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Dr. Armand Guigui, 75, surgeon
Dr. Armand Guigui of 57 Lounsbury Road died at his home on Sept. 7 after a long illness. He was 75.
A Ridgefield resident for 37 years, he practiced surgery in this town from 1965 to 1983 and was affiliated with Danbury Hospital.
He is survived by his wife of 46 years, Dr. Christine Guigui; son Pierre Guigui of Meilen, Switzerland; daughters Catherine Guigui of Montsinery, French Guiana, and Jacqueline Guigui-Stolberg of Hohenthann, Germany; and six grandchildren.
Final arrangements will be private.
Dr. William Grote, general practitioner
William J. Grote, M.D., of 36 Catoonah Street, a longtime general practitioner in New York and Yonkers, died at his home Saturday morning, June 29. He was 84 and the husband of the late Martha Meany Grote.
A native of New York City, Dr. Grote was born on March 14, 1918, a son of the late William J. Sr. and Anna Egan Grote. He attended Yonkers schools, Roosevelt High School and graduated from Fordham University and Lavalle University Medical School in Quebec.
During World War II, Dr. Grote served as a medical officer stationed in Panama with the U.S. Army, attaining the rank of captain.
Dr. Grote was a general practitioner who began his career in an era when physicians still made house calls. His first practice was in the city — he was “a country doctor in the Bronx,” said his son-in-law, Terence Reddington — and many of his patients were among the poor.
He later moved his practice to Yonkers.
Before his retirement, Dr. Grote was a member of the medical staffs of the Morrisania, Union and Our Lady of Mercy hospitals.
He was a member and former president of the board of Union Hospital, and belonged to the Bronx County Medical Society and the American Medical Association.
Dr. Grote lived much of his life in Crestwood, N.Y., where he attended Annunciation Church and served on its parish council. He moved to Ridgefield in 1997 and belonged to St. Mary’s Church.
An avid golfer, he was a member of the Leewood Golf Club of Eastchester, N.Y., and the Winged Foot Golf Club of Mamaroneck, N.Y. He also enjoyed crossword puzzles and was a fan of the New York Yankees.
Dr. Grote is survived by a daughter, Barbara Reddington and her husband Terence of Ridgefield; a son, William J. Grote III and his wife Judy of Cincinnati, Ohio; two sisters, Bernadette Hild of Crestwood, N.Y., and Dolores Kelty of Yardley, Pa.; six grandchildren, Kristen Reddington of King of Prussia, Pa., Brian and Tim Reddington of Ridgefield, and Randy, Billy and Pam Grote, all of Cincinnati; and two great-grandchildren.
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on Monday afternoon in St. Mary's Church. Burial was in St. Mary's Cemetery.
Contributions in Dr. Grote's memory may be made to the Ridgefield Visiting Nurse Association, 90 East Ridge, Ridgefield, CT 06877.
The Kane Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.
Madeline Green, 84, aide to columnist
Madeline Shaw Green of Ridgefield, former secretary to the first syndicated woman journalist and a longtime community volunteer, died Thursday, June 27. She was 84 years old and the widow of Richard E. Green.
In the late 1930s and the 1940s, Mrs. Green was the personal secretary to Dorothy Thompson, the newspaper reporter, author and columnist who by 1937 had some 10 million readers a day and was getting as many as 700 requests for speaking engagements a week.
“She met many, many interesting people,” her son, Douglas Green, said of his mother’s work with the writer. Among Mrs. Green’s friends was novelist Sinclair Lewis, who was Ms. Thompson’s second husband.
A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Mrs. Green was born on Nov. 29, 1917, a daughter of the late Albert and Frances Chapman Shaw. She grew up in Pelham, N.Y., and graduated from Katharine Gibbs School. “Dorothy hired her right out of Katie Gibbs,” her son said.
Mrs. Green often traveled with Ms. Thompson, including spending summers at the writer’s farm in Vermont. It was at a square dance in Vermont in the summer of 1948 that she met Richard Elliot Green. The two were soon married, and Mrs. Green left her job with Ms. Thompson.
In 1953, the Greens moved from Vermont to Ridgefield Road in Wilton. (The driveway to their home, since subdivided, is now Rossimur Court.) In 1974 the couple moved to Ridgefield.
