correction
THE OBITUARY ON M. KATHLEEN RUBLE PUBLISHED JAN. 28, ERRONEOUSLY REFERRED TO HER SURVIVING SISTERS AS DAUGHTERS.(PUBLISHED 01/29/98)
Walter D. Edmonds, 94, a professional writer since the mid-1920s who is probably best remembered as the author of the immensely popular 1936 historical novel "Drums Along the Mohawk," died Jan. 24 in Utica, N.Y. The cause of death was not reported.
Mr. Edmonds already had published three popular historical novels, beginning with "Rome Haul" in 1928, when he published "Drums Along the Mohawk." The book was chosen by the Book-of-the-Month Club as a main selection and remained on the bestseller lists for more than two years. During that time, it was second in popularity as a historical novel only to "Gone With the Wind."
In 1939, "Drums Along the Mohawk" was transferred to the silver screen. Directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert, the film too was a critical and popular triumph. Story and movie told the saga of farmers in New York's Mohawk Valley coping with the American Revolution. American settlers contended with the threats of Tory neighbors, British troops and hostile Indians while raising crops and families.
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Two of Mr. Edmonds's other novels also were made into movies -- both starring Fonda. "Rome Haul," which told about life along the early Erie Canal, was rewritten by Marc Connelly and F.B. Elser as "The Farmer Takes a Wife." After a successful Broadway run, it became a film starring Fonda and Janet Gaynor. "Chad Hanna," which Mr. Edmonds published in 1940, became a movie starring Fonda, Dorothy Lamour and Linda Darnell.
Although primarily a historical novelist, he also wrote short stories, local color pieces, humorous pieces and several children's stories. His 1941 children's novel, "The Matchlock Gun," recounted the tale of a 10-year-old New York colonial boy who "gets his Indian" while defending his home with his gun against hostile intruders. That book received the American Library Association's highly prestigious Newbery Medal as "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children" that year.
Mr. Edmonds, whose last work, "Tales My Father Never Told," was published in 1995, never had another huge bestseller, and he became a regional or minor writer to many critics. Yet he continued to write.
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Later books included "Young Ames" (1942), about boys life in New York in the 1930s; "In the Hands of the Senecas" (1947), about courage and tragedy on the 18th-century New York frontier; and "The Boyds of Black River" (1953), about the life of 19th-century New York farmers. He also wrote "They Fought With What They Had" (1951), a tale of the Army Air Forces in the Southwest Pacific theater in the early days of World War II.
Walter Dumaux Edmonds, a New York native, grew up on a family farm in Boonville, N.Y., a stone's throw from the Erie Canal. He began writing professionally while still in college, graduating from Harvard University in 1926 with a degree in English.
He had short stories published in anthology collections, as well as such magazines as Harpers, the Atlantic Monthly and Scribner's before one magazine editor suggested that the young writer attempt a novel about his native New York, perhaps one about the Erie Canal.
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Despite family wishes that he get writing out of his system and take up a more staid calling, he never looked back. He later told an interviewer that he called himself "sort of a fancy reporter who reports on the past instead of the present."
He went on to say that his purpose as a novelist was "to tell, through the daily lives of everyday people, the story of New York State and its key periods in history." JOSEPH F. ENRIGHT Jr. Army Lieutenant Colonel
Joseph F. Enright Jr., 60, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who later became an international marketing director, died of cancer Jan. 25 at Inova Fairfax Hospital.
Col. Enright, who was born in Honolulu, graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1959. He later received a master's degree in business administration from Indiana University and graduated from the Naval War College.
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He served as a military adviser in two tours of Vietnam during the Vietnam War and was an adviser to the Saudi Arabian National Guard from 1976 to 1978. After his military retirement in 1979, he settled in Fairfax and became a regional manager and international marketing director with the defense contracting division of FMC Corp. in Washington.
For the last three years, he operated his own international marketing consulting business.
He was a National Park Service volunteer at the Vietnam Memorial and a student of the Learning in Retirement Institute at George Mason University.
Survivors include his wife of 38 years, Terry Enright of Fairfax; two children, Mike Enright of Virginia Beach and Kristine King of Fairfax; his father, retired Navy Capt. Joseph F. Enright Sr. of Fairfax; and five grandchildren. RUTH SANGER Secretary and Manager
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Ruth Irene Bailey Sanger, 89, a retired secretary and apartment manager who had lived in the Washington area since the 1930s, died Jan. 4 at Suburban Hospital after a heart attack. She lived in Gaithersburg.
Mrs. Sanger was born in Santa Cruz, Calif. During the 1950s and early 1960s, she was an administrative aide in law offices of her husband in Silver Spring. During the 1960s, she was an administrative assistant with the Montgomery County schools. During the 1970s, she worked for Skyline Towers apartments in Washington.
