Around Town

Tuckahoe Elementary art teacher Nicole ‘Nikki’ Reed passed away “quietly and peacefully” surrounded by family and friends last month after an eight-month battle against a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer.

“Friends and Family, this is a post that we knew would come eventually, but we all thought we had more time. Our valiant fighter, Nikki, has taken the path of peace,” Janet Doyle wrote on her friend’s CaringBridge blog last month.


Obituary

The long-time former owner of Essy’s Carriage House has died.

Essy Saedi died on Thanksgiving, November 23, at the age of 76. He owned the beloved family-owned Cherrydale restaurant before its closing earlier this year. As he told ARLnow, Saedi was looking forward to traveling in his retirement.


Obituary

Charlie Clark, a dogged chronicler of local life in Arlington, has died at the age of 70.

He was known locally as the author of “Our Man in Arlington,” a weekly column in the Falls Church News-Press, and as the author of several books on local history.


Obituary

Longtime Arlingtonian and local leader Cecilia Cassidy passed away yesterday in Frederick, Maryland, at the age of 75.

In Arlington, she was best known for her housing advocacy and her leadership of two local organizations: the Rosslyn Business Improvement District and the Columbia Pike Revitalization Organization, now the Columbia Pike Partnership.


Obituary

Madelin Jones Barratt, 69, of Falls Church, Va., passed away peacefully at home on September 29, 2023 of mesothelioma.

Madelin was born in 1954 in Houston, Texas to C.M.C. Jones, Jr. and Jacquelin Jones. Her father was a Marine Corps officer and the Jones family was stationed in several locations around the United States during Madelin’s childhood, including Annapolis, Md., Quantico, Va., Pearl Harbor, and Camp Lejeune, N.C. After graduating from Lejeune High School, where she was a captain of the cheerleading squad, Madelin attended Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Va., where she received a bachelor’s degree in music in 1976.


Obituary

Miriam Zogby Balutis was born on August 22, 1945 in Utica, NY, and died on August 22, 2023 at her home in Arlington, VA, enveloped in the warmth, love and care of her family, and secure in the knowledge that the former president’s next arraignment was imminent. She is survived by her devoted partner of many years, Jan Jaworski, and her two beloved children Juliette (Nor) Balutis and Adam Balutis. She is also survived by her sister Sadieann (Robert) Spear; niece Rachel (Robert Palladino) Mazzotta; nephew Christian (Barbara) Mazzotta; cousin Marya (Christopher Healey) Myslinski; and their children. She was preceded in death by her parents, Wadih and Juliette Zogby.

Miriam died of metastatic breast cancer, and it was her clear and strong wish that in memorializing her, we eschew the warrior and battle-centric language that we often see used to define the cancer experience, along with its tacit implication that surviving or dying from cancer is simply a variable driven by the will of a patient. Miriam did not “lose her battle” with cancer; she endured it for seven and a half years, abiding difficult treatments and rare side effects while living her life as well and as fully as possible throughout: traveling extensively with her partner, hosting joyful gatherings at her home, contributing her time and energy to countless campaigns to elect Democrats in Virginia and across the nation, volunteering in her community, growing numerous varieties of heirloom tomatoes in her beautifully self-landscaped backyard, and spending many treasured hours with family and friends. Though she is no longer bound by the physical body that cancer destroyed, she didn’t lose anything – not her perspective, her dignity, her sense of humor, her quick wit, her compassion for others, her moral clarity, her intolerance for injustice, her brilliant mind, her wide-ranging wisdom, her commitment to community, or her love of life’s simple joys. Her loss is solely ours: the tremendous, seismic loss of an indomitable and loving mother, partner, friend and neighbor.


Obituary

Captain Kyle ‘Topper’ Lawrence Leese (Age 51)

Captain Kyle “Topper” Lawrence Leese, United States Navy, passed away on July 19, 2023, after a brief illness. At the time of his passing, he had served as an Intelligence Officer for nearly three decades. CAPT Leese is survived by his wife of 24 years, Joanne; their eighteen-year-old son, Evan; his mother, Laraine Leese-Filla and his stepfather, Tom Filla; his extended family in Canada; and a myriad of friends, sailors and shipmates on whom he has left an indelible impression.


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