Always an avid sportswoman, Mrs. Green was the top seed tennis player at the Wilton Riding Club in the 1950s. When her back started bothering her, she switched to golf, joined the Silver Spring Country Club, and became at one point the club champion. In her youth in Pelham, she had been a champion badminton player.
Mrs. Green’s community interests included the Vitam Adolescent Rehabilitation Center, the Norwalk drug treatment center for teenagers. She volunteered there from 1970 until 1991, including service on its executive committee for 11 years, and as its vice chairman and its secretary.
She was also a longtime member and former treasurer of the Ridgefield Garden Club, a volunteer at the Ridgefield Library, a lay Franciscan, and an active member of St. Mary’s Parish, where she served as a lay lector.
Perhaps because of her background with Ms. Thompson, Mrs. Green enjoyed writing letters. “She was a great correspondent,” Douglas Green said. “She wrote many letters to many people — and her handwriting was always perfect.”
Mrs. Green is survived by two sons, Richard Green and his wife Leslie of Fullerton, Calif., and Douglas Green and his wife, Kimberly, of Kittery Point, Maine; a daughter, Liza Green of Boston, Mass.; a sister, Virginia Shaw of Pelham; and four grandchildren, Natalie and Aubrey Green of Fullerton, and Chloe and Sophia Green of Kittery Point.
Her husband died in 1997.
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on Monday morning in St. Mary’s Church. Burial followed in St. Mary’s Cemetery.
Contributions in Mrs. Green’s memory may be made to the Vitam Center Inc., 57 West Rocks Road, Norwalk, CT 06851.
The Kane Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.
George Goodstadt, publisher of fine arts
George J. Goodstadt, a 16-year resident of Ridgefield, died peacefully in his sleep at home on Feb. 16, surrounded by his family. He was the husband of Afanasjev Goodstadt.
Mr. Goodstadt was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., a son of Max and Pauline Suskin Goodstadt. He grew up in New York City, completed high school a month after his 16th birthday, was educated at St. John’s University, did graduate work at Columbia and studied two years at The Arts Student’s League. He served in the Air Force as aviation cadet and was recalled to active duty in the USAF during the Korean War. He loved this great country and was a true patriot.
Mr. Goodstadt went on to an illustrious career of government service and worked for various information and intelligence agencies, including The Office of War Information, The Voice of America, The U.S. Information Agency and The Goddard Institute of Space Studies (Theoretical Physics Division of NASA).
For the government, he traveled extensively to gather information and to open trade with such countries as Bulgaria, Egypt and The People’s Republic of China. In the early 70’s (after Nixon’s entry into China) Mr. Goodstadt started his many trips to China to increase awareness of trade. He brought back exciting and diverse art, including the Peasant Paintings from The Huhsien Province, never before seen outside China. One of these is now hanging in The Smithsonian in Washington.
While at NASA for 12 years, Mr. Goodstadt worked on the Apollo lunar missions. He was also instrumental in putting a small sculpture, “Fallen Astronaut” by Paul von Hoeydunck, on the moon as part of a memorial tribute to the astronauts and cosmonauts who died in the exploration of space. After man put his footprint on the moon, he felt satisfied with his contribution and left NASA. He shared his adventures and memorabilia with enthusiastic students and teachers alike at Veterans Park Elementary School and East Ridge School, where his daughter attended.
Mr. Goodstadt founded The Bank Street Atelier in New York City, a fine arts lithographic company, where he printed, published and distributed etchings and lithographs by Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein and many other fine artists. He later founded George J. Goodstadt Inc. in the same vein and represented many well-known artists, including the above and also LeRoy Nieman and Al Hirschfeld, and The Musee D’Albi to reissue the posters of Toulouse-Lautrec.
When in the mid 80’s he moved from New York City to Ridgefield with his wife Alexandra, he started The State Street Gallery in Westport, but a few years later opened The Antique Poster Collection Gallery here in Ridgefield, where he kept his vast collection, including the wonderful works of Al Hirschfeld, the legendary caricaturist of the theater. It gave him great pleasure when during the years many young people came to work for him at the gallery and he could share his expertise with them, teaching them about running a small business.