Her marriage to Charles Sanger ended in divorce.
Survivors include a son, Karl, of Silver Spring; two daughters, Lucille Rosenberg of Boca Raton, Fla., and Charlene Ward of Richmond; a sister, Winnie Whitaker of Spring Valley, Calif.; six grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. DEYERLE HOOK KERNAN Volunteer
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Deyerle Hook Kernan, 79, who did volunteer fund-raising for the Jesuit Mission Guild at Georgetown University, died of complications related to pneumonia Jan. 17 at the Hospice of Northern Virginia.
Mrs. Kernan was born in Harrisonburg, Va. She had lived in Washington since childhood and graduated from Eastern High School.
She opened her home to the Jesuit Community at Georgetown for meetings and fund-raising functions.
Beginning in the 1970s, Mrs. Kernan did abstract paintings and whimsical watercolors of small animals. Some of her work was displayed at the Channell Galleries in Georgetown.
She was active in Democratic Party politics and participated in the presidential campaigns of Eugene McCarthy and Jimmy Carter. Also, she did volunteer work at the Carter White House.
Her husband, Donald F. Kernan, died in 1986.
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Survivors include six children, Renee Kateri Kernan, Ann Kernan, Mary Monica Kernan and Cecilia Sodi, all of Fairfax, Maria Noel Chabanel Kernan Lew of North Potomac and Christopher Donald Kernan of Silver Spring; 12 grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter. ANNA M. WOKE Security Administrator
Anna Margarethe Meyer Woke, 89, a retired Navy security administrator who also was a registered nurse, died Jan. 23 at the Carriage Hill Nursing Home in Bethesda. She had Parkinson's disease.
Mrs. Woke, who had lived in Bethesda since 1954, was born in Germany. She came to this country with her family in 1923 and lived in New York before graduating from Johns Hopkins University nursing school as a registered nurse in 1932. After serving as a nurse in Washington at the old Episcopal Hospital during the late 1930s and early 1940s, she was a hospital nurse in Georgia.
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She returned to the Washington area during the late 1940s. In 1952, she became an assistant security administrator with the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda. She retired from that post in 1978.
Mrs. Woke's hobbies included travel, needlework and gardening.
Survivors include her husband, Dr. Paul A. Woke, whom she married in 1932 and who lives in Bethesda; a daughter, Jerrie Thistel of Baltimore; and two grandchildren. BRUCE R. GOULD Teacher
Bruce R. Gould, 55, a visiting teacher in the special education program of the D.C. public schools from the 1970s until the late 1980s, died Jan. 19 at George Washington University Hospital. He had muscular dystrophy.
Mr. Gould, who lived in Washington, was a native of Minneapolis. He was a graduate of Grinnell College and received a second bachelor's degree, in biology, from the University of Minnesota. He received a master's degree in special education from Howard University.
He participated in a research program at Georgetown University Hospital on the affects of muscular dystrophy on the heart.
Survivors include his wife, Joyce Winchester Gould, and mother, Ruth C. Gould, both of Washington; and a sister. PRINT HUDSON Agricultural Attache
Print Hudson, 98, who served as U.S. agricultural attache in Greece, Portugal and Switzerland, died of congestive heart failure Jan. 25 at Sibley Memorial Hospital.
Dr. Hudson, a resident of Washington, was born in Tennessee and graduated from Union University. He received a master's degree at George Peabody College and a doctorate at Iowa State University, both in agricultural economics.
He taught at Union and Iowa State before moving to Washington in 1931 as a research fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Later he joined the Department of Agriculture. In 1945, he was named chief of the U.S. agricultural mission to Greece, where he also served as agricultural attache. He later held similar positions in Portugal and Switzerland. He transferred to the trade fairs division of the U.S. Foreign Service in 1956 and served in Europe, South America, Africa, Japan and Thailand until 1970. That year, he was named ambassador to Egypt, but he was unable to accept the position for health reasons. He retired after 36 years of government service.
He was a member of the Cosmos Club and Metropolitan Memorial United Methodist Church in Washington.
Survivors include his wife of 71 years, Grace Powers Hudson. M. KATHLEEN RUBLE Administrative Aide
M. Kathleen Ruble, 72, who worked for the Army Times newspaper for about 25 years until her retirement in 1987 as an administrative assistant in the subscription section, died of cardiac arrest Jan. 16 at George Washington Hospital.
Ms. Ruble, a lifelong resident of Washington, graduated from Holy Trinity High School and worked as a secretary for the British Air Commission during World War II.
