Obituaries

Theodore E. Thormann Sr., 77, Maryland Cup manager Theodore E. Thormann Sr., a retired Maryland Cup manager, died Sunday of cancer at his Fullerton home. He was 77. A quality control manager for Maryland Cup Corp., he had also worked part time at his contracting business, Firethorn Electric. Born in Baltimore, he grew up in Highlandtown and was a 1940 graduate of City College. Mr. Thormann served in the Army infantry during World War II in Europe. He later joined the Army Reserve and retired as a captain.

Arthur E. Mormann, 95, telephone company engineer Arthur E. Mormann, a retired Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. engineer, died Monday of heart failure at Charlestown Community in Catonsville. He was 95. Mr. Mormann, who lived in Lochearn for 50 years and wrote a history of it, had lived at the retirement community, since 1987. He joined C&P in 1922 and retired in 1969. During the Cold War in the mid-1950s, he helped design the DEW Line, an early-warning radar line that extended across Alaska.

Billy Hadaway, a free-spirited artist who made stylish jewelry, died March 3 of an apparent heart attack at his Mount Vernon apartment. He was 70. Friends described him as a pixie -- a short man with a full head of gray hair who wore wool sweaters even in Baltimore's summers. "He was a engaging character right out of a Flannery O'Connor novel -- very Southern and gay. His heyday in jewelry making was in the 1960s. He made my wedding band," said Charles Street picture framer James R. Pierce.

Myer Gershon Hankin, the retired co-owner of a Hampden menswear store, died Saturday of pneumonia at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was 75 and lived in Pikesville. With a cousin, he ran Hankin Brothers, a 36th Street clothing store founded by his father, uncle and grandfather in 1919. Known as Mike, he waited on customers, heard their stories and shared their confidences for nearly 42 years. "It's not the business I mind giving up. It's the people," Mr. Hankin said in a 1994 Evening Sun interview when he closed the shop's retail business.

James L. Roche III, 76, attorney for housing agency James Lawrence Roche III, a retired city government attorney, died Feb. 25 of cancer at St. Joseph Medical Center. The Hamilton resident was 76. He retired in 1976 from the Baltimore City Housing Authority's Relocation Division, where he worked for 26 years. He also maintained a private practice. Born in Northeast Baltimore, he was a graduate of City College, Baltimore College of Commerce and the Mount Vernon School of Law. In 1978, he received a doctor of laws degree from the University of Baltimore.

Bruce Anthony Brawner, a postal clerk and highly decorated Vietnam War veteran, died Sunday of cancer at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. He was 51. A survivor of the 1968 Tet offensive, Mr. Brawner's decorations earned during an 8 1/2-month tour of duty in Vietnam included a Bronze Star with a V for valor and three Purple Hearts. On Feb. 25, 1968, Mr. Brawner and his Army unit were engaged in a firefight at Fire Base Diamond, 30 miles northeast of Saigon near the Cambodian border, when 300 Viet Cong soldiers attacked.

Carl Albert, 91, who rose from the poverty of Oklahoma's coal country to become speaker of the House of Representatives and twice found himself next in line to the presidency, died Friday in McAlester, Okla. Mr. Albert spent 30 years representing Oklahoma's 3rd District. He became Democratic majority leader in 1962 and speaker in 1971. He retired in 1976. Mr. Albert was a Democratic leader in Congress when President John F. Kennedy was killed in 1963; when President Lyndon B. Johnson chose to forgo a re-election campaign because of an unpopular war in 1968; and when President Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency under threat of impeachment in 1974.

Ion Ratiu, 82, a former Romanian presidential candidate who once chained himself to the railings outside London's Ritz Hotel to protest the plight of Romanians under communism, died Sunday in Bucharest. Timothy "Little Rock" Reed, 39, who crusaded in Ohio for American Indian prisoners, died Saturday from injuries he suffered in an automobile accident in Albuquerque, N.M. Mr. Reed, who had said Ohio authorities wanted to silence him for speaking out against alleged abuses of Indian prisoners, fought for five years to avoid extradition from New Mexico to Ohio.

Bettino Craxi, 65, a Socialist who was Italy's longest-serving premier of the postwar years, died of a heart attack Wednesday in Tunisia, where he fled to avoid a prison sentence for corruption convictions. He held two back-to-back terms from August 1983 to March 1987, a remarkable feat in the country of "revolving door" governments. George Foerstner, 91, who transformed a businessman's request for a reliable beverage cooler into the popular Amana line of household appliances, died Sunday of cardiac complications in Bal Harbour, Fla., where he spent his winters.

Derek Anson Jones, 38, director of "Wit," the Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a woman facing death, died Monday in New York of complications from AIDS. Timothy P. Forte, 49, the director of aviation safety at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla., and a commentator on airplane crashes, was killed Jan. 12 in a traffic accident. Mr. Forte spent 25 years with the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board. Edward T. Hanley Sr., 67, who faced accusations of associating with organized crime in his 25 years of leading the United States' largest union of hotel and restaurant workers, died Jan. 7. Mr. Hanley was killed in a traffic accident near his country home in Land O' Lakes, Wis., authorities said.