He joined the Rotary Club and found lasting friendships with his fellow Rotarians and worked tirelessly to achieve the organization’s high goals. He was honored with the “Paul Harris” Award, of which he was very proud.
He called Ridgefield “his town” and always marveled at its beauty. He found many valuable friends here and there was always someone to palaver with wherever he went.
He participated on many boards, including Chambers of Commerce, The Ridgefield Symphony, Diversity Day, The Ridgefield Playhouse and A Better Chance of Ridgefield, to name a few. He also gave art generously to these organizations for their fund-raisers.
“The pride he felt for his two daughters, he shared with all! Love for his family was always on top of his daily list and he delighted in all of every day’s small wonders. The recent addition of twin grandchildren delighted him to no end,” said his wife.
“His accomplishments were many and varied, but he will undoubtedly be remembered for his human qualities of gentleness, kindness and his never-ending concern for others.”
Besides his wife of 21 years, Mr. Goodstadt is survived by two daughters, Elizabeth Oelkers and her husband Brent, of St. Francis, Minn., and Kristina Goodstadt of Ridgefield; a brother Leonard Goodstadt and his wife Yvette of Delray, Florida; two grandchildren, Willa and Wyatt Oelkers; and his nephew Mark Goodstadt and niece Lauren Shapiro.
Contributions in Mr. Goodstadt’s name may be made to The Danbury Hospital Development Fund.
The Kane Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.
Anne Girolmetti, 93, teacher, librarian
Anne Casagrande Girolmetti of 50 New Street, a retired Ridgefield librarian who started her career as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse, died Thursday, Aug. 22, at Filosa Convalescent Home in Danbury. She was 93 years old and the widow of Aldo J. Girolmetti.
A Ridgefield native, Mrs. Girolmetti was born on Nov. 5, 1908, a daughter of the late Aldo and Emily Briggs Casagrande. She attended Ridgefield schools and was salutatorian of her graduating class in 1926 at Ridgefield High School, then called Hamilton High School.
Two years later, she graduated from Danbury Normal School, now WestConn, and went to work teaching at the West Mountain School — she was the first person of Italian descent to be a teacher in Ridgefield. Mrs. Girolmetti taught first through sixth grades in the one-room schoolhouse with “outside john.” On cold mornings a friend who lived nearby would fire up a pot-bellied stove so the school would be warm when the teacher and students arrived.
After the schoolhouse was closed in 1929, Mrs. Girolmetti taught at the Center School. But in 1933, in the depths of the Depression, she lost her job because of a town policy to hire only employees whose spouses were unemployed. Her husband, Aldo, was a carpenter and landscape gardener in town.
Mrs. Girolmetti later worked for Electro-Mechanical Research and at the Fashion Shop, a store on Main Street in the 1950s.
In 1958, she became a librarian at the Ridgefield Library where she headed the children’s department. She spent 17 years at the library, a period during which the town’s population more than doubled and the demands on the small village library greatly increased. When she started, the library’s children’s collection amounted to some 3,000 titles. By her retirement in 1975, it had more than 10,000.
“Students are less interested in fairy tales and classics now,” Mrs. Girolmetti said in 1975 of the changing trends she witnessed during her years with the library. “These have been replaced with folk tales, science, historical fiction and space books. The classics are still on school and library reading lists, but that’s about all.”
In 1934, Mrs. Girolmetti and several other Ridgefield women founded two organizations that, despite their informality, have lasted nearly 70 years. The WWW bridge club and the CCC sewing club have been meeting regularly ever since, though less often recently. Most of the members have been natives or at least long-time residents, and much of the gathering was devoted to conversation about local happenings. “At times,” Mrs. Girolmetti told an interviewer in 1992, “you couldn’t talk about anybody because everybody was related.”
The meanings of WWW and CCC have never been revealed and, some suspect, were long ago forgotten. A wag once called the WWW the “Wild, Woolly Women.”
In later years Mrs. Girolmetti became active in the Keeler Tavern Museum where she was a member of a group of old-timers who worked on identifying thousands of glass negative photographs by Joseph Hartmann from the early 20th Century. “She enjoyed that immensely,” said her daughter, Pat Ligos.
Mrs. Girolmetti also enjoyed games and puzzles, especially crosswords. “She loved doing any games that stimulated the mind,” Mrs. Ligos said.
