LATIMES.COM TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019B
Son of Dr. Richard Paul Barthol and
Esther Simpson Barthol.Widower
of beloved wife of 50 years, Meta
Lustgarten Barthol. Survived by
daughters Sara Helena Barthol and
Lora Ann Barthol, son-in-law, Daniel
Eric Shulman, granddaughter Billie
Blue Sky Shulman, and brother Bruce
Barthol.Clark diedofmetastatic
prostate cancer just a year and a half
after Meta’s passing.Clarkwasbornandspenthis
early years in the Oakland/Berkeley,
California area. Other than a few years
he spent in his early teens in State
College, PA, and the time he spent
internationally (both with his family
as a child and loved ones he travelled
with as an adult), he based his life in
the Los Angeles area.Clark left his mark on the world in
many ways, including by touching so
many with his spirit, ingenuity, insight,
and passion for life. Those who knew
him were blessed. His warm good
humor, genuine interest in others,
and generosity of spirit endeared him
to many. Clark never refused help to
anyone. His extraordinary parenting is
evidenced by the remarkable loyalty of
his daughters, who stayed by his side,
taking care of and battling with him,
until the end.From a young age, Clark embraced
adventure, starting with living in Spain
for 6 months as a child. Scuba diving,
sailing, and traveling were what really
set Clark on his life’s path. He was
certified as a Master Diver. Later, as a
young man in Port Hueneme, along
with Meta and dear friend Dennis
Fontany, he built a 33 foot trimaran
that took them on many adventures
around the world over a three year
period as they completed the very first
circumnavigation of the globe by a
craft of that type.Sara and Lora have many memories
of Clark in his happy place: whittling
and tinkering in the garage, fixing and
innovating while listening to tunes
and NPR on the radio. Sometimes he
taught them some of what he knew,
often withpatience,humor,and
affection. Their memories also often
revolve around the role of music in
their household and family dynamics.
Having played upright bass as a teen
and sharing his love for guitar with
both Meta and Bruce, he continued
his appreciation of music throughout
his life.To the admiration of many, Clark
integrated his passions and skills into
his careers as porpoise trainer for the
navy, boatbuilder, and proprietor of
Clark Barthol Marine Surveyors.September 21, 1943 - July 7, 2019BARTHOL, Robert Clark
OBITUARY NOTICES
Place a paid notice latimes.com/placeobituary
Search obituary notice archives: legacy.com/obituaries/latimesHonoralife
gotolatimes.com/placeobituaryMount Sinai Memorial Parks -
Hollywood Hills 800-600-
http://www.mountsinaiparks.orgSMITH, Isadore ‘’Butch’’
Mount Sinai Memorial Parks -
Simi Valley 800-600-
http://www.mountsinaiparks.orgSLATKIN, Helen J.
John Angus McDowell Blue, devoted
husband and father, skilled attorney,
and loyal friend, died on Friday, August
23, 2019 of natural causes. He was
76 years old. Born in Cumberland,
MD in 1943, John was raised in
Romney, WV. He received a degree in
chemical engineering from Carnegie
Tech University, now called Carnegie
Mellon. After college, he worked for
Union Carbide as a chemical engineer
before becoming an officer in the U.S.
Navy. John served in Vietnam with the
Navy SeaBees during the Tet Offensive.
He finished his tour of duty in Scotland,
where he developed a love of Scotch
and golf, and decided to pursue a
career in law. He earned his J.D. from
Harvard University Law School in 1972
and married Elizabeth “Betsy” Alt two
months later. John worked for Hughes
Hubbard & Reed in New York, NY for
a year before accepting an offer to
work out of the firm’s newly formed
Los Angeles office. John and Betsy
settled in Pasadena, CA in 1975, and
raised their daughter Catherine there.
John was a partner at Adams Duque
& Hazeltine from 1979 to 1996. He
then established the Law Offices of
John A. Blue, which grew into Blue
Schoor & Diehl LLP. At Neighborhood
Unitarian Universalist Church, John
led two capital campaigns and served
as church president from 1990-92.
John was a co-founder of Jericho Road,
whose mission is to pair non-profits
with volunteering professionals to
help these organizations clarify and
achieve their goals. He served as the
first president of Jericho Road’s board.
