January 24, 2006
Janette Carter, 82, the last surviving child of country music's original Carter Family, who in recent years preserved her parents' old-time style with weekly performances, died Sunday in Kingsport, Tenn. She had been battling Parkinson's disease, her family said.
She was the daughter of A.P. and Sara Carter. Her parents and her father's sister-in-law Maybelle Carter formed a singing trio discovered in 1927 when talent scout Ralph Peer came through the Tennessee-Virginia border town of Bristol to record mountain music. When her brother Joe died last March, Janette Carter became the last surviving child of the original group's members. The best known of her generation to present-day listeners was country star June Carter Cash, a daughter of Maybelle and wife of Johnny Cash. She and her husband died in 2003.
After the death of her father in 1960, Janette Carter dedicated her life to preserving not only the Carter Family music, but the folk and country music of Appalachia. One result of that effort was establishment of the Carter Family Fold, an auditorium built from railroad ties and school bus seats near the family farm in Hiltons, Va. She played autoharp.
"It's good for younger people to know this kind of music," Janette Carter said in a 2002 Associated Press article. "There was a time when music told a story; it wasn't just some beat."
On his deathbed, she said, her father "called me over and said `Janette, I want you to continue the music the way we'd done it.'"
At the time of the 2002 interview, she was still giving concerts every Saturday.
"It's really remarkable how well Janette carried on her family's legacy by helping create the Carter Fold and what that has grown into from such humble beginnings," said Bill Hartley, executive director of the Birthplace of Country Music Alliance in Bristol. "Thanks to the foundation she built with the Carter Fold, her family legacy lives on."
In September, Janette Carter was given the Bess Lomax Hawes Award by the National Endowment for the Arts, which recognized her lifelong effort to preserve and perform Appalachian music.
Rose Bouziane Nader, 99, a Lebanese immigrant and author who raised consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, died of congestive heart failure Friday at her home in Winsted, Conn., about 20 miles northwest of Hartford. She would have turned 100 Feb. 7.
"It's just breaking us up," her son told the Associated Press yesterday. "The heart that's been beating since 1906 couldn't make it until [Feb. 7]. She put a lot of forces into motion directly and through her children that I think created a lot of improvement in our country."
Born in Lebanon, she became a high school teacher of French and Arabic. She married Nathra Nader in 1925 and emigrated to the United States a short time later, settling in Danbury, Conn., and then in Winsted, where they raised four children.
Ralph Nader founded numerous consumer groups, including the Public Interest Research Group and the Center for Auto Safety. In 2000, he was the Green Party presidential candidate and ran for president in 2004 as an independent.
He recalled his mother's advice when entering the national political scene.
"She always said if you think there's anything more difficult than becoming well-known in our country, it's learning how to endure it," Mr. Nader said.
In 1991, she wrote It Happened in the Kitchen, which explained her philosophy of raising children and the connection between good food and diverse family dinner conversations. Her husband, a businessman, died in 1991.
W. Hunter Simpson, 79, a business executive and philanthropist who helped make Physio-Control an industry leader in heart-disease technology, died of heart failure Friday in Seattle.
He was the former president and chief executive officer of Redmond, Wash.-based Physio-Control, which makes heart defibrillators and other heart and blood-pressure monitoring equipment. He retired in 1985.
Mr. Simpson joined Physio-Control in 1966 after 17 years as an IBM sales-and-marketing executive. He is credited by The Seattle Times with the idea for a four-day workweek made up of 10-hour days. In 1985, Physio-Control was included in the book, The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America.
When he took over Physio-Control, he quickly turned it into one of the nation's most respected companies. Eli Lilly and Co. bought the company for $149 million in 1980, but kept Mr. Simpson at the helm. It was acquired by Medtronic Inc. in 1998.
