John Eugene Poling, 78, lumber company director
John Eugene Poling, former director of operations for an Annapolis lumber company, died March 14 of cancer at Brighton Gardens Health Care Center in Naples, Fla. He was 78.
Mr. Poling had lived in Glen Burnie for 42 years before moving to Florida last year.
In the 1990s, he retired from J. F. Johnson Lumber Co., where he had been director of operations for 20 years. Earlier, he was a building superintendent for Kasten Construction Co. and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
He was born in Belington, W.Va., and graduated in 1939 from high school there. He served in the Civilian Conservation Corps until joining the Army in 1942.
He served in the China-Burma-India theater during World War II. He was a signalman with the 23rd Heavy Construction Battalion, which built Ledo Road, a major supply link connecting India with the Burma Road. He was discharged with the rank of technical sergeant in 1946.
He was a member of the CBI Veterans Association and its Stillwell Basha chapter in Washington. He belonged to the Burma Star Association, Glen Burnie Moose Lodge 213, Annapolis Lodge 622 of the Elks and the Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni Chapter 113.
He and his wife had a second home at the Villages of Country Creek Golf and Country Club in Estero, Fla., where he was living at his death.
He photographed migratory birds and collected and drove Austin-Healy sports cars.
A memorial service is planned for noon April 7 in the chapel of Loudon Park Funeral Home, 3620 Wilkens Ave.
He is survived by his wife of 51 years, the former Lucile Stoltz; a brother, Sylvester M. Poling Jr. of Deerfield Beach, Fla.; nephews and nieces; and special family friend Young Lee Chase of Lutherville.
Virginia D. Fauntleroy, 92, Talbot County educator
Virginia D. Fauntleroy, a retired Talbot County educator, died Friday of complications from dementia at Oak Crest Village in Parkville. She was 92.
A longtime Easton resident, she had lived at North Oaks Retirement Community in Pikesville before moving to Oak Crest Village.
Mrs. Fauntleroy began teaching first grade in one-room segregated schools in 1926 and retired in 1970.
Born Virginia Davis in Parkersburg, W.Va., she was raised in Marietta, Ohio. She earned a teaching certificate from West Virginia State College and a bachelor's degree from what is now Morgan State University.
Active in community affairs, she had been a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and had served as president of the Talbot County Mental Health Association and the Talbot County Retired Teachers Association.
She had been a member of the Easton Memorial Hospital Auxiliary, the American Red Cross, League of Women Voters, Easton Day Care and the Links social club. Her many civic activities earned her awards from the NAACP and the Talbot County chapter of the Soroptomists.
Mrs. Fauntleroy was a parishioner of Asbury United Methodist Church in Easton and had been president of United Methodist Women there.
She enjoyed crocheting, knitting and entertaining.
In 1928, she married William H. Fauntleroy, who became principal of Easton High School. He died in 1985.
Services will be held at 1 p.m. tomorrow at Asbury United Methodist Church, 18 Higgins St.
She is survived by a daughter, Hortense Fauntleroy of Hillendale; and many nephews and nieces.
Marie C. Miller, 82, Girl Scout leader
Marie C. Miller, a homemaker and Girl Scout leader, died March 14 of complications from Parkinson's disease at Oak Crest Village in Parkville. She was 82 and had lived in Overlea for 47 years.
During World War II, Mrs. Miller made scientific and meteorological instruments at the Julien P. Friez Co. in Baltimore. Later, she was a dental assistant and a substitute teacher at Overlea High School.
She led two Rosedale Girl Scout troops and taught them crafts and led camping expeditions. She also chaperoned trips to a Scout chalet in Switzerland. She volunteered at Franklin Square Hospital and sang in the Choralaires and St. Michael's Roman Catholic Church choir in the 1970s.
She appeared as a supernumerary in Baltimore Opera Company productions during the 1970s.
Marie C. Widitz was born in Hazelton, Pa., where she attended public schools.
In 1944 she married Harold Miller, who died in 1996.
A Mass of Christian burial was offered Saturday at the Roman Catholic Church of the Annunciation in Rosedale, where she was a founding member and choir director.
She is survived by two sons, Thomas F. Miller of Joppa and Glenn W. Miller of Street; four daughters, Barbara Miller of Jacksonville, Fla., Terry M. Capp of McKees Rocks, Pa., Paula M. Green of Saratoga, Calif., and Beth H. Vogel of Perry Hall; and eight grandchildren.
Mary Lou Nowakowski, 67, homemaker
Mary Lou Nowakowski, a homemaker, died Saturday of ovarian cancer at her Cape St. Claire home. She was 67.
