The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-27)

B8 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, MAY 27 , 2022

obituaries

ists working in the nation’s capi-

tal. “We’re not market minded,”

Ms. Swift, who was rapidly pro-

moted to managing editor, told

the Washington Times. “We pre-

fer to spot talent and feature

those whom we feel are about to

start a brilliant career.”

Ms. Swift made clear to Witten-

berg that she was not available to

subsidize the perpetually cash-

strapped operation — that what

she wanted, most of all, was to

work. In addition to her manage-

ment role, she served as a contrib-

uting writer and (self-taught)

photographer.

With her handheld Leica, she

peppered what she jokingly

called her “victims” — including

sculptor Martin Puryear and cu-

rator Walter Hopps — with rapid-

fire questions about their art

while snapping close-up pictures

in black and white. Many of those

images appeared in a 2005 retro-

spective of Ms. Swift’s photo work

BY ADAM BERNSTEIN

Mary Swift, a well-traveled mil-
itary brat and CIA wife whose
divorce marked her starting
point as doyenne of the Washing-
ton arts scene for three decades,
as a hostess, exhibit curator, pho-
tographer, writer and editor, died
April 24 at an assisted-living
home in Potomac, Md. She was
95.
The cause was complications
from dementia, said her daughter
Isabel Swift.
In a childhood and early adult-
hood defined by adventure and
dislocation, Ms. Swift grew up on
military bases from New York to
Hawaii as her father rose to major
general in the Army Air Forces
during World War II. She married
a few years after the war and
accompanied her CIA officer hus-
band to such assignments as
Baghdad, where she hunted jack-
als in the desert, and London,
where she developed a strong
attachment to theater while rais-
ing four children.
By the late 1960s, she was a
divorced mother living in Wash-
ington and looking for ways to
“re-create” herself, as her daugh-
ter remembered. Ms. Swift re-
ceived master’s degrees in drama
as well as art history and, as an
heir to the National Cash Register
fortune, enmeshed herself in the
city’s thriving art milieu as a
buyer and socially connected
hostess.
Her home, then on Reservoir
Road in the District’s George-
town neighborhood, became a
gathering place for artists such as
Sam Gilliam, William Christen-
berry and Jacob Kainen to mingle
with prominent art dealers, nota-
bly her friend Harry Lunn Jr. She
also offered bedrooms for per-
formers visiting from out of town,
including dancer Lucinda Childs.
One overnight guest, photogra-
pher Robert Mapplethorpe, acci-
dentally (she assumed) left be-
hind a cache of homoerotic pic-
tures.
She sometimes appeared at
openings in jodhpurs and riding
boots — a sartorial flourish that
spoke to her equal fondness for
the equestrian life. In 1977, she
became a production assistant at
the Washington Review, a publi-
cation that had sprouted up two
years earlier to cover the local
arts scene in depth and proved
instrumental in boosting the ca-
reers of several local writers and
fine artists.
Co-founder Clarissa Witten-
berg described Ms. Swift as forth-
right, with a bracing candor and
sense of mission about the maga-
zine’s anti-commercial ethos, fo-
cusing on less-established but
promising literary and visual art-

at the District’s Flashpoint Gal-

lery, with artist Sidney Lawrence

commenting on Artnet.com that

she “perfectly captured the manic

small-town charm of D.C. art’s

mutton-chop era.”

According to Wittenberg, the

magazine, which came out every

two months, helped bring impor-

tant early publicity to artists such

as Puryear and was responsible

for the inclusion of several local

authors in literary anthologies.

The Washington Review folded in

2001 as Wittenberg and Ms. Swift

began to edge toward retirement.

Mary Howard Davidson was

born in Mineola, N.Y., on Oct. 13,

1926, and she was in Hawaii

during the 1941 Japanese attack

on Pearl Harbor. Her father, How-

ard, was a key figure at Wheeler

Field near Honolulu at the time

and later commanded the 10th

Air Force in the China-Burma-

India theater. Her mother was the

former Mary Patterson, whose

father and uncle started the Na-

tional Cash Register manufactur-

ing company.

Having left Hawaii after the

attack, Ms. Swift graduated in

1944 from the private Madeira

School in McLean, Va., and in

1950 from Vassar College. She

received a master’s degree in

speech and drama from Catholic

University in 1973 and a master’s

degree in art history from George

Washington University in 1978.

Her marriage, to Carleton B.

Swift Jr., ended in divorce. Their

daughter Lila Swift, 13, died in a

1973 plane crash. Mrs. Swift’s

brother Stuart Davidson, an in-

vestment banker turned restau-

rateur whose properties included

Clyde’s of Georgetown and the

Old Ebbitt Grill, died in 2001.

In addition to her daughter

Isabel, of Washington, survivors

include two sons, Byron Swift of

Washington and Bill Swift of

Bethesda, Md.; a sister; four

grandchildren; and three great-

grandchildren.

