Patricia Hudson Ford, 77, Sheppard Pratt volunteer
Patricia Hudson Ford, a homemaker who volunteered thousands of hours at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, died Tuesday of heart failure at Winchester Medical Center in Virginia. She was 77 and had lived in Rodgers Forge since 1962.
Patricia Hudson was born and raised in Detroit and was a graduate of public schools there. She attended a secretarial school in Rochester, N.Y., and worked as a secretary for the War Department in Rochester during World War II.
She was married in 1945 to Phillip Ford, an insurance administrator with American Health & Life, and moved to Rodgers Forge in 1962. He died in 1985.
Mrs. Ford volunteered more than 5,000 hours in the patient library at Sheppard Pratt between 1973 and 1995.
She was a member of the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, where a service was held Friday.
She is survived by a son, Bryan S. Ford of Rodgers Forge; a daughter, Melissa L. Coder of Stephens City, Va.; two grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.
Aleine Austin Cohen, 78, educator, historian, author
Aleine Austin Cohen, an educator and historian whose field of interest was the history of the American labor movement, died Saturday of pneumonia at the University of Southern California, San Diego Medical Center in La Jolla, Calif. She was 78.
A resident of Park Heights for 30 years, she had lived in La Jolla since 1997.
Mrs. Cohen was the author of "Mathew Lyon, `New Man' of the Democratic Revolution," published by Penn State University Press in 1981; and "Labor," a short history of the American labor movement, which was published in 1947. She was also a contributor to the Monthly Review and the Antioch Review.
Born in Woodmere, Long Island, N.Y., Aleine Austin was the daughter of Alvin Austin, a Baltimore native and New York public relations executive who founded the Father's Day Council.
She was a graduate of Hunter College High School and earned her bachelor's degree from Antioch College in 1940. She later earned her master's and doctoral degrees in American history from Columbia University in New York.
During World War II, she served as education director of the Mississippi River Workmen's Program of the National Maritime Union, which educated shipboard workers.
After World War II, she served on the staff of the Monthly Review and taught in the early 1950s at Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, where she became acquainted with Rosa Parks and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., students at the school. She also later taught at Western Maryland College and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
She was married in 1951 to Dr. Abraham Mufson, a dentist, who died in 1963. Her second husband of many years, Dr. Jonas Cohen, a Baltimore physician, died in 1993.
A graveside service will be held at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Salem Fields Cemetery, 775 Jamaica Ave., Brooklyn, N.Y.
Mrs. Cohen is survived by a son, Michael Mufson of Vista, Calif.; a daughter, Laurie Mufson of Mercersburg, Pa.; a sister, Jean Kaufer of Los Angeles; and two grandsons.
Albert Nicholas Tavares, 69, career infantryman
Albert Nicholas Tavares, who lived his life as a soldier, died of renal failure May 27 at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Baltimore. A career infantryman in the Army, he saw much fighting in Korea and Vietnam. He was 69.
Mr. Tavares was born in New Bedford, Mass., but moved to Baltimore at an early age so his ailing mother could be near her family. When she died five years later, his father returned with him to New Bedford, leaving his two older children behind in the care of relatives.
Mr. Tavares later dropped out of school, but attained his high school equivalency before joining the Army in 1951 and shipping out to Korea. A short time later, he suffered a partial hearing loss when a helicopter crashed near his position, killing one of his best friends.
"He saw a lot of fighting, a lot of combat, lost a lot of friends in a lot of different places during his years in the service," said his sister, Ellen T. Dutton of Baltimore. "It really affected him over the years, but he always loved the Army. It was like his second home."
Mr. Tavares later served two tours in Vietnam between stints in Germany and elsewhere in Asia before retiring in the mid-1970s as a specialist five and returning to New Bedford.
There, he mostly pursued jobs in restaurants and maintenance companies and became a fixture during tax season at City Hall, where he helped with clerical work. He was also a longtime member of American Legion Post 71 in Provincetown, Mass.
An aerospace buff, he enjoyed touring the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on his frequent visits to his extended family in Baltimore and took flying lessons for years before military disabilities forced him from the cockpit.
Mr. Tavares also enjoyed traveling and playing board games with his nieces and nephews after he moved to Baltimore two years ago to live at the Veterans Affairs Rehabilitation and Extended Care Center.