John is survived by his wife, Betsy
Blue; his daughter, Catherine Blue
Holmes; his son-in-law, Ryan Holmes;
his grandchildren, Jane and Thomas;
his “co-grandparents,” Bob and Mary
Fauvre Holmes; his brother, David
Blue; and his sister and brother-in-law,
Julia and Don Weir. In lieu of flowers,
donations can be sent to Jericho Road
Pasadena or Neighborhood Unitarian
Universalist ChurchJune 18, 1943 - August 23, 2019BLUE, John Angus
McDowellTo place an obituary ad
please go online to:
latimes.com/placeobituaryMrs. Virginia Kemp of 3613 Kensley
Drive, Inglewood, California entered
into eternal peace on August 11, 2019,
following a brief illness. Mrs. Kemp,
affectionally known as Honey to her
family and friends, is survived by her
devoted husband of 43 years, Melvin
Kemp, and her brothers, Maceo Smith
and Godfrey Smith of Cleveland, Ohio.
Viewing will be held on August 29,
2019 at 3 pm to 7 pm at Spaulding
Mortuary 3045 S. La Brea Ave., Los
Angeles, CA 90016. Interment will
be held at Evergreen Memorial Park
Cemetery, Bedford Heights, Ohio.
Visit http://www.LEGACY.comApril 22, 1936 - August 11, 2019KEMP, Virginia
Neil Hammond, a longtime
businessman and resident of Los
Angeles, died at home with his family
around him at the age of 87. Neil was
born on the west side of Los Angeles
and lived his entire life within a six mile
radius. Born minutes after Halloween,
he loved teasing, pranks and good
humor and enjoyed life generously.
From the ages of 14-81, Neil worked at
Bay Cities Furnace and Air Conditioning
in Santa Monica, the family business.
He bought out his father Norman
“Slim” Hammond in the late 1960s
and ran the business successfully
until he sold it in 2013, finally retiring
at 81. Neil was active in local civic
activities including the Exchange Club
of Santa Monica and the SoCal HVAC
Contractors Association. Neil was one
of several Santa Monica businessmen
to found First Pacific Bank in 1973.
Neil and his wife Louise J. Hammond
née Subers were married in 1952 and
moved to Pacific Palisades in 1958.
They were active, longtime members
of First United Methodist Church of
Santa Monica and were founding
sponsors of its Upward Bound House
which provides homeless families with
housing and supportive services.
Neil was preceded in death by his
wife Louise (July 10, 1931- October 2,
2014) and his son Greg P. Hammond
(October 13, 1960 - April 1, 2013).
He is survived by his brother Gary
Hammond (Ann), his daughters Debra
Hammond (Jack Spicer) and Alice Hill
(David), by three grandsons Wesley
Hill (Sarah), Matthew Hill (Priscilla
DeLoera) and Asa Gelber, and by three
great-grandchildren Gabriel Hill, AJ Hill
and Tristan Hill.
Donations in Neil’s memory may
be made to Upward Bound House at
upwardboundhouse.org or First United
Methodist Church of Santa Monica at
santamonicaumc.org.November 1, 1931 - April 7, 2019HAMMOND, Neil Theodore
Place an Obituary Online
go to latimes.com/placeobituaryLoving wife, mother,
and grandmother,
Marilyn J. Roberts died
peacefully at home in
Los Angeles on Saturday, August 24th,
2019, at the age of 92. Marilyn was
born in Duluth, Minnesota, and raised
in Alexandria, Ontario, Canada. She
graduated from University of Toronto
(with honors!) with a degree in English
Literature, then received her Master’s
of Social Work from Boston College.
Marilyn began an adventurous career
as a hospital social worker with the
American Red Cross, stationed in a
MASH unit in Korea, later in Japan
where she climbed Mt. Fuji, and then
in Germany where she met both Sgt.
Elvis Presley and her future husband
Capt. Eric Roberts. Marilyn and Eric
married in 1961 and settled in Los
Angeles to raise their family.
Marilyn was known for her sense of
humor, dry wit, storytelling, humility,
and most of all, the kindest of hearts.
After her retirement from social work
at Kaiser and the Hollywood Senior
Center, she was honored for years
of volunteer work at Alzheimer’s
Association of Los Angeles and Good
Shepherd Center for Women. In her
later years, Marilyn would often
be found surrounded by her books,
crossword puzzles, and New Yorker
magazines, sitting in her favorite chair
with her little dog next to her.
Marilyn is survived by her husband
of 58 years, her two children, and
four grandchildren. There will be no
funeral services as per Marilyn’s “no
fuss” wishes.
Always in our hearts, she will be
missed.June 26, 1927 - August 24, 2019ROBERTS, Marilyn J.
Norm was born in Los Angeles, CA,
raised in North Hollywood attending
North Hollywood High School. He
graduated from UCLA and was a
member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity.
Norm loved tennis and golf, and was
an avid sailor. He won many sailing
races on Fantasia, his Catalina 36.
In 1998, the highlight of his sailing
career, Norm won his class in the
Newport-Ensenada Race. He spent his
professional career in banking.