Beyond her work with the

Washington Review, Ms. Swift

occasionally helped put together

exhibitions at area galleries and,

in 1978, worked as a curatorial

assistant for a Corcoran Gallery

of Art retrospective on painter

Howard Mehring, on whom she

had written her art history thesis.

She also served on the boards

of local arts institutions, includ-

ing the Washington Project for

the Arts; contributed art criti-

cism to the Georgetowner news-

paper; and was on the Corcoran

Women’s Committee and other

fundraising bodies. From her

longtime estate in Upperville, she

was a staple of Virginia’s hunt

country social scene and a cham-

pion horsewoman until leaving

the saddle at 85.

MARY SWIFT, 95

Re-created herself as doyenne of D.C. arts scene

WILLIAM F. SWIFT

Mary Swift sometimes appeared at art gallery openings in jodhpurs and riding boots — a sartorial

flourish that spoke to her equal fondness for the equestrian life.

OF NOTE

Obituaries of residents from the
District, Maryland and Northern Vir-
ginia.

Esther Chow,
AU professor
Esther Chow, 78, a sociology
professor emerita at American
University in Washington who re-
tired in 2011 after 38 years on the
faculty, died April 11 at a hospital
in Washington. The cause was
pneumonia, said a daughter, Jen-
nifer Grizenko.
Dr. Chow, a resident of Poto-
mac, Md., was born Esther Nang-
Ling in Hong Kong.
At AU, she specialized in sociol-
ogy, race, class, gender and sexual-
ity, especially in Asian American
women.

Ernest Hardaway II,
Public health physician
Ernest Hardaway II, 88, a Pub-
lic Health Service physician who
was D.C. Health Commissioner
from 1982 to 1984 while on sec-
ondment to the District govern-
ment, died March 9 at a hospice

center in Orlando. The cause was

Alzheimer’s disease, said his wife,

Sandrea Hardaway.

Dr. Hardaway was born in Co-

lumbus, Ga. After leaving Wash-

ington, he was a regional health

officer based in Chicago and re-

tired in 2001.

John Musick,

airline pilot

John Musick, 83, a pilot who

retired from United Airlines in

1998 after 34 years with the com-

pany, died April 18 at a hospital in

Fairfax County, Va. The cause was

respiratory failure, said a son,

James Musick.

Mr. Musick, who lived in Oak-

ton, Va., was born in Holston, Va.

At United Airlines, he had been

flight engineer, flight instructor

and commercial pilot. He retired

as a captain aboard a Boeing 747-

400.

Duane Shank,

writer, policy adviser

Duane Shank, 70, a former com-

munity organizer and anti- nu-

clear activist who from 1995 to

2014 was a writer and policy advis-

er to the social justice publication

Sojourners, died April 20 at his

home in Goshen, Ind. The cause

was chronic obstructive pulmo-

nary disease, said a daughter, Ce-

leste Kennel-Shank.

Mr. Shank was born in Cham-

bersburg, Pa. In a gesture of pro-

test against the Vietnam War, he

refused to register for the draft

when he turned 18 in 1970 and was

arrested. He served a night in jail

and several years on probation, his

family said.

He lived in Washington from

1973 to 2015 before moving to Indi-

ana.

Yukiye Wilkes,

homemaker

Yukiye Wilkes, 97, a Bethesda,

Md., homemaker from the late

1960s to 2003 and member of the

Potomac Chrysanthemum Soci-

ety, died April 24 at a health-care

center in Asheville, N.C. The cause

was pneumonia, said a daughter,

Carol Henn.

Mrs. Wilkes was born Yukiye

Yamai in Isleton, Calif.

She spent the years of World War

II in Japan and was living in a

suburb of Hiroshima when the city

was hit by an atomic bomb in 1945.

Edward Willim III,

NIH accountant

Edward Willim III, 89, an ac-

countant who worked about 30

years for the National Institutes of

Health before retiring in 1991,

died March 20 at a nursing home

in Herndon, Va. The cause was

complications from covid-19, said

his daughter Stephanie Willim-

Ostmann.

Mr. Willim, a Herndon resident,

was born in Newark, Del., and

raised in Washington.

Zina Bleck,

FAA analyst, theater director

Zina Bleck, 60, a program ana-

lyst at the Federal Aviation Ad-

ministration who helped promote

community theater in Northern

Virginia, directing and acting in

dozens of plays and founding the

Arlington theater company Zemfi-

ra Stage, died March 26 at her

companion’s home in Hyattsville,

Md. The cause was a cardiovascu-

lar disease, said her companion,

Leonard Hughes.

Ms. Bleck was born in Califor-

nia and grew up in Los Angeles.

After moving to the Washington

area to work for Northrop Grum-

man, she joined local theater

groups including the Reston Com-

munity Players. She was later the

artistic director of Castaways Rep-

ertory Theatre in Woodbridge,

and became known for discover-

ing talented but inexperienced ac-

tors and casting them without re-

gard to race, gender or disability.

