Archive | 2013

John J. Gilligan, a former Ohio governor and Democratic congressman whose most lasting accomplishment, the state income tax, was also the undoing of his political career, died Aug. 26 at his home in Cincinnati. He was 92. The death was confirmed by his caregiver, Frank Kennedy, who did not provide a cause. Mr. Gilligan’s daughter Kathleen Sebelius, a former Kansas governor, is health and human services secretary under President Obama, who issued a statement honoring Mr. Gilligan. “Jack Gilligan lived his life in service to his fellow Americans,” Obama said. “Kathleen followed in the high tradition of public service that Jack set, and they became the first father-daughter team of governors in American history.” Mr. Gilligan, a teacher, was elected governor of Ohio in 1970, a year in which Republicans suffered from a scandal in the state treasurer’s office. He inherited a school funding crisis in which 24 districts had closed for lack of operating money, and more were expected to follow suit. Mr. Gilligan persuaded legislators to enact the state’s first corporate and personal income taxes in 1971 to raise money for dealing with those problems and other government priorities. During the tax battle, he closed state parks to save money. The move may have turned up the heat on legislators, but it also caused a public uproar. Mr. Gilligan also presided over the creation of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, the passage of strip-mine-reclamation laws and the separation of the prison and mental health agencies into distinct departments. As he headed into a campaign for a second term in 1974, he cited increased state funding for education, mental health services and programs to reduce drug abuse. But the income-tax issue continued to dog him. When a reporter asked at the Ohio State Fair whether Mr. Gilligan was going to shear a sheep on the fairgrounds, the governor said: “I shear taxpayers, not sheep.” In the 1974 race, James A. Rhodes, a former two-term Republican governor, hammered at Mr. Gilligan for raising taxes and scored an upset victory with a margin of about 11,000 votes out of 2.9 million cast. John Joyce Gilligan was born March 22, 1921, in Cincinnati. He served as a Navy gunnery officer in World War II and was awarded the Silver Star for saving several crew members of his destroyer after enemy guns set it ablaze off the island of Okinawa. Before his military service, he graduated from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. After the war, he received a master’s degree from the University of Cincinnati and started teaching literature at Xavier University in Cincinnati. Mr. Gilligan’s political career began in 1953 with his election to Cincinnati City Council. He was reelected five times. Mr. Gilligan was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1964, but his run for reelection two years later was defeated by Robert Taft Jr. (R). He returned to Cincinnati to serve on the City Council. In 1968, he defeated U.S. Sen. Frank J. Lausche for the Democratic nomination to the Senate, but he lost the general election to Republican William B. Saxbe. In 1970, Mr. Gilligan defeated Republican Roger Cloud in the general election for Ohio governor. After leaving the governor’s office, Mr. Gilligan was a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, and he led the U.S. Agency for International Development for two years. He returned to teaching, spending 12 years at Notre Dame, where he also headed the university’s Institute for International Peace Studies. In 1992, he joined the University of Cincinnati, where he was director of a civic forum at the law school. From age 78 to 86, Mr. Gilligan served as a school board member in Cincinnati. In a 1993 speech, Mr. Gilligan said the United States would never recover the millions of jobs lost in the relocation and downsizing of American industry. “What’s going on now in American industry is called re-engineering, redesigning whatever their product or service is, redesigning how they produce it to eliminate, insofar as humanly possible, human labor,” he said. “We will develop new industries and new types of employment hitherto unknown,” he said, “or our economy will continue to decay and deteriorate. All of us and our grandchildren will suffer the consequences.” His first wife, the former Mary Kathryn Dixon, died in 1996. In addition to Sebelius, they had three other children. Other survivors include Mr. Gilligan’s wife of 12 years, Susan Fremont.

Miles George Wedeman died of natural causes in Arlington Virginia on October 24, 2013. Born in Baltimore in 1923, Miles graduated from Swarthmore College in 1942 and at the age of 19 entered Harvard Law School. He soon left Harvard to join the US Navy as a lieutenant and served in the Pacific until 1946. After completing Harvard in 1948, he worked for the U.S. Navy Department and Ford Motor Company before joining the US Agency for International Development in 1963, where he served as Assistant Director of Africa Bureau, Deputy Director of the Mission in South Korea, Economic Attaché in Cambodia, Regional Director for West Africa, and finally as Mission Director in Syria. After retiring from AID, he served as Chief Administrative Officer of ICRASAT in India and then worked as consultant. He later volunteered at the White House during the Clinton Administration. His love of international travel never abated and in retirement he and his wife Martha continued to visit the far flung corners of the globe. For the last six years he was an active resident of the Falls Church Goodwin House, leading regular discussions on foreign affairs and hosting outside speakers. He is survived by his wife Martha, a daughter Sara, three sons Andrew, Benjamin, and Nicholas, and seven grandchildren. A reception honoring Miles will be held from 10 am to 1 pm on Saturday December 14, 2013 at the Goodwin House, 3440 S. Jefferson St., Falls Church, VA.

Eugene S. Staples, a former State Department official who later became president of a foundation promoting international understanding, died Oct. 4 at his home in Wakefield, R.I. He was 91.

The cause was congestive heart failure, his wife, Judy Staples, said.