Married to his loving wife, Linda,
high school sweethearts, were
separated by consequences beyond
their control. Finding each other 40
years later, they were married for the
next 25 years. Besides his wife Linda,
Norm is survived by 5 children and 11
grandchildren.
Norm’s life will be celebrated at
a later date with his ashes being
scattered in the ocean that he loved.February 15, 1937 - August 24, 2019LECHLITNER, Norman
RussellTo place
an obituary ad
please go online to:latimes.com/placeobituaryor call
1-800-234-Alexander John Jacobs
March 3, 1990 - August 21, 2019
Alexander (Alex) John Jacobs died way too soon, at the age of 29, on
Wednesday morning, August 21, 2019 in Monrovia, California. He was three
weeks shy of completing the Luthier Program at the Musicians Institute of
Hollywood, which was an intensive program involving night classes from six to
ten, five days a week – and Saturday labs from eight until two. In addition to this
training (and devoting much energy as a musician and guitar player), he also
worked a day job, providing in-home behavioral therapy to autistic children. Better
said, Alex shared his compassion, kindness, knowledge, patience, humanity and
humor with these kids who truly came to love and trust him.Alex was born in Pasadena, California and lived his entire life in the Pasadena/
Monrovia area. He attended Flintridge Preparatory School in La Cañada, CA,
where he shared the honor of being class valedictorian in 2008. He then
graduated from Brown University, with a degree in psychology. After graduation,
Alex certainly was known as a “superstar” in his PhD program in psychology
until sometime during the fourth year, when he realized that music and building
guitars was his true passion in life. With courage, Alex followed his heart and
changed the course and direction of his life by enrolling in the Luthier Program.Anyone who knows Alex knows him first and foremost for his kindness. As a
child, he delighted his father and mother (and all of his extended family) with his
enthusiasm for life. He so admired his father for his handiness as a fix-it-all kind
of man in every way imaginable. Perhaps that influenced his decision to pursue
the skills and steadiness required of a luthier. Of course there was so much
more he looked up to in his dad. From Mom: perhaps his interest in the helping
profession and his ability to deeply empathize with what others are feeling or
going through was her gift to him. From Alex, we have all been gifted with the
experience of a deepened realization of our own humanity and the importance
of love.Alex is survived by his devastated parents, Dr. Diane Jacobs and Paul Gordon
Jacobs, his stepfather, Walter Whitaker, and his stepmother, Beatriz Jacobs, his
many step/half-brothers and -sisters, his grandparents John and Audrey Stecher
of Rochester, New York, his aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, and a
universe filled with friends and people who love him.A celebration of Alex’s life will be held on Saturday, August 31, 2019 at ten
o’clock in the morning, at The Rose in Pasadena, 245 East Green Street, in the
Paseo complex.In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to: Children’s Music Fund, a 501(c)
(3) nonprofit charitable organization whose mission is to provide healing for the
body and soul by engaging children in music-making and listening in order to
reduce pain and anxiety while providing a much needed distraction from their
conditions. They are dedicated to help children on their journey to a better life.Shareamemory
Tosignaguestbookpleasegoto
latimes.com/guestbooks
OBITUARIES
F
erdinand Piech, the
former chairman
and chief executive
who built Volks-
wagen into one of
the world’s largest carmak-
ers, then abruptly exited just
before the emergence of a
historic scandal, has died.
He was 82.
Piech died Sunday eve-
ning at a clinic in Bavaria af-
ter a visit to a restaurant,
German daily Bild reported.
His wife, Ursula, confirmed
in a written statement sent
through a Berlin lawyer that
her husband died “suddenly
and unexpectedly,” accord-
ing to German news wire
Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
VW officials and representa-
tives for the Piech family
had no immediate com-
ment.
Piech, the grandson of
Ferdinand Porsche, whose
engineering firm laid the ba-
sis for the manufacturer of
the 911 sports car, became
VW’s CEO in 1993, when the
Wolfsburg, Germany, com-
pany was mired in losses.
Plagued with quality prob-
lems and high costs, VW re-
turned to profitability by
producing better vehicles
without large-scale job cuts,
winning Piech the allegiance
of unions and shareholders
alike.
Piech continued to guide
strategy after becoming su-
pervisory board chairman in
- His authoritarian
management style and
thirst for acquisitions
helped VW grow into a global
automotive powerhouse
that outsold Toyota Motor
Corp. three years ago to be-
come the world’s biggest
carmaker.
His crowning achieve-
ment was the acquisition of
the Porsche brand in 2012.
The purchase was the final
stage in turning the tables
on his cousin, Wolfgang
Porsche, who had pushed
the Stuttgart, Germany,
sports-car producer to bid
for VW four years earlier.
Piech sided with the state of
Lower Saxony, which owns a
blocking stake in VW, to re-
buff Porsche’s offer just as
the suitor’s debt was surging
from the takeover effort.
