Richard Oliver Funsch

Richard Oliver Funsch died peacefully at home on Tuesday, April 1 at the age of 92. Born in St. Louis, MO, he graduated from St. Louis Country Day School before going on to Princeton University as a member of the Class of 1955. At Princeton he majored in history and was a proud member of the University Cottage Club.

After graduation he attended Columbia University Law School for one year before returning to Washington University in St. Louis for his last two years of law school. After passing the Missouri Bar, he entered the US Air Force as a judge advocate and spent 34 months at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho.

Following his service, he returned to St. Louis where he practiced law. In 1972 Richard ran for U.S. Congress, Missouri 1st Congressional District, against the veteran incumbent Bill Clay and lost. He enjoyed showing friends the scrapbook he put together from that unsuccessful run. In 1980 he started his own firm consisting of five lawyers with a primary focus on civil litigation. He was so enthusiastic about his trial work that he could recall details many years later, including just before he died, and recount stories about some of his favorite adversaries, including the famed Marvin Belli.

In 1983 his life took a dramatic change when he lost 96 percent of his eyesight within 24 hours due to an unidentified virus. This changed the way he practiced law, but he soldiered on for the next 10 years with the help of a reader. After retirement he volunteered for 13 years with the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) in St. Louis and later in Princeton.

In 1988 he married Mary Sutter whom he had known in St. Louis for 20 years through Princeton connections. Looking for new challenges they moved to Princeton in 1996. Richard often said that his return to Princeton fortified his belief that it was the “best old place of all.” In Princeton he enjoyed auditing classes without the necessity of taking notes or the stress of exams. Until his eyesight was completely gone, he would regularly walk the streets of Princeton from the YMCA, where he exercised, to his home. Never one to pity himself for his lack of eyesight, he was always looking to learn and often regaled friends with his lawyer “war stories.”

In addition to his wife Mary, he is survived by his children Randolph Funsch, Ted Funsch, and Cynthia Funsch-Sena and his stepchildren John H. Sutter, Mary Beth Womer (John), and Sarah Sutter Glazar (Christian). His grandchildren include Elizabeth and William Sutter, Molly Womer, Margaret and Ethan Glazar, and Felicia and Thomas Funsch.

Memorial contributions may be made to “Cottage 1886 Foundation” c/o University Cottage Club, 51 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, NJ 08540.

A memorial service will be held at Trinity Church on Saturday, May 10, 2025 at 11 a.m.
Arrangements are under the direction of Mather-Hodge Funeral Home, Princeton.

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Thomas Vining Seessel

Thomas Vining Seessel, 87, of Featherbed Lane in Hopewell, died at his home on the morning of March 22.

Tom was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and came north to Dartmouth College on a Navy ROTC scholarship. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1959. After college, he became a Lieutenant on an ocean-going tugboat; as the navigator, he learned to sail by the stars. He met his wife, Diane, on a blind date on Saint Patrick’s Day, 1962, while on shore leave.
Tom and Diane married in 1963 and moved to Princeton, where Tom earned his master’s degree at the University’s School of Public and International Affairs. The school was filled with idealist young students who heeded John F. Kennedy’s call: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” After working for one of the nation’s first anti-poverty programs in New Haven, Connecticut, they returned to central New Jersey in 1968 to raise their family.

Tom spent his entire career with nonprofit organizations like the Ford Foundation, where he was a grant officer administering employment and housing programs for lower-income families. He also worked as the deputy commissioner for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in the 1970s. Later, drawing on his personal experience, he became the executive director of the National Council on Alcoholism. As he told The Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, his mission there was simple. “I want to teach the American public two things,” he said. “Alcohol is a drug, and it’s okay to say ‘no.’”

After retiring in 1998, Tom became a consultant and adviser for various nonprofits, including local ones like the Sourland Conservancy and the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum.