Mr. Staples, who was known as Rocky, was a news correspondent in Mexico for the old United Press before joining the Foreign Service in 1951. As a press officer in South America, he helped plan a tour of Latin America for Vice President Richard M. Nixon in 1958.

In 1959, Mr. Staples was assigned to Moscow to help organize an exhibition of American products, including kitchen appliances and other household wares. The exhibition was the site of a somewhat confrontational meeting between Nixon and Soviet premier Nikita S. Khrushchev that became known as the “kitchen debate.”

After serving at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow from 1961 to 1964, Mr. Staples joined the Ford Foundation and supervised development programs in Asia for many years.

Mr. Staples joined the Asia bureau of the U.S. Agency for International Development in 1981 and served in Pakistan from 1985 until his retirement in 1988.

In 1992, Mr. Staples helped establish the Eurasia Foundation, which provides community development grants to former republics of the Soviet Union and other locales. He retired as president of the foundation in 1997.

Eugene Sheldon Staples was born in Marceline, Mo., and grew up in Kansas City, Mo.

He served in World War II as a Marine Corps fighter pilot in the Pacific theater. He survived the bombing of the aircraft carrier USS Franklin on March 19, 1945, which resulted in hundreds of casualties.

Mr. Staples graduated from the English-language Mexico City College in the late 1940s and did advanced work in Russian-language studies at State Department and U.S. Army language institutes. He was also fluent in Spanish.

He wrote a self-published memoir, “Old Gods, New Nations,” in 2006. In recent years, he had homes in Wakefield and New York City.

Mr. Staples’s first wife, the former Charlotte Stern, died in 1978 after 30 years of marriage. His second marriage, to Suzanne Fisher, ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife of 20 years, Judy Reynolds Staples of Wakefield and New York; three children from his first marriage, John Staples of Seattle, Kathleen Staples of Miami and Peter Staples of Narragansett, R.I.; a brother; and four grandchildren.

Kraig Horley Baier died from complications of heart and renal failure in Medellin, Colombia on November 26, 2013. At his side were his devoted wife of 45 years, Maria Victoria, and only daughter Vanessa. He is survived by his two grandchildren, Stefano and Marco who live in Vienna, VA.

Kraig was born in Harrisburg, PA in 1940 and grew up in Millersburg, with his parents Blanche and Karl, and older sister Karleen. As a teenager, he worked summer jobs building brick homes and later graduated from Penn State University with a degree in Architecture and Engineering.

He lived a full and interesting life, and even after retirement, he and his wife continued to visit as many corners of the globe as possible. He traveled the world and did his part to make it a better place too. He started with the Peace Corps as a volunteer in one of the first groups in Peru in the 1960’s. He followed that with a 30-year career in USAID developing housing projects in Latin America. After that, he helped rebuild houses with a good friend following Hurricane Katrina. He helped countless of friends, family members, and colleagues with all kinds of house projects like building decks, drafting floor plans, or even lent a hand with handyman home improvement projects. Architecture and carpentry were his passion.

Services were held with close family members in Medellin. A gathering honoring and remembering Kraig will be held in May 2014 (his birth month) at Meadowlark Botanical Garden in Vienna, VA. In lieu of flowers, and because of his devotion to housing projects, memorial contributions may be made to Habitat for Humanity.

Michael S. Zak, beloved husband of Luz Zak, died on December 15, 2013 at Virginia Hospital Center, in Arlington. He spent his life serving as a USAID Foreign Service Officer, first in Nigeria, Africa, then in Northern Latin American countries, such as Panama and Santo Domingo. Next he served in Ghana and Burkina Faso. Lastly, he was assigned to work on the seven confederate states of Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Ljubljana, and Montenegro during the Bosnian War.

Michael was humble, dedicated to his work, but most importantly he was a great husband. He is survived by his wife, and sister, Varda Negnewitzky.

Barbara Ann Dotherow-Lim, 79, wife of James “Jim” S.C. Lim, died Sunday, October 6, 2013 at McLeod Seacoast Medical Center, in Little River, SC. She was born June 25, 1935 in Inman, SC, a daughter of the late Walter “Bo” Autry and Edna Wofford Dotherow.

Ms. Dotherow-Lim received her B.A. Degree from Winthrop University in 1957, and her Graduate Degree from George Washington University. She spent 31 years as a USAID Foreign Service Officeer. She lived and worked in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Russia, and Washington, D.C.. She worked as Director of Management Support Services in the Economic Assistance Programs. After retirement in 1994, she performed work as a consultant providing management assessments for overseas programs. She also stayed in contact with former colleagues through long, informative, hand written letters.

She was a member of Pine Lakes Country Club and the Pine Lakes Ladies Golf Association. She was presented the Mary Mildred Sullivan Award in 2007 from Winthrop University. She served on the Board of Visitors for the College of Fine Arts and Humanities at Coastal Carolina University.

Survivors including her husband are: three brothers, Walter “Fudge” Dotherow and wife, Sarah, Don Dotherow and wife, Elaine, and Ray Dotherow and wife, Susan; one sister, Carol Ramey; also survived by; step-daughter, Laura Davis and step-son, Mark Lim and wife, Lisa.

Memorials may be made to: Dotherow-Lim International Scholarship, C/O Winthrop University Foundation, 206 Tillman Hall, Rock Hill, SC 29733. An online guest book is available at www.msfh.net.