Survivors include two daughters, Francys Richardson of Gaithersburg and Betty A. Bull of Riverdale. WILLIAM BILL' HARVEY Artist
William "Bill" Harvey, 82, an artist who retired in 1983 from the advertising art department of The Washington Post, died of cancer Jan. 25 at Southern Maryland Hospital Center.
Mr. Harvey began his career at The Post in 1946, after having served in the Army in Europe and the Pacific during World War II.
Mr. Harvey, a resident of Temple Hills, was born in Frostburg, Md., and studied art in Cumberland, Md., before moving to Washington in 1936. He graduated from the Columbia School of Art in Washington.
Before World War II, he demonstrated in Washington store windows techniques of painting landscapes in three minutes. He met his future wife while doing one of those paintings.
He was a member of the American Federation of Art in Annapolis and the Art League in Alexandria.
His avocations included tennis, and he played in competitive tournaments until May 1997.
Survivors include his wife of 52 years, Lelia Harvey of Temple Hills; two daughters, Nancy Ernest of Upper Marlboro and Shelly Stavely of Germantown; a brother, Edward Harvey of Washington; two sisters, Clara Carroll of Cumberland and Dot Jane Neat of North Myrtle Beach, S.C.; and two grandsons. A son, Gary Harvey, died in 1989. GERTRUDE LORENA WALDRON HAGAMAN Bowler and Homemaker
Gertrude Lorena Waldron Hagaman, 83, a Northern Virginia homemaker who participated in day bowling leagues in Falls Church and Leesburg, died of cancer Jan. 25 at National Hospital Medical Center in Arlington.
Mrs. Hagaman, who lived in Alexandria, was born in Rochester, Minn. She moved to the Washington area in 1952.
Survivors include her husband of 58 years, Boynton G. Hagaman of Alexandria; four children, Annette J. Steucke of Olympia, Wash., John Hagaman of Alexandria, Charlotte Watson of Martinsburg, W.Va., and Craig Hagaman of Lincoln; a sister; eight grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren. EUNICE M. SCOTT Secretary
Eunice M. Scott, 65, who retired in June as secretary at Annunciation Catholic Church School in Washington, died Jan. 25 at her home in Bethesda. She had a heart ailment.
Mrs. Scott was a native of Boston and a graduate of the Katherine Gibbs School. She was a secretary with the Agency for International Development in Beirut in the mid-1950s, and then accompanied her husband to Foreign Service assignments in Japan and Greece. She had lived in the Washington area off and on since 1963 and had a second home in South Yarmouth, Mass.
Mrs. Scott worked for 10 years at St. Bartholomew's Catholic Church in Bethesda, where she was a member.
Survivors include her husband of nearly 40 years, James D. Scott of Bethesda and South Yarmouth; two sons, Lawrence E. Scott of Wellesley, Mass., and David C. Scott of Glens Falls, N.Y.; and three grandchildren. BARBARA RUSH Computer Science Librarian
Barbara Rush, 59, retired manager of the academic information technology services library at the University of Maryland, died of acute myeloid leukemia Jan. 27 at her Silver Spring home, where she had been under hospice care.
Ms. Rush was born in Baltimore and graduated from Jackson College at Tufts University. She settled in the Washington area in 1961.
In 1973, she received a master's degree in library science at the College of Library and Information Services at the University of Maryland, and she began working for the university after receiving her degree. She retired in November 1997 from the academic information technology services library.
She was a tennis player and a swimmer. During her illness, she participated in cancer, leukemia and Jewish healing support groups. She was a member of Shaare Tefila Congregation in Silver Spring.
Survivors include her husband of 38 years, Martin Rush of Silver Spring; three children, Dr. Lawrence Rush of Gilford, N.H., Allen Rush of Millburn, N.J., and Paula Rush-Smith of Olney; her mother, Fay Holzman of Baltimore; two sisters; a brother; and four grandchildren. CORDELIA LUCILLE SOMMERS Chevy Chase Resident
Cordelia Lucille Sommers, 91, a former high school music teacher, died Jan. 25 at her home in Chevy Chase of complications from multiple strokes.
She was a native of Ohio and a graduate of Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio. She taught music at a Cleveland high school, then did graduate work in music at Columbia University.
Mrs. Sommers, who came to Washington in 1950, was past president of the Columbian Women at George Washington University and an active member of Bethesda Presbyterian Church.
Survivors include her husband, Dr. Waldo Sommers of Chevy Chase; four children, Claire Rundle of Naples, Fla., Joan Steinkuller of Houston, David H. Sommers of Vincennes, Ind., and Paul D. Sommers of Salt Lake City; a brother; 11 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
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