Reverend, champion for peace.
Reverend Ken Mitchell, age 89, a longtime resident of Claremont’s Pilgrim Place, died November 14.
He served churches in Michigan, Montana, Washington state and California. He took a special interest in counseling, and worked for justice and peace.
Activist, lawyer, educator, author.
Dorothy Brandt Davis, a native La Verne resident, died while napping at 1 p.m., Monday, September 30.
Dorothy was born December 8, 1929 at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center, followed shortly thereafter by her twin brother Daryl.
Traveler, bicycle enthusiast, seamstress.
Dorothy Gwendolyn Elwell died November 18 at the age of 89, surrounded by her loving family in a time of prayer, thanks and song.
Dorothy was born on November 24, 1929 in Long Beach, California to Lloyd and Constance Hendricks. She grew up with brothers Osborne and Robert. It was Osborne who brought home the friend who would become her husband, Charles Elwell, whom she married in 1949 after a six-week engageme
Artist and professor Paul Darrow died November 11 at his Laguna Beach home. He was 98.
Born October 31, 1921 in Pasadena, California to Frank and Ruth Darrow, his artistic talent shone through at an early age. By the time he was two, he scribbled rainbow colors from his box of Crayola crayons onto butcher paper, which was patiently unfurled by his mother onto the floor of their home.
Robert Wendel “Bob” Poling has died at the age of 94.
He had been a resident of Claremont since 1953, was an avid Claremont Wilderness Park bicyclist and an accomplished woodcraftsman.
He was also a lifelong weightlifter and body builder, and was late Claremont High School football coach Esper Keiser’s first weightlifting trainer.
Jacqueline “Jackie” Biere Snyder, a 41-year resident of Claremont, died November 7. She was 79. A lifelong Californian and a Claremont resident since 1978, Jackie was born to Charles Joseph and Eva Etta Biere on May 17, 1940, in Altadena. She grew up in Azusa alongside her older sister Barbara and younger siblings Judy and Chuck, and graduated from Monrovia High School.
Esteemed and beloved university professor, activist, author, great-grandfather
Donald William Bray, a Claremont resident for nearly six decades who taught political science at Cal State LA for 49 years, died October 17 at the age of 90.
Donald was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on July 17, 1929 to Gustav Wilhelm and Lorinda Nelson Bray. As a result of the Great Depression, he, his parents, his siblings, his aunt and uncle and cousins went to live with his paternal grandparents on their dairy farm in Ontario, Wisconsin. His early education was in a one-room schoolhouse.
Lifelong Claremont resident, retired police officer, devoted father
William Paul Smith died October 21 surrounded by his two children, sister, family and close friends. He was 57 years old.
A lifelong Claremonter, he was born to parents James Rankin Smith and Edith Kay Otis Smith on June 21, 1962 at Pomona Valley Hospital.
Beloved grandmother, mother, longtime Claremont resident.
Helen Huk died peacefully on October 26 in New Jersey at the age of 94.
Helen was born in Chicago to Polish immigrants on Christmas Eve, 1924.
Grandfather, pastor to international and US churches, active at Pilgrim Place.
Born in Chicago in 1934, the Rev. Thomas Duggan died from complications of lymphoma, on October 21 at his home in Claremont.
When Tom was a young child his family moved from Chicago to Pelham, New York, with his father practicing law in New York City. His father assumed his son would follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer, but he went in a different direction when he later experienced a call to the ministry.
Teacher, voracious reader, was 101.
Virginia Rose Delman died peacefully on Wednesday, October 23 at her home in Claremont at the age of 101.
Virginia was born in Chicago to Ralph and Celia Rose on February 21, 1918. The family included siblings William (Bill) Rose and Leonore Rubey, and numerous nieces and nephews.
After receiving her master’s degree in speech therapy from Northwestern University in 1939, she joined the Red Cross and traveled through Australia and New Guinea, where she met her future husband, Sherman.
Claremont resident Debbie Frame, 75, died Wednesday, October 23 after a brief illness.
“She was diagnosed with cancer that spread rapidly and took her from us within a handful of weeks of the diagnosis,” her family shared. “Throughout the entire time, she never once complained about it and had the most positive attitude.”
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