Noteworthy – Page 20

15Apr

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Noteworthy, Profiles, United Kingdom

Michael Arthur Gilkes, writer

Michael Arthur Gilkes a Caribbean literary critic, dramatist, poet, filmmaker and university lecturer died in London on 14 April 2020, aged 86, after contracting COVID-19. Gilkes was involved in theatre for more than 40 years, as a director, actor and playwright, winning the Guyana Prize for Drama in 1992 and 2006, as well as the Guyana Prize for Best Book of Poetry in 2002. He was also respected for his insight into and writings on the work of Wilson Harris. Gilkes was born in Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana). His involvement with theatre began in his native Guyana when he was about 12 years old, working in school theatre, and he went on to become involved with the Theatre Guild of Guyana. Gilkes taught at a number of universities in the Caribbean, Canada and the...

Margit Buchhalter Feldman, holocaust survivor

15Apr

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Noteworthy, Profiles, United States

Margit Buchhalter Feldman, holocaust survivor

Margit Buchhalter Feldman a Hungarian-American public speaker, educator, activist, and Holocaust survivor – died on April 14, 2020, from COVID-19-related complications. Feldman and her family were placed in a concentration camp in 1944, where her parents were killed immediately. She survived her incarceration after lying about her age, resulting in her being placed in a work camp. She was freed from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on April 15, 1945. After moving to the United States, she raised a family and became a public speaker, sharing her experience with students until her death. Margit Buchhalter was born June 12, 1929, in Budapest, Hungary. Her parents were Joseph and Theresa Buchhalter. The family lived in Tolcsva, Hungary. When she was fourteen, the Nazis invaded...

15Apr

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Ireland, Noteworthy, Profiles

Danny Delaney, footballer

Danny Delaney a Gaelic footballer and administrator. He played for Laois and Stradbally during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s died at the Maryborough Centre in Portlaoise of COVID-19 on the morning of 14 April 2020. He was from Cork Road in Stradbally. With Stradbally, Delaney won both the 1959 and 1963 Laois Intermediate Football Championships. He also played hurling for the Ratheniska team. In 1973, Delaney was elected vice-chairman of the county board under Sean Ramsbottom. Delaney also served as chairman of the Stradbally club. He He had been there for around three weeks, having spent months in the Midland Regional Hospital, Portlaoise. Delaney was one of nine deaths at the Maryborough Centre over the Easter weekend, reducing the number of residents there by one third. He ...

15Apr

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Noteworthy, Profiles, United Kingdom

Peter Whiteside, pentathlete

Peter Whiteside ‑ a British modern pentathlete who competed at the 1980 Summer Olympics – died of coronavirus complications on 14 April 2020.

15Apr

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Greece, Mexico, Noteworthy, Profiles, United States

Helen Damico, littérateur

Helen Damico ‑ a scholar of Old English and Old English literature – passed away on April 14, 2020 after suffering from Covid-19. Damico was a professor emerita at the University of New Mexico, where she began teaching in 1981 and founded the Institute for Medieval Studies. She was previously on the faculty of Brooklyn College and the University of Minnesota. She earned her B.A. from the University of Iowa in 1952, and received her Ph.D. from New York University in 1980. The author of Beowulf's Wealhtheow and the Valkyrie Tradition, Damico made important contributions to the study of women in Old English and Old Norse literature, and her work on Wealhþeow is frequently cited. She saw representations of the valkyrie in both Wealhþeow and Grendel's Mothe...

15Apr

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Brazil, Noteworthy, Profiles

Aldo di Cillo Pagotto, archbishop

Aldo di Cillo Pagotto ‑ a Brazilian Catholic archbishop ‑ died in Fortaleza from Covid-19-related complications on 14 April 2020. Pagotto was born in Brazil, 16 September 1949. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1977. He served as coadjutor bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sobral, Brazil, in 1996 and 1997 and as bishop of the Sobral Diocese from 1997 to 2004. He then became archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Paraíba, Brazil, from 2004 to 2016.

15Apr

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Noteworthy, Profiles, United Kingdom

Cyril Lawrence, footballer

Cyril Lawrence ‑ an English professional footballer who played as a Winger ‑ died after contracting the COVID-19 virus on 14 April 2020, aged 99. Lawrence played in the English football league for Blackpool, Rochdale and Wrexham. In 2017, aged 97, Lawrence visited Spotland Stadium, the home of Rochdale. During World War II, Lawrence enlisted in the Royal Navy and was posted to the King George V-class battleship as a gunner. He saw service in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Arctic and Pacific, most notably the pursuit and destruction of the German battleship Bismarck, as well as arctic convoys to supply the Soviets, the Battle of Okinawa and the final surrender of the Japanese home islands. He married his wife Clara in 1944, while on shore leave. After the wa...

15Apr

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Noteworthy, Profiles, United States

William Henry Gerdts Jr., art historian

William Henry Gerdts Jr. an American art historian and professor of Art History at the CUNY Graduate Center. Gerdts was the author of over twenty-five books on American art died of complications of the COVID-19 virus, aged 91, on April 14, 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. An expert in American Impressionism, he was also well known for his work on nineteenth-century American still life painting. Gerdts was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. Beginning in 1945 he attended Amherst College. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts from Amherst in 1949, Gerdts attended Harvard Law School, but after four days switched to the Department of Fine Arts. There he earned a master's degree in 1950 and a Ph.D. in 1966. Gerdts' professional positions included that of Cura...

14Apr

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Noteworthy, Profiles, United States

Ann Sullivan, animator

Ann Sullivan an American animator, who primarily worked for Disney Animation died of complications from COVID-19 on April 13, 2020. Born Sara Ann McNeese in Fargo, North Dakota, to Thomas and Helen (Kossick) McNeese. Thomas was an accountant, and Helen was a stenographer. She went to a Catholic school and then to North Dakota State University. She followed her sister to California and enrolled at the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. Upon graduating in the 1950s, she began working in the animation paint lab of Disney Studios on films, including Peter Pan. Later, she took a leave of absence to raise her four children. In 1973, she joined Hanna-Barbera. Sullivan returned to Disney around 1987, animating such films as Oliver & Company (1988), The Little Mermaid (1...

14Apr

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Noteworthy, Profiles, United Kingdom

Avrohom Pinter, religious scholar

Avrohom Pinter an English rabbi and a leading figure in the Haredi community in Stamford Hill, London died in London of COVID-19 on 13 April 2020. Pinter was also a local government politician who served as a Labour councillor on the Hackney Borough Council (Northfield ward, elected 1982 and 1986). He also represented Haredi interests on the London Jewish Forum. In 2014 he was ranked by the Jewish Chronicle as no. 32 on their list of influential British Jews. He was the principal of the Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School, a role in which he received praise and criticism. Pinter, a son of Rabbi Shmuel (Shmelke) Pinter, was born in Stamford Hill in 1949. He married Gittel Beck (1947–2014) in 1971 and they had several children together, two of whom, Yisrael and Chaim, became rab...