LOS ANGELES (AP) – Lillian B. Gottschalk, who collected hundreds of antique toy cars and wrote a well-regarded book on the subject, died July 23 from complications of kidney failure, her son said. She was 84.

Gottschalk began amassing the toys in the 1960s, inspired by her husband’s vintage car collection.

The collection eventually included buses, taxis, ambulances, and tractors made of everything from paper to lead. Some toys dated back to the 1890s.

The collection was displayed in a converted dairy barn at the Gottschalks’ home in Parkton, Md. It attracted enthusiasts from around the world.

Gottschalk also wrote a 1985 book, “American Toy Cars and Trucks.” After her husband, Bill, died of cancer in 1989, Gottschalk sold most of her collection. It brought in more than $1.5 million, then a record for a toy auction.



Murray Bookchin

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) – Murray Bookchin, an early proponent of what he described as social ecology, died early Sunday of heart failure, his daughter said. He was 85.

Bookchin was a proponent of left-leaning libertarian ideas and among the first people in the early 1960s to promote the then-emerging field of ecology into political debate.

He published “Our Synthetic Environment” under the pseudonym Lewis Herber in 1962 in which he called for alternative energy supplies among other environmental proposals. It was in that book – which predated by five months the better known work by Rachel Carson, “Silent Spring” – that Bookchin introduced the notion of social ecology.

He argued that only a completely free and open society can resolve the problems that confronted the environment at that time.

Bookchin’s views, often well ahead of their time, never got wide play because they were so closely linked to his leftist political thought.

Bookchin was born in New York City in 1921 of Russian immigrant parents. He joined the Communist youth organization at age 9, although he dropped out a number of years later, disillusioned at what he believed was the authoritarian nature of the movement.

He was a foundry worker and union organizer in New Jersey before joining the U.S. Army. In civilian life, he became an auto worker, but left the industry and its labor organization after the General Motors strike of 1946.

He eventually turned to his interest in the environment and writing, eventually publishing more than two dozen books ecology, history, politics, philosophy, and urban planning.

He taught at Ramapo College of New Jersey from 1977 through 1981.

In Burlington, Bookchin was instrumental in helping to organize the Green Party. He also co-founded the Institute for Social Ecology in Plainfield in 1971.

—

Margery Eliscu

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – Margery Eliscu, a longtime newspaper columnist who found gentle humor in everyday life, died Thursday following a long battle with cancer, her family said. She was 81.

Eliscu wrote her “Coffee Break” column for the Maine Sunday Telegram for more than 23 years. She continued to write during her illness, with family members bringing a laptop computer to her bedside or sometimes taking dictation.

Her last column, a recollection of a poem her brother wrote when he was 12, appeared July 9.

Eliscu was born in New York City, and she sang professionally when she was younger at community and church events in her area.

She began writing professionally in the 1950s, when she wrote a national magazine article about natural childbirth. While raising her four children on Long Island, New York, she began writing for a weekly newspaper there.

In 1970, Eliscu and her husband moved from New York to a farmhouse in Poland, north of Portland.

She soon began writing a humor column for several area weekly newspapers, and in 1983 she started her column for the Maine Sunday Telegram. Her column found humor in daily life, from the mundane and trivial to the sad and painful.

Eliscu was recognized by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists in 1995, when she placed third in the humor category for newspapers with over 100,000 circulation. One of Eliscu’s columns that most impressed judges was “how to use a public bathroom without touching any germy surface.”

—

J. Palmer Gaillard Jr.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) – J. Palmer Gaillard Jr., a 16-year mayor of Charleston and World War II Navy pilot, died Friday from injuries in a car crash, his family said. Gaillard was 86.

Friends and family said Gaillard was healthy and active and was driving when police say he pulled out in front of a pickup truck. The truck hit Gaillard on the driver’s side and trapped the former mayor in the car. Gaillard died on the way to the hospital.

Gaillard was born in Charleston in 1920. After attending public schools, he enlisted in the Navy in December 1941, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He was an aviator who flew newly made fighter jets and other aircraft.

Gaillard was elected to Charleston City Council in 1951 and re-elected in 1955. Three years later, a friend suggested he run for mayor.

One of Gaillard’s first initiatives as mayor was to lay claim to thousands of acres west of the Ashley River. The move added more than 10,000 residents to the city.

That expansion helped create the seeds of modern Charleston, said current Mayor Joe Riley.

Riley said the addition of a downtown auditorium, which bears Gaillard’s name, was important to the city’s artistic centerpiece – Spoleto Festival USA.

Gaillard was re-elected mayor three times before he resigned in 1975 to accept an appointment as deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for Reserve Affairs. He remained in the federal post for two years before returning to Charleston to become vice president of Ruscon Corp. He remained with the company until his retirement in 1985.

—

—

Vincent J. Fuller

WASHINGTON (AP) – Vincent J. Fuller, the star Washington attorney who successfully defended would-be presidential assassin John Hinckley, died Wednesday of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, The Washington Post reported Saturday. He was 75.

During his career Fuller defended a number of notables, including boxer Mike Tyson and Teamster union boss Jimmy Hoffa.

But he was best known for his successful insanity defense of Hinckley, who shot President Reagan, press secretary James Brady and two law enforcers, outside a Washington hotel on March 30, 1981.

Fuller, retained within hours of the shooting, centered his defense on Hinckley’s mental state, maintaining the shooter was delusional and obsessed with the actress Jodie Foster.

In his closing argument, Fuller told the jury, “In his own mind, the defendant had two compelling reasons to do what he did: to terminate his own existence and to accomplish his ideal union with Jodie Foster, whether in this world or the next. I submit these are the acts of a totally irrational individual …”

The argument is featured in a set of famous legal cases, “Classics of the Courtroom.”

Fuller was born in Ossining, N.Y. After graduating from Williams College in Massachusetts he served two years in the Navy. He later attended Georgetown Law School.

—

Louis Winnick

MANHASSET. N.Y. (AP) – Louis Winnick, an economist who helped guide the investments of the Ford Foundation and promoted low-income home ownership, died Saturday of lung cancer, his daughter said. He was 85.

Winnick was born in Romania and came to Brooklyn when he was 1. He graduated from Brooklyn College and earned graduate degrees in economics at Columbia University.

He worked for the New York City Planning Commission and the Housing and Redevelopment Board before joining the Ford Foundation in 1962. He served as deputy vice president in the national affairs division from 1968 to 1986.

Winnick played a major role in the foundation’s effort to channel resources into housing, community renewal and minority enterprise following the turbulence of the late 1960s.

He was credited with steering the foundation toward making low-interest loans and equity investments in low-income urban areas. Ford, like other foundations, had previously focused on grants only, believing that investing and philanthropy should be separate.

Winnick also promoted the idea that low-income home buyers could be reliable borrowers with properly structured loans. A demonstration loan project in Pittsburgh spurred mortgage lending in poor neighborhoods nationally.

Winnick wrote many articles for academic journals, magazine and newspapers. His book, “New People in Old Neighborhoods,” published in 1990 by Russell Sage, made the case for the value of a constant flow of new immigrants into urban neighborhoods.

—

AP-ES-07-30-06 2127EDT

Copy the Story Link