Evelina and Ennio Menna at Red Bank borough hall in January, 2017. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Ennio Menna, father of former Red Bank Mayor Pasquale Menna, died at Riverview Medical Center Friday. He was 94 years old.
Tom Chesek in Asbury Park in 2013. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Tom Chesek, an arts-and-entertainment writer who for decades trained a spotlight on otherwise unheralded musicians, playwrights, visual artists and other creators on the Greater Red Bank Green, died at home in Asbury Park Tuesday night. He was 64 years old.
Among countless freelance gigs, he was a longtime writer for redbankgreen.
Tom Hintelmann speaks with Father Alberto Tamayo at the Red Bank Mayor’s Ball in 2015. (Photo above by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Tom Hintelmann, a lifelong Red Bank resident and teacher who served on the borough council for three decades, died Friday, according to an obituary published Saturday.
He was 85 years old.
Former mayor Benedict Nicosia riding in Red Bank’s centennial parade in 2008. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Former Red Bank mayor Benedict R. Nicosia died peacefully at his home Saturday, according to an obituary.
He was 101 years old.
Susan Ericson, notepad in hand, at New Corner Pizza in Red Bank in 2014. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Food writer Susan Ericson of Red Bank died Friday at home under hospice care after a lengthy illness. She was 66 years old.
Robert Sickles Sr. riding his cherished 1948 John Deere MT tractor in 2008. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Robert Sickles Sr., the patriarch of a family farm in Little Silver that traces its agricultural roots back more than three centuries, died “peacefully at his home” Monday, according to an obituary posted by Thompson Funeral Home in Red Bank Wednesday.
He was 92 years old.
State Police officers were among the hundreds of worshippers, clerics and law enforcement personnel who packed St. James Church in Red Bank Thursday morning for the funeral mass of Monsignor Philip A. Lowery.
Lowery, who led St. James Church in Red Bank for three decades, died last Thursday. He was 70 years old.
In recognition of his 23 years of service as Head of Chaplains for the New Jersey State Police, the service drew a large contingent of blue uniforms, as well as a giant U.S. flag over Broad Street. Even members of the clergy couldn’t resist the urge to take photos of it.
On Wednesday, Governor Phil Murphy, who was expected to attend the service, ordered flags be lowered to half-staff Thursday in Lowery’s honor. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Monsignor Philip A. Lowery, who led St. James Church in Red Bank for three decades, died early Thursday morning. He was 70 years old.
Lowery’s death was announced on the Red Bank Catholic High School Facebook page. Mayor Pasquale Menna told redbankgreen that his death occurred at 12:01 a.m. on Thanksgiving at Riverview Medical Center.
Robert Rechnitz with his wife, Joan, in 2012. Below, the Two River Theater, where a new plaza was under construction this week. (Photos by Stacie Fanelli and Trish Russoniello. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Robert M. Rechnitz, who co-founded Red Bank’s Two River Theater with his wife, Joan, died at his home Saturday, the theater announced Wednesday. He was 89 years old.
The obituary of a former Red Bank man who died of a drug overdose last week includes some unusually frank talk about his addiction.
“A beautiful life cut short way too soon, Carter Armour Stone, passed away on September 26th from a drug overdose,” begins the obit, published Wednesday at app.com. “He was 32 years old.”
John Cash Sr., chairman of Red Bank’s planning board for the past 15 years, died at his home in the borough last Friday, according to an obituary published Tuesday by the Asbury Park Press. He was 66 years old.
The spouses of two longtime figures in Red Bank politics passed away over the last week.
Judge William Himelman swearing in a defendant last year. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank municipal court Judge William Himelman died Thursday, according to Mayor Pasquale Menna. He was 85 years old.
The circumstances and place of his death were not immediately available.
Believed to have been New Jersey’s longest-serving local court jurist in modern times, if not state history, Himelman presided on the borough bench for 38 years. Long past the age at which others in his position retired, he doled out justice to everyone from cellphone-gabbing motorists and drunk drivers to a pair of men who squared off while naked.
The masthead of the Daily Register, where Kamin was the president and editor for two decades. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Arthur Z. Kamin, a longtime Fair Haven resident who guided the now-defunct Daily and Sunday Register newspaper for two decades, died Tuesday, according to a report by the Associated Press. He was 84 years old.