Filled with a quick wit and a restless mental and physical energy, Tom had many personal interests. He loved to read, talk politics, and was a devoted member of the Princeton Pro Musica choral group. He served on the Hopewell School Board in the 1970s and 1980s, and neighbors remember him as one of the township’s first joggers. When that became too physically demanding, he became a regular biker around his beloved Sourland Mountain. He and Diane traveled extensively, including Africa, China, Russia, and Europe, and they were regular visitors to the Adirondacks and the red rock country of the American West.

Tom loved his family and was much loved by them. In addition to his wife Diane, he is survived by his three children, Adam, Jessica, and Ben; and three grandchildren, Isaac, Sam, and Maeve.

Donations in Tom’s memory can be made either to the Hopewell Fire Department and Emergency Medical Unit or the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum.

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Brad David Silver

Brad David Silver, of Hamilton, passed away on April 5, 2025 at the age of 70.

Brad was born in Queens, NY, to Aubrey and Sandy Silver. He graduated from Hofstra University majoring in Business Administration. After several years of work experience at major financial firms in New York, he founded his company, Princeton Tax Advisory Group in 2007. Brad and his wife took great pride helping people invest and manage their retirement assets.

Brad married Donna in 1989 and raised two daughters, Ariel and Shelly. They enjoyed over three decades of family life and activities. Outings with friends, travel, cruising, sailing the sea, and white-water rafting with his wife, and gatherings of the extended family for holidays and special occasions.

Brad is survived by his wife and daughters; two sisters Toni and Stacey; nephews Adam, Jonathan, and Benjamin; niece Alix; and several great-nephews and nieces.

A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, April 9 at 10:30 am at Orland’s Ewing Memorial Chapel, 1534 Pennington Road, Ewing, NJ. Interment was private.

For condolences please visit the obituary page at OrlandsMemorialChapel.com.

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Jane Jacobs

Jane Jacobs, of Princeton, died after a short respiratory illness on March 21 at the age of 99 at Princeton Medical Center in Plainsboro.

Born in 1926 in Rochester, New York, to George Shaw and Katherine (McGreal) Shaw, she graduated as the valedictorian of Brighton High School and received a bachelor’s degree in English from Smith College in 1948. After moving to New York City to take a position as an assistant editor in the children’s department at Oxford University Press, she was courted by and married William Jacobs. The two moved to Princeton in 1949, where Bill began a 40-year career as a professor of biology at Princeton University.

Jane received her master’s in education from Rutgers University and began teaching in the English department at Princeton High School in 1963. She was hired to teach a class that was so disruptive that five previous teachers had already quit by late October. She survived that class and taught at PHS until her retirement in 1987, including several years as chair of the department. Her dedication to this work cannot be overstated. Many of her students have shared that her name is the answer to the online security question, “Who was your favorite teacher?”

Jane was predeceased by Bill in 2019 and by her brother George Shaw II, of San Antonio.

She is survived by her sister Ann South, of Dallas, Texas; her son Mark, who lives in Phoenix with his wife, Ellen; her daughter Anne, of West Windsor; and by five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Except for walking, dancing, and infrequent swimming, Jane never exercised in her adult life. She did not lift a dumbbell or do a bridge pose. She savored rich food, good wine, good conversation, and reading. If she had a secret to long life, it was the certainty that she was, in her own words, “a lucky dame.” So are those of us who knew her.

There will be a memorial service for Jane at Mountain Lakes House on June 21. Please contact Anne Jacobs at jjmemorial2025@gmail.com for more information.

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Lynn Cox Scheffey

Caroline “Lynn” Cox Scheffey died peacefully on Thursday morning, January 9, 2025, at Stonebridge at Montgomery in Skillman, NJ, where she had resided for 8 years. She was 94. She will be missed by her devoted family and friends, as well as by former professional colleagues and friends among the community of advocates for women’s rights and social justice.