“His most significant
achievement is that he built
the largest and most suc-
cessful automobile company
in the world,” said John
Wolkonowicz, an automo-
tive historian who workedinside VW in Germany as a
consultant in the 1990s. “And
he built it from nothing.”
The combination of VW
and Porsche united manu-
facturers that trace their
roots to Piech’s grandfather,
who developed the original
VW Beetle car under a con-
tract with Germany’s Nazi
government in 1934.
Under Piech, VW pushed
into high-end autos with the
purchase of the Bentley and
Bugatti nameplates. At the
same time, he tightened
VW’s integration of the
mass-market Seat and
Skoda brands. By the end of
2012, Volkswagen either
owned outright or held con-
trolling stakes in 12 vehicle
brands, including supercar
producer Lamborghini,
heavy-truck makers MAN
and Scania, and motorcyclemaker Ducati.
His obsession with cars
— and the desire to make the
best possible ones, regard-
less of price — also cost VW a
lot of money. With the
flopped Phaeton sedan, the
Bugatti Veyron supercar
and Audi’s A2 hatchback,
the Volkswagen group ac-
counts for three out of the 10
biggest money losers in
modern automotive history,
according to estimates from
Max Warburton, an analyst
for Sanford C. Bernstein &
Co. That’s the worst track
record in the industry.
Enjoying a cult-like fol-
lowing within the company,
Piech often got his way when
he lost confidence in man-
agers, forcing out a series of
executives, including his
handpicked successor as
CEO, Bernd Pischetsrieder,in 2006. The supervisory
board’s leadership commit-
tee surprisingly defied him
in April 2015 by saying it
would vote to extend Martin
Winterkorn’s contract as
CEO, against Piech’s wishes.
Piech resigned as chairman
later that month.
“If I want to achieve
something, I approach the
problem and push it through
without realizing what’s
happening around me,” he
wrote in his 2002 autobiogra-
phy. “My desire for harmony
is limited.”
Piech’s legacy was
tainted by the spectacular
fallout with fellow family
members and other VW key
stakeholders over who was
to blame for the manufac-
turer’s diesel emissions
scandal, which has cost the
company $33 billion so far
and triggered the deepest
crisis in its history.
Piech said he had men-
tioned indications of pos-
sible wrongdoing to other
top officials in 2015 before
U.S. authorities uncovered
the large-scale emission ma-
nipulation months later, but
that those warnings weren’t
heeded. His allegations were
denied by his cousin Wolf-
gang Porsche and other VW
officials involved.
“Dieselgate put the final
besmirchment on his ca-
reer,” Wolkonowicz said.
“Most people believe that
because he was such a
hands-on manager that he
probably knew about it.”
Ferdinand Karl Piech
was born April 17, 1937, in Vi-
enna. His father, Anton, was
a lawyer, and his mother,
Louise, was the daughter of
Ferdinand Porsche. The
third of four children, Ferdi-nand Piech had two broth-
ers and a sister.
After attending the Swiss
boarding school Lyceum
Alpinum Zuoz, near St.
Moritz, from 1952 until 1958,
he studied engineering at
the Swiss Federal Institute
of Technology in Zurich. In
1963, Piech went to work for
his uncle Ferry at Porsche
in Stuttgart, where he later
became a technical man-
ager.
Piech joined VW in 1972,
when he moved to Audi from
Porsche after the family de-
cided to end its active role in
the operations. At Audi, he
pushed the development of
the Quattro all-wheel-drive
system, helping establish
the brand as an innovator
and later enabling it to over-
take Daimler’s Mercedes-
Benz in global luxury-car
sales in 2011.
This year, the holding
company for the Porsche
and Piech family, Volks-
wagen’s main owners, said it
may buy more shares in the
carmaker. Porsche Automo-
bil Holding, which owns
about 53% of Volkswagen,
said in March that VW’s mar-
ket value doesn’t reflect its
“vast potential.”
Piech arranged for his
wife to be appointed to VW’s
supervisory board in 2012.
The two resigned their
board seats in April 2015.
He had five children with
his first wife, the former Co-
rina von Planta; two from his
relationship with Marlene
Porsche, the former wife of
his cousin Gerhard Porsche;
three with Ursula Piech; and
two other children.Reiter and Rauwald write
for Bloomberg.FERDINAND PIECH, 1937 - 2019
Auto titan combined VW with Porsche
By Chris Reiter and
Christoph Rauwald
Peter SteffenEPA/Shutterstock
DRIVEN TO SUCCESS
Ferdinand Piech, foreground, was key to Volkwagen’s return to profitability
and the Porsche acquisition. But the VW emissions scandal tainted his legacy.