For many years she was a poll worker at town elections and referendums.
“She was a quiet, gentle person who enjoyed her town and her friends,” Mrs. Ligos said.
Besides her daughter, Patricia, Mrs. Girolmetti is survived by a brother: Peter P. Casagrande of Summerfield, Fla.; four grandchildren: Kathleen Ligos of Ridgefield, James Ligos of San Francisco, Calif., Kevin Ligos of Norwalk, and Karen Ligos of Greenwich; and by several nieces and nephews.
Her husband died in 1996. Three brothers — Arthur Casagrande, Gene Casagrande and Lino Casagrande — also died before her.
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on Wednesday morning in St. Mary’s Church.
Burial was in St. Mary’s Cemetery.
Contributions in Mrs. Girolmetti’s memory may be made to the Meals on Wheels Program, 25 Gilbert Street, the Keeler Tavern Museum, 132 Main Street, both of Ridgefield 06877, or to the Filosa Convalescent Home Residents’ Recreational Fund, 13 Hakim Street, Danbury, CT 06810.
The Kane Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.
Enza Gemza, 86-year Ridgefielder
Enza M. Gemza of 60 Gregory Boulevard, East Norwalk, a Ridgefielder for 86 years, died on Friday evening, June 14, at Honey Hill Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, Norwalk. She was 88 years old and had lived on Cain’s Hill Road until two years ago.
Mrs. Gemza was the widow of Joseph J. Gemza Sr., who died in 1999.
A Ridgefield native, Mrs. Gemza was born on July 12, 1913, a daughter of the late Giuseppe and Giuseppina Santini Mallucci. She attended Ridgefield schools and had been a homemaker.
She was a member of St. Mary’s Church, Ridgefield.
Mrs. Gemza’s survivors include a son: Joseph J. Gemza Jr. and his wife Judith of Norwalk; and two grandchildren: the Rev. Richard J. Gemza of St. Mary’s Church, Greenwich, and Tracy Scotti and her husband Ralph of Ridgefield.
Father Gemza, the grandson, celebrated a Mass of Christian Burial on Tuesday in St. Mary’s Church, Ridgefield.
Burial was in St. Mary’s Cemetery.
Contributions in Mrs. Gemza’s memory may be made to the American Heart Association, 5 Brookside Drive, Wallingford, CT 06492.
The Kane Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.
John Garbin, 88, longtime Ridgefielder
John L. Garbin of 26 Bryon Avenue, a Ridgefielder for more than 60 years, died on Tuesday morning, May 7, at Danbury Hospital. He was 88 years old and the husband of Ethel Zandri Garbin.
Mr. Garbin was born in Great Barrington, Mass., on June 13, 1913, a son of the late Giovanni and Maria Garbin. He attended Great Barrington schools.
In his early years, Mr. Garbin moved with his family from Great Barrington to Torrington. On March 12, 1941, he and Ridgefield native Ethel Zandri were married at St. Mary’s Church here, and Mr. Garbin became a Ridgefielder.
He was a retired heavy equipment-operating engineer and belonged to union Local 478 of Hamden.
The Garbins both retired at age 70 and decided to do what they were never able to do. “We never did anything but work,” Mrs. Garbin said, “and we decided to travel.” They acquired a 28-foot motor home and toured everyone one of the lower 48 states, Canada and Mexico. Each winter for the past eight or so years, they’d stay in McAllen, Texas, near the Rio Grande.
“He loved to travel all over the country,” Mrs. Garbin said.
Mr. Garbin had also been an avid gardener and handyman. In the past he had also designed jewelry as a hobby, fashioning pins and earrings from silver.
Besides his wife of 61 years, Mr. Garbin is survived by two adopted children: Maralee Allan of New York City and John Groothoff of Mystic; a brother: Primo Garbin of Torrington; and many nieces and nephews.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Friday morning at 10:30 in St. Mary's Church.
Burial will follow in St. Mary's Cemetery.
Friends will be received in the Kane Funeral Home 41 Catoonah Street Ridgefield on Thursday from 5 to 8 p.m.
Contributions in Mr. Garbin's memory may be made to Regional Hospice of Western CT, 405 Main Street, Danbury, CT 06810.