Kamin’s son, Blair, a Pulitzer-prize winning architecture critic at the Chicago Tribune, told the AP that his father died in Red Bank from Parkinson’s disease and progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare neurological disorder.
A longtime fixture of downtown Red Bank died Monday.
Domenick Sama, who owned and operated Domenick’s Barber Shop, on East Front Street, died at his home in Red Bank, according to an obituary posted online. He was 93 years old.
The shop, run by an immigrant from Italy and veteran of the U.S Army during World War II, was “a simple, old-fashioned gathering place, a step back in time, where an excellent haircut could be had and lively conversation could be exchanged in familiar surroundings,” according to the obit.
Saul Diamond, the last person to hold the position of Red Bank constable, died Sunday at his home at Riverview Towers, on Riverside Avenue.
He was 99 years old.
Diamond’s obituary in the Asbury Park Press says he served as borough constable from 1969 to 2000, when the post was abolished and its duties transferred to the Monmouth County Sheriff’s office.
Charles ‘Chillie’ Callman in at Little Silver Borough Hall in 2008, when he opposed a consolidation of local police departments. (Click to enlarge)
Charles ‘Chillie’ Callman, who served two long stints as Rumson’s mayor in a lifetime filled with volunteerism and public service, died on July 30, according to an obituary published Sunday in the Asbury Park Press.
Above, former Mayor Maria Fernandes, seen being interviewed by a TV news crew in 2008. Below, bunting blows in the breeze at Sea Bright’s borough hall Monday in her honor. (Click to enlarge)
Details of the funeral for the late Maria Fernandes, the former Sea Bright mayor, were announced Monday in the SeaBreeze, the borough newsletter.
Dear SeaBreeze Subscribers,
For those of you who have not heard the news, with regret, we report that Honorable Maria Fernandes passed away yesterday morning.
Little Silver Mayor Suzanne Castleman passed away Friday at 76. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
Suzanne Castleman, Little Silver’s mayor and a lifelong resident of the borough, passed away at her home Friday night.
Known widely in town as “Mayor Suzie,” Castleman had been ill since the death of her husband in May, said Linda Goff, a friend of the family.
Her death came less than a week before her 77th birthday.
A sign outside Little Silver Borough Hall recognizes the death of Donald Castleman, husband of Mayor Suzanne Castleman. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
Donald Castleman, the husband of Little Silver Mayor Suzanne Castleman, passed away at his home Tuesday, according to an obituary in the Asbury Park Press.
The cause of his death was not reported in the obituary.
At 82 years old, Castleman’s death came just two months before the couple would have celebrated their 55th anniversary.
Shrewsbury Borough Hall has funeral bunting displayed in various locations after the loss of veteran officer Alan Morris. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
Sergeant Allan Morris, a 25-year veteran of the Shrewsbury Police Department who was transitioning into retirement, passed away suddenly Friday.
The cause is suspected to be of natural conditions, Council President and Police Commissioner Thomas Menapace said. Morris, a sergeant in the department, was 58.
Daniel J. O’Hern
By JOHN T. WARD
Daniel J. O’Hern, a son of Red Bank who was its mayor through a period of social unrest and later served almost two decades on the New Jersey Supreme Court, died Wednesday night at his home in Little Silver.
The Star-Ledger reports that he died of metastatic brain melanoma.
“Dan O’Hern was the quintessential gentleman who represented Red Bank so well in so many aspects,” said Mayor Pasquale Menna, who said he was inspired by O’Hern’s example to pursue public service.
Noting the racial strife of the late 1960s, when O’Hern was a borough councilman and, starting in 1969, as mayor, Menna said O’Hern “led the borough at an exceedingly difficult time, when there was great social friction.”
When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968 and many towns and cities braced for the kind of violence that had erupted in Newark and elsewhere, O’Hern marched down Shrewsbury Avenue with local ministers and citizens in a peaceful memorial, Menna said.
Through sit-ins and noisy council meetings, “it was always a mark of his sensitivity that he was able to keep the tensions so that they did not rise to a level of civil strife,” Menna said.