Funeral

I feel that the article by The Sun's Annie Linskey on the funeral of Delegate Ruth M. Kirk was the most classless piece of journalism ever written ("Ehrlich describes friendship in address at Del. Kirk's funeral," June 25). The funeral was about Ruth Kirk not Bob Ehrlich and his campaign. Jeffrie Zellmer, Annapolis

Baltimore County police and fire personnel throughout the region are participating today in the funeral for Reisterstown Volunteer Fire Department member Gene Kirchner, who died Thursday of injuries he suffered in a fire last week in Reisterstown. The funeral was held beginning at 1 p.m., at Har Sinai Congregation, on Walnut Avenue in Owings Mills. County police say Walnut Avenue was closed between Greenspring Avenue and Park Heights Avenue beginning at 11:30 a.m., and will reopen when the procession has left Har Sinai.

Your reporter, Tricia Bishop, succinctly described the issues that dominated the Snyder v. Phelps argument before the Supreme Court Wednesday ("Protest Boundaries," Oct. 7). We attended the argument. The Justices' questions revealed their empathy and concern that a fringe religious group was using the First Amendment as cover for subjecting a private family to personal and hateful speech when they were mourning their son's death in Iraq. As we walked out of the Supreme Court, we saw the Westboro Baptist Church protesters waving the signs shown in the front page photograph that accompanied your news article.

The funeral procession for Matthew Hersl crawled through the tight streets of Southeast Baltimore, moving past the Milan restaurant, the Inner Harbor Travel agency and the Little Italy parking garage. Steve Hersl, Matt's brother, blared his car horn as he inched along. A blue passenger van with a Baltimore Orioles hat resting on the dashboard led the convoy through the 45-year-old city finance supervisor's neighborhood. As the procession passed his home, Steve leaned out his black Hyundai and yelled, "I love you, Matt!"

The funeral for Baltimore Officer William H. Torbit Jr. is scheduled to begin Wednesday morning with a small procession down Pennsylvania Avenue, where the drug cop patrolled for eight years and forged strong ties with the community. Services will begin Wednesday at 10 a.m. at The Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in the 5200 block of N. Charles St., with an interment at Arbutus Memorial Park. Police say North Charles Street between Cold Spring Lane and Northern Parkway will be closed, and that delays should be expected in the area.

While members of Westboro Baptist Church waved a sign outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday thanking God for dead soldiers, the nine justices inside tried to define the line at which such public protests become personal attacks during arguments in an emotionally charged case prompted by the picketing of a Maryland Marine's funeral. Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder was 20 years old when he was killed in a Humvee accident in Iraq on March 3, 2006. A week later, publicity-seeking members of the fire-and-brimstone Kansas congregation — all strangers to the Snyders — appeared at his family's Catholic funeral service in Westminster with posters proclaiming sentiments like "God Hates America" and "Semper Fi Fags.

In homage to their dead matriarch and to centuries of their secretive culture, scores of Gypsies gathered over the past three days for a festive funeral -- feasting on fish and fruit, dancing to Dixieland jazz and drinking whiskey straight from the bottle.Yesterday at Western Cemetery, mourners for Deborah Stevens threw coins on a rain-speckled white and silver coffin, a tradition meant to ease her into heaven and into the grave.Ms. Stevens, whose decapitated body was found last week, was buried in a winter-white sequined gown after two days of mourning over an open casket at Frank Della Noce & Sons Funeral Home in Little Italy.

The funeral for Baltimore Police Detective Troy Lamont Chesley, who was fatally shot during an apparent robbery this week, will be held Tuesday at New Shiloh Baptist Church, 2100 N. Monroe St. Interment will be at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens, 200 Padonia Road in Timonium. Viewings will be held Sunday and Monday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at March Funeral Home, 4300 Wabash Ave. Chesley, 34, graduated from City College in 1990 and joined the police force in 1993. He served in various patrol districts, in the tactical squad and in the housing unit.

Funeral services will be held Wednesday at noon for 14-year-old Joseph Paul d'Entremont of Bel Air, who was killed by a car while crossing a street Friday night. D'Entremont, a freshman at Fallston High School, died after being struck while crossing Route 24 where Red Pump Road and Bynum Road intersect about 9:45 p.m. A viewing will be held at the Mountain Christian Church in Joppa on Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and on Wednesday from 10 a.m. until noon. The funeral will follow.

As a longtime member of Colonial Baptist Church who attended the June 23 funeral services for Christopher Brown, I found it hard to believe the Sun reporter was present and awake during the funeral based on the paper's account of the occasion ("Hundreds gather to mourn teen who died after fight with off-duty officer," June 23). The article focuses on the approximately five minutes that Rev. Jamal Bryant spoke. He was on the program only to make comments. Three paragraphs were use to report his message.