Mary Lou Burke was born in Baltimore and raised on Streeper Street. She was a Patterson High School graduate.
She taught religion at Our Lady of Cape St. Claire Roman Catholic Church.
She enjoyed reading, traveling and bird-watching.
In 1956, she married Stanley A. Nowakowski, who survives her.
A Mass of Christian burial for Mrs. Nowakowski will be offered at 10 a.m. today at St. Andrew by the Bay Roman Catholic Church, 701 College Parkway, Arnold, where she was a member.
She also is survived by a son, Steven Nowakowski of Annapolis; three daughters, Patricia Nowakowski of Baltimore, Kathryn Knight of Chester and Jacqueline Nowakowski of Monkton; a brother, Albert Burke of Baltimore; a sister, Margaret Wolfe of Dundalk; and six grandchildren.
Elsewhere
The Great Alzana, 82, the high-wire artist ballyhooed as "The Most Dare-devilish Human Ever to Skirt Eternity's Brink" whose tricks were so dangerous that New York state passed a law to keep him from working without a net, died Feb. 16 at a hospital in Sarasota, Fla.
Away from the spotlight, his name was Harold Davis, a native of Yorkshire, England.
In a career lasting more than 40 years, he broke his back and numerous other bones frequently, and it was because of his falls, fake falls and near falls that in 1953 New York enacted a law requiring a safety net for aerial acts more than 25 feet high. He worked at heights of 40 to 50 feet.
A spokeswoman for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, his former employer, said New York is the only state to have such a law.
The Great Alzana replaced the great Karl Wallenda as the top-billed act for Ringling Bros at its New York opening in 1947.
Tran Van Lam, 88, a former foreign minister of South Vietnam, died Feb. 6 in Canberra, Australia, where he had settled after the fall of the government in Saigon in 1975. His death was reported in the journal Indochina Chronology.
Mr. Lam was an important figure in the tortuous negotiations behind the scenes and at the conference table that produced the peace accords in 1973.
He became foreign affairs minister in 1969 and led Saigon's negotiators in the final stretch to the wider international conference in Paris. He signed the final accord for his government but was replaced as minister later in 1973 by President Nguyen Van Thieu, a former general.
Mr. Lam then went to the South Vietnamese Senate and was a central figure at another critical juncture, in April 1975. That month, Mr. Thieu resigned in favor of an associate, Tran Van Huong.
In rapid succession, Mr. Lam helped persuade Mr. Huong to leave voluntarily and, with Viet Cong troops at the gates of Saigon, to relinquish what was left of his power to Gen. Dong Van Minh. General Minh and Mr. Lam, as Senate president, convened the legislative session that installed the last head of state in Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City.
Harry Stone Mosher, 85, professor emeritus of chemistry at Stanford University, died March 2 in Stanford, Calif. He began teaching organic chemistry at Stanford in 1947 and invented the Mosher Reagent, which is used to measure the degree of left- or right-handedness in organic molecules.
Robert T. Howard, 73, a president of the NBC television network from 1974 to 1977, died March 11 of complications from heart disease in New York. He helped negotiate acquisition of rights to the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, which NBC abandoned after the United States announced a boycott of the games in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Sir Anthony Faville Tuke, 80, head of Barclays Bank from 1973 to 1981, died March 6 in England. As a banker, he defended business and sports contacts with South Africa during the apartheid era and both exemplified and defended his bank's unusual tradition of reserving most top posts for the descendants of its original founding families.
Anne George, Alabama's state poet in 1994 and a publisher who won a prestigious Agatha Award for the first novel of her "Southern Sisters" mysteries, died March 14 in Birmingham, Ala., of complications during heart surgery. She was believed to be in her 70s but her age was not given.
Ms. George was the author of seven mystery novels, including "Murder on a Girls' Night Out," with Morrow-Avon, a Harper-Collins imprint. She published a literary work, "This One and Magic Life," along with several volumes of poetry.
Cord Meyer, 80, one of the defining figures in the history of the Central Intelligence Agency and a member of its founding generation, died March 13 in Washington of natural causes.
He joined the CIA in 1951 and rose to be the associate deputy director of plans - now operations - a post he held from 1967 to 1973. He was CIA station chief in London from 1973 until he retired in 1977.
U.S. District Judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz, 95, one of the best-known figures on the federal bench in Chicago for almost three decades, died Saturday. A favorite of Chicago Democratic politicians, he swore in Richard J. Daley as mayor six times. He administered the same mayoral oath to Mr. Daley's son, Richard M. Daley, three times.
In private practice, clients who became friends included Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Durante. He was named to the federal bench in 1963 and took senior status a dozen years later but continued to preside over cases until 1990.