Zionist Organization who had directed youth activities, died of congestive heart failure Dec. 15 at the Washington Home.
Mrs. Henkin, who lived in Washington, was born in Ohio and moved to the Washington area from Cleveland in the mid-1960s. She did volunteer work in programs of the Washington Hebrew Congregation and Martha's Table.
Her husband, Henry Henkin, died in 1979. Survivors include two daughters, Zenith Gross of New York and Elesa Kassoff of Silver Spring; seven grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. HARRIETT SMITH THURSTON Accountant
Harriett Smith Thurston, 84, an accountant who retired from the American Association of University Professors, died of a heart attack Dec. 12 at Meridian Spa Creek nursing facility in Annapolis.
Mrs. Thurston, who lived in Chevy Chase, was born in Mikado, Mich. In 1947, she moved to the Washington area. She graduated from Benjamin Franklin University in 1961 and worked as an accountant for several construction firms in the Washington area, then for AAUP, where she retired in 1976.
She attended the Friends Meeting of Washington.
Her husband, Sidney Daniel Thurston, died in 1972. Survivors include two sisters, Guinevere F. Scott of Annapolis and Beverly Elaine Kelly of Texas.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZK6zr8eirZ5nnKSworiOanBybV9mf3B%2Bj2iaqKqgpL%2BiwMRmo5qan6d6ra3WspyrZaeeua21wKZko2WTqr%2B1tc1mm6Kdo2R%2Fdn%2BSaWyfbF1psHN9jG1qcZpdbX2lsYxpnGqcZ5aCeK2Xm21o