“She took an Air Force colonel

with no experience other than a

small part in her ‘Camelot’ and

cast him as the lead in ‘Godspell,’

and he was incredible,” said

Hughes, a former Washington

Post editor and theater reviewer.

“She cast a blind woman as a lead

in ‘The Producers,’ and she

brought down the house.”

— From staff reports

ANNOUNCEMENT

PAID DEATH

NOTICES

MEMORIALDAY

HOLIDAYHOURS

May30, 2022

11 a.m. ~3p.m.

PhotoDeadline:

12 noon

NO EXCEPTIONS

To placeanotice,

call:

202-334-4122

800-627-1150

Ext. 4-4122

[email protected]

IN MEMORIAM

BROWN-WILSON

ISAIAHC. BROWN-WILSON

It’sbeenfourlongyearssince

you’vebeengone.UntilIseeyouagain.

G-Ma

DEATHNOTICE

FLORIA

RITARICE FLORIA(Age82)

RitaRiceFloria,of OceanCity,MDpassed

awayonSunday,December26, 2021 at

AtlanticGeneralHospitalinBerlin.She

wasbornin Washington,DCandwasthe

daughterofthelateWarrenWatsonRice

andRitaMargaret(Roche)Rice.Shegradu-

atedfromMontgomeryBlairHighSchoolin

1956 andworkedat theNavalSurfaceWar-

fareCenteruntilherretirementin1991.

ShemovedtoOceanCityin 1992where

shewasdevotedtovolunteerisminclud-

ingtheOceanCityVolunteerFireCompa-

nyandnineyearsattheAtlanticGeneral

Hospital.Ritawasfiercelydedicatedto

herhusband,AngeloFloriawhopassed

awayonDecember15,2021,andher

threechildren,PeggyFloria,PaulFloria,

andPatriceFloria.Serviceswereprivate.In

lieuofflowers,donationsin hermemory

maybemadeto theOceanCityVolunteer

FireCompany,P.O.Box27,OceanCity,MD

21843,wherefuturevolunteerfirefighters

aretrainedto servetheircommunity.Con-

dolencesmaybesentbyvisitingwww.

bishophastingsfh.com.

HARRIS

VERONICAM. CONRADHARRIS

PassedawayonApril27, 2022 at herresi-

dencein Texas.AMemorialServicewillbe

heldonSaturday,May28, 2022 at 2p.m.at

theCourtyardbyMarriot,DowntownSilver

Spring,Maryland, 8506 FentonStreet.Face

MasksRequired.

MARSHALL

THELMAIRENEMARSHALL

ThelmaI. Marshall,age104,ofDistrict

HeightsMDpassedawayonSaturdayMay

21,2022.Sheis survivedbyhersonAlanP.

Marshall,daughterLindaA.Marshall-Bell

andsisterMarieKileyandhermanynieces

andnephews.

VisitationwillbeonTuesdayMay 31 from

2to5p.m.andWednesdayJune1, from

10 to 11 a.m.withservicesimmediately

followingat BeallFuneral Home,6512NW

CrainHwy.(Rt.3) Bowie,MD.Intermentat

CedarHillCemetery,Suitland,MD.Please

viewandsignFamilyGuestBookat

http://www.beallfuneral.com

MILLER

FELICIAHUGHESMILLER

FeliciaHughesMillerpassedawaypeace-

fullyonMay7, 2022.Homegoingserviceis

Friday,May27, 2022 at 10a.m.to 12p.m.

atReidTempleAMEChurch, 11400 Glenn

DaleBoulevard,GlennDale,MD20769.

MILLER

MAGDALENEL. MILLER

OfPotomac,Maryland,passedawayon

Friday,May20, 2022 withherfamilyby

herside.BelovedwifeofthelateMelvin

Miller.DearmotherofthelateStephen

(Judy)Miller,SuzanneMiller(BrettNel-

son)andMark(Renee)Miller.Cherished

grandmotherof StephenMiller,Jr.,Patrick

(Morgan)Miller,HollyMiller,ZacharyMiller,

Elaine(TylerFritz)Miller,andHayleyMiller.

Great-grandmotherofCharlotteandEvie

Schaeffer.Alsosurvivedbymanyotherlov-

ingrelativesandfriends.

FriendswillbereceivedatOurLadyof

MercyCatholicChurch, 9200 Kentsdale

Drive,Potomac,MD2 0854 onFriday,June

3, 2022from 10 a.m.to 11 a.m.followed

byaMassof ChristianBurialat 11a.m.In-

termentSt.Gabriel’sCemetery.Inlieuof

flowers,memorialcontributionsmaybe

madetoMontgomeryHospiceathttps://

montgomeryhospice.org/giving.Please

viewandsignfamilyguestbook

S0114 5X2.75 http://www.pumphreyfuneralhome.com

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