Deaths Deaths (October 26, 2005)

Mary Braun

Mary Margaret Braun, 91, a longtime resident of Los Altos, died Oct. 10 after slipping into a coma.

She was born in 1914 in New Amelo, Kan. With little formal education, she did various cooking and cleaning jobs at different ranches while also working at several stores. She ended up meeting her husband, Peter "P.K." Braun, in 1937 and married him one year later. She then became a full-time homemaker to take care of her new family.

She worked as a volunteer with many community and church organizations including the Ladies Auxiliary, various flower clubs and as a den mother for her son's Boy Scouts troop. She was known as the "Lady in Pink" because of her affinity for wearing and decorating in the color. She was renowned by her children's friends for her baked goods and loved to iron clothes.

After the death of her husband in 1975, she sold the family house in Los Altos and spent the rest of her remaining years living in the Santiago Villa Mobile Home Park. She affected more lives while serving as a two-term president of their ladies club from 1978 to 1979.

She is survived by her son, Richard of Mountain View; her daughter, Lois of Medford, Ore.; three granddaughters and five great-grandchildren.

Internment has not been determined, but the family asks anyone who would like to commemorate her life to donate to the victims of Hurricane Katrina through the American Red Cross or various Catholic charities.

Pola Kellerman

Pola Kellerman, 43-year resident of Palo Alto, died Oct. 11 in Santa Monica, Calif., after a brief illness. She was surrounded by her family.

She lived in the Greenmeadow area from 1962 to 2004, when she left Palo Alto to move closer to her family. She worked for many years as a supervisor in medical records at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and subsequently as a medical insurance consultant for physicians in the Palo Alto area.

Following her retirement, she pursued numerous interests and gave her time to the community she loved. As a volunteer at the Avenidas Senior Center from 1977 until her move, she became the coordinator of the health insurance counseling service for seniors and was also a dedicated volunteer at Avenidas' Health Library.

She used her fluency in Spanish, Russian and German as a volunteer translator for the Palo Alto Police Department for many years. She provided valuable assistance to Russian immigrants, working with Temple Beth Am and the Jewish Community Center to help recently arrived families adjust to life in America. She found great fulfillment in her various volunteer activities.

She is survived by her daughters, Harriet Ratner, Marta Samulon and Patty Friedman; sons-in-law, Jon Ratner, Fred Samulon and Mel Friedman; sister-in-law, Margot Braunthal; six grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and a nephew.

Cathlyn Rhoads

Cathlyn Cress Rhoads, a 70-year resident of Palo Alto, died Sept. 24 in the company of many friends at Lytton Gardens following a series of debilitating strokes.

She was born in 1921 in Minneapolis, Minn., and grew up in a military family. The family traveled extensively when she was a child, but settled in Palo Alto in the 1930s, and she graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1939.

She attended Mills College and graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a teaching degree. She chose to work as a secretary, however, and retired from the Electric Power Research Institute in 1990.

For the past 10 years she had suffered from Glaucoma-induced blindness, but found her way around downtown Palo Alto, where she took her meals every day. She had carefully memorized the streets and public-transit schedules over the years. She became a Jehovah's Witness in 1973 and was well known by many for her regular door-to-door visits.

She is survived by two grandsons and one great-grandson. A memorial service was held Oct. 1.

Hans Samelson

Hans Samelson, 89, Stanford University professor emeritus of mathematics, died peacefully in his sleep of natural causes on Sept. 22 in Palo Alto.

He was one of the world's leading figures in the mathematics research areas of differential geometry, topology and the theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras -- important in describing the symmetry of analytical structures. He was the author of many research articles and two widely used textbooks -- an undergraduate book about linear algebra and a graduate text on the theory of Lie algebras.

The eldest of three sons, he was born March 3, 1916, in Strassburg, Germany (now Strasbourg, France). His parents -- one of Protestant and one of Jewish background -- were both pediatricians. His family helped him leave Nazi Germany in 1936 for Zurich, Switzerland, where he studied with famed geometer Heinz Hopf and received his doctorate in 1940 from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

In 1941 he accepted a position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and immigrated to the United States; he arrived by ship six months before the United States entered World War II and acquired U.S. citizenship several years later. After leaving Princeton, he held faculty positions at the University of Wyoming (1942-1943), Syracuse University (1943-1946) and the University of Michigan (1946-1960) before coming to Stanford in 1960.

An outstanding teacher of mathematics, he was recognized with the Dean`s Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1977. He served as chair of the Mathematics Department from 1979 to 1982.

Though he became emeritus in 1986, he remained professionally active throughout his retirement, publishing articles on both contemporary and historical mathematical topics. One solved an architectural puzzle associated with the construction of the Brunelleschi Dome in Florence, Italy.

On the occasion of his 70th and 85th birthdays, conferences were held in his honor at Stanford, attended by the world's leading figures in mathematics research, including many of his former students and colleagues.

His experiences in Nazi Germany and his humanist sensibility gave him a profound distrust of nationalism and militarism, and he was deeply troubled by recent trends in national political leadership.

He was married twice, to the late Renate Reiner in 1940 and to Nancy Morse in 1956. He is survived by his wife, Nancy of Stanford; a brother, Franz of Manhattan, Kan.; children, Peter of Verona, N.J., Amy of San Jose, Calif., and Roger, of Corvallis, Ore.; and two grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held Sunday, Nov. 6, at 3 p.m. at the Palo Alto Friends Meeting House, 957 Colorado Ave., Palo Alto.

Memorial donations may be made to the Samelson Memorial Fund, Department of Mathematics, Stanford University, Building 380, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305-2125; to the Friends Committee on Legislation, 926 J St. #707, Sacramento, CA 95814-2707; or to the Palo Alto Friends Meeting House, 957 Colorado Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94303.

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