Obituaries

Longtime Mt. Airy resident and former Local film Critic J. Cooper Robb died of laryngeal cancer on June 22. He died at his home in Newton, Pennsylvania. with his husband, Karl Carter, by his side. Robb was born in Philadelphia and raised in both Devon and Mt. Airy. He graduated from Germantown Friends School before […]

Paul David Sehnert, 63, director of real estate development at the University of Pennsylvania, died May 19 of cancer at his home in Erdenheim. Sehnert was also an adjunct lecturer and instructor at Penn Design in real estate design and development, and, from 2009-2012, a lecturer in investment and finance in the university’s Department of […]

Tom “Woody” Woodruff of Oreland, Chestnut Hill’s “Patriot Poet” who recited his own patriotic poems at every neighborhood Fourth of July celebration, died on Saturday Feb. 2. He was 84. Woodruff was born on Nov. 6, 1934 in Mt. Airy. He was a long-time resident of Chestnut Hill and later Oreland. He grew up playing […]

by Sue Ann Rybak Mount St. Joseph Academy President Sister Kathleen Brabson, (formerly Sr. Thomas Audrey), 71, a nun in the order of the Sisters of Saint Joseph for 53 years, died on Jan. 23 from lung cancer at St. Joseph Villa in Flourtown. The daughter of the late Francis Thomas and Audrey (nee Burke) […]

Mary Randall Hopkins, 73, a lay church leader and volunteer advocate, died on Dec 21, 2018, at a family home at Piper Shores near Prouts Neck, Maine. Hopkins was born in Doylestown and lived in Chestnut Hill her whole life. She graduated from Springside School in 1963. A stay-at-home mom who raised two sons from […]

Dr. Sandra Dombroski Fritsch succumbed to the effects of a 23-year struggle with Parkinson’s Disease on Jan. 13, at her home in Chestnut Hill. Fritsch was born on Nov. 11, 1946 in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania to Dr. Stanley and Jeanette Dombroski. She graduated from St. Ann’s Academy in Wilkes Barre, received a bachelor’s degree in psychology […]

Noted American stained-glass artist and longtime Mt. Airy resident Charles Z. Lawrence died on Jan. 1, at 83. Lawrence, who began his career in 1956 as an apprentice to master craftsman Rudolph Henrick Beunz, was known for a bold, gothic revival style best typified by five windows in the Washington National Cathedral. In the 1960s, […]

Barbara Torode, 80, died unexpectedly on Jan. 3 in her Mt. Airy home. She was a retired graphic designer. Born in New York City, she came to Philadelphia to attend the Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the Arts, graduating in 1959. She worked as an art director for several advertising agencies, notably […]

Joseph P. McNichol, 77, formerly of Mt. Airy, a football coach who had worked with several high school teams in the Philadelphia area, died Nov. 17 of cancer at his home in Lafayette Hill. Mr. McNichol was probably best known for his years at Archbishop Carroll High School in Radnor, from 1969 to 1976, where […]