Posts in In Memory

Linda Gronlund, Passenger On United Airlines Flight 93, Remembered As ‘Formidable’ 

Award-Winning Blog In Memory

Walking through the front door, Elsa Gronlund Griffin quickly flipped on the television, noting a smoldering field from a crashed plane on the screen, and continued toward the answering machine. The red light was blinking. She had three messages.

The first was from a friend. The second was from her mother, Doris Gronlund, just to say hello.

The third was her sister’s voice.

“Elsa, it’s Lin,” she started.

“Um. I only have a minute. I’m on United 93, and it’s been hijacked, uh, by terrorists who say they have a bomb.”

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‘We Lived and Went to Hell’: Retired Port Authority Police Officer Relives Months on the 9/11 Pile

Blog In Memory

At age 47, Doris Caridi could see it — the way her retirement would unfold.

In a matter of months, she would give up her apartment in Brooklyn and move into her modest, cozy home in Water Mill, spending her free time with her sister, who lived nearby, and soaking in the bucolic surroundings.

She would mark the end of her 21-year career with the Port Authority Police alongside her closest colleagues, her final assignment being with the Emergency Service Unit at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. There, she reported to Inspector Anthony Infante, who promised to speak to human resources at the Port Authority Police to pin down a target date for her.

That was Friday, September 7, 2001, and Ms. Caridi was happy, she recalled — truly, deeply happy.

“But it didn’t work out,” she said, speaking 20 years later. “And I never saw him again.”

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Remembering A True Sag Harbor Character: Renowned Decoy Carver, Robert Hand Sr., Dies at 77

Blog In Memory

Every afternoon, like clockwork, Robert Hand Sr. could be found relaxing at his kitchen table in Sag Harbor, watching the birds through the window.

He knew them all. For the renowned decoy carver, they were his friends, his muses, his inspiration — and, in turn, he was their biggest fan.

But in recent weeks, the birds have gone without an audience. Mr. Hand died on January 11 after a cardiopulmonary arrest due to COVID-19 pneumonia at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, according to his eldest son, Robert Hand Jr. He was 77.

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Remembering Joe Pintauro, a Beloved Sag Harbor Playwright

In Memory Stage

“I hate to say it, but this cluster of people, it’s sort of the end of an era. These people that are between 85 and 95, there aren’t that many of them, when you think about it. There will be more to follow — more talented and creative people — but this was a group of really formidable artists. And extraordinarily influential. And Joe was one of them.”

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Robert Dash, Founder Of The Madoo Conservancy, Dies September 14

In Memory

Robert Dash was a man with wonderful hands — for writing, for painting, for gardening, for talking, and for petting his beloved Norwich terrier, Barnsley.

He was a man with a proper air, a garrulous nature and an intimidating intelligence, often punctuating his winding sentences with a thoughtful “yes” when he wasn’t speaking Latin, Greek or quoting poetry.

He was a man of contradictions—genuinely caring about those he had barely met, hosting parties and guests at his home while keeping his distance, and equally content reading classic literature or experimenting with new plant material, knee-deep in soil.

Mr. Dash knew who he was. There was only one man like him. And there will never be another.

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Bill King, 90, Remembered For Sharp Wit And Soaring Art

Art In Memory

Scott Chaskey and his daughter, Rowenna, stood at the entrance of a rather unremarkable shed in the Northwest Woods last week, with dozens of soaring metal sculptures with long, slender legs peeking out.

They were artist Bill King as Mozart, Bill King as John Faddis, Bill King as Mary Magdalene. They were Bill King singing, dancing and holding hands with children. They were Bill King in the furthest stretches of his imagination — a magical place, his family and friends attest, filled with generosity, wit and the driest sense of humor, if it could even be typified as that.

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Remembering The Colorful Life Of ‘Archie’ Illustrator Stan Goldberg

Art In Memory

With more than six decades under his belt as a comic book artist, Mr. Goldberg’s passion blossomed at a young age while growing up during the 1930s in Manhattan. After just turning 17, he went to work for a company that would become Marvel Comics, helping to design the original color schemes of all the classic 1960s characters, including Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and the Hulk.

“A lot of talent and a little luck I had at the beginning,” Mr. Goldberg said two years ago at the Box Art Auction preview, “and fell in at the right time. I had Stan Lee as my friend, my editor, everything else for the first 20 years of my professional life. We spent a lot of time together with the superheroes.”

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Sybil Christopher, 83, A Founder Of Bay Street Theatre, Has Died

In Memory Stage

Bay Street Theatre co-founder Sybil Christopher was born under a happy sun in the coal-mining Rhondda Valley of South Wales. Her laugh was infectious, endless and ever optimistic — despite the unpredictable hands that life regularly dealt her.

The longtime Sag Harbor resident was resilient, constantly reinventing herself with a gleam in her eye. And she never looked back. Always forward.

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