Rebecca Rigger, a League of Women Voters activist who monitored the Baltimore County Planning Board, died of a heart attack March 25 at her Monkton home. She was 85. Born Rebecca Rogers in Big Island, Va., she was raised at an apple orchard in the Blue Ridge Mountains. She earned a bachelor's degree from what is now James Madison University, where she was editor of the college newspaper. As a young woman, she moved to eastern Baltimore County and taught at Middle River Junior High School.

Somewhere along the line, Hal Cummings came up with the slogan "Have Pipes, Will Travel. " That's no exaggeration. On St. Patrick's Day in particular, Cummings, a Naval Academy graduate and retired Navy line officer as well as a master bagpipe player, faces a whirlwind schedule. On Saturday night, the Arnold resident is scheduled to play in Washington establishments including the Irish Whistle, the Mighty Pint, the Side of the Whale and the Uptown Tap House. "Then on St. Patrick's Day, I'll be playing with a group that includes a guitarist, keyboard player and a drummer," said Cummings a few days before the day of green celebration.

Family, friends and a host of elected officials celebrated the life of East Baltimore Del. Hattie N. Harrison at the West Baltimore United House of Prayer for All People, in a ceremony borne on the spirited rasps of trombones and rhythmic clattering of tambourines. "Today there's a lot of powerful emotion in this place," said Gov. Martin O'Malley. "There's also a lot of powerful music. " The funeral service struck a joyful tone as politicians from Baltimore and elsewhere in Maryland remembered the delegate who had represented her community since August 1973, making her the longest-serving African-American female legislator in the United States.

It was standing room only Thursday as family, friends and admirers of Robert Francell Chew said goodbye with a spirited and moving celebration of life ceremony for the actor known as Proposition Joe. More than 100 persons crowded into the chapel at the Calvin B. Scruggs Funeral Home in east Baltimore on a cold, snow-dusted morning. They ranged from other Baltimore actors who had won featured roles in HBO's "The Wire," like Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, to Raymond Parker, the high school music teacher who rook Chew under his wing at Patterson High, taught him to sing Italian opera and helped him get an audition that led to a four-year scholarship at Morgan State University.

Funeral services for former Orioles manager Earl Weaver, who died aboard a baseball-themed cruise in the Caribbean , have not yet been scheduled, but a private service will likely be held later this week in South Florida. The week-long cruise, which docked out of Fort Lauderdale, just returned to port Sunday morning, so funeral plans have just begun. The Orioles also plan to have some type of memorial service to honor Weaver, who led the team to four AL pennants and a World Series in 1970, but where and when that service would take place has yet to be scheduled.

Daniel Simons, managing partner of Hubbard Funeral Home, and his wife Heather will pick up 30 Christmas trees in North Carolina to give to the families of deployed Maryland National Guard veterans, in honor of their service. The Maryland National Guard Teen Council will help load the trees on the recipients' vehicles Dec. 8. A visit from Santa is expected and light refreshments will be served at the Wilkens Avenue funeral home.

DELANO, Calif. -- They were all his children, and they came to take him home.An estimated 35,000 people participated yesterday at the funeral of Cesar Chavez, president of the United Farm Workers of America, who died in his sleep Friday at age 66.Farm workers, Hispanics, old-time liberals and other supporters came from all over the country to honor the man many put in a class with Martin Luther King Jr."Cesar Chavez was a man of peace, a man of justice, a great leader for all Americans," said Dr. Dan Kelly, a member of the San Francisco Board of Education, who first met some of Mr. Chavez's workers during the grape boycotts of the 1960s.

ATLANTA -- The controversy surrounding the funeral of Coretta Scott King is a fitting coda to the final chapter of her story. After all, her husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., spent his life generating controversy, something we conveniently forget when we commemorate a sepia-toned and softly lighted version of their lives. Since the funeral, conservative commentators have been fueling the fires of partisan outrage over remarks made by former President Jimmy Carter - who, in a pointed allusion to modern-day government eavesdropping, noted that Dr. King was a victim of FBI surveillance - and the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, whose bad verse made valid points about an unjustified war and neglect of the poor.

The five victims of the fire that destroyed a Northeast Baltimore rowhouse Thursday will be memorialized together in a service Thursday. Nancy Worrell, 55, died along with her three grandchildren and a great-grandson in the 2 a.m. blaze that gutted her two-story brick home on Denwood Avenue. The victims were all found in the back bedroom on the second floor of the home. The deceased grandchildren are Daryl Stewart, 4, K-Niyah Scott, 2, and Tykia Manley, 7, who all lived at the residence.

Melvin B. Lowe Jr., a floral designer and funeral home attendant who was also a partner in a special-events and decorating company, died Sept. 27 of renal failure at his Washington home. The one-time Northeast Baltimore resident was 47. "Melvin was a tremendously gifted person and could do many things," said Carlton C. Douglas, owner of Carlton C. Douglas Funeral Services in Baltimore, where Mr. Lowe was employed. "He was a gifted artist who could arrange flowers or redesign a casket.