Born July 29, 1930, in Scarsdale, NY, Lynn was the daughter of Howard Lee Cox, Sr. of Sharon Hill, PA, and Caroline Benham Cox of Columbus, OH. The family soon moved to a 71-acre farm on North Mill Road in Princeton Junction, NJ, that is now the site of the West Windsor Community Park. She grew up there with her beloved older brother Howard Lee Cox, Jr., a graduate of Princeton University, and WWII veteran who predeceased her in 1959.

Lynn and Lee had countless “stepsiblings” in the form of the first “real” Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy dolls, which were produced by their father to promote the celebrated series of children’s books authored and illustrated by Johnny Gruelle. The 23 Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy books were eventually published by The Johnny Gruelle Company, founded by Lynn’s father in partnership with the Gruelle family, after the original publisher folded. Lynn treasured her collection of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy books and original dolls, as well as fond memories of her father’s work with the company.

As a child, Lynn contracted polio, but showing the grit and curiosity that stayed with her throughout her life, she survived and excelled in school. She skipped two grades and graduated from Princeton High School in 1947, when she was 16. Later that fall, following her 17th birthday, she entered Bryn Mawr College.

At Bryn Mawr, Lynn majored in Biology, but in her junior year romance eclipsed academics, and she interrupted her studies to marry Lewis C. “Lew” Scheffey, Jr. As Lew developed his career, Lynn had and cared for three sons as the family moved many times, most notably to Santiago, Chile (from 1952 to 1953), where Lynn became fluent in Spanish.

When the family returned to the US, they lived in Athens, GA, and Leesport, PA, eventually settling in Merion Station, PA. Three young sons, notwithstanding, Lynn determined to further her studies. She completed four semesters of immersive Art History study at The Barnes Foundation, followed by the University of Pennsylvania, where she received her BA in The History of Art in 1963.

Throughout her life, Lynn was continually engaged in civic and political activity. Notable among her accomplishments was “HAPPY RETURNS FOR UNICEF,” a project she created in 1969 as Chair of the International Currency Development Program for UNICEF in Philadelphia. Lynn created the project to raise funds for the U.N. International Children’s Emergency Fund, a program designed to raise money by collecting donations of unused foreign currency from returning international air travelers using secure, pre-paid mailing envelopes, designed by the eminent graphic designer Ivan Chermayeff. Lynn secured Pan Am as the exclusive airline partner for the UNICEF project, as well as the endorsement and participation of then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kurt Waldheim. The project, which garnered nationwide media attention, was a notable success.

In the late 1960s, Lynn’s commitment to social justice drew her to feminist advocacy. She was an original leader of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Women’s Political Caucus. In 1972, Governor Milton J. Shapp appointed her as Co-Chairperson of the Pennsylvania Commission on the Status of Women. She served with Co-Chairperson Alma Speed Fox, a civil rights activist from Pittsburgh. The Commission was founded to implement the provisions of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Equal Rights Amendment adopted in 1971. Under Lynn’s leadership, the Third Annual Conference of The Interstate Association of Commissions on the Status of Women was convened in Philadelphia in 1973.

During the 1970s, Lynn directed and created a series of other community-based  educational, scientific, and social service programs at several institutions. She served as Acting Deputy Director of the World Order Research Institute at Villanova University; as a Consultant  for Special Projects to the University City Science Center in Philadelphia;  and as Coordinator of a Health Education Program at Philadelphia’s Lankenau Hospital that provided curriculum guidance to school districts across the state.

In the early 1980s, following a longstanding interest in entrepreneurship, Lynn enrolled in the MBA program at Temple University’s Fox School of Business in Philadelphia. She received her MBA in 1984.

Lynn used her business skills and creativity to originate, initially in conjunction with her son Thomas, a series of imaginative real estate development projects focused on historic properties in the Spring Garden neighborhood of Philadelphia. For decades, she was sole owner and manager of several successful real estate projects, including a complex of 16 still-fruitful, residential rental condominiums.

Throughout her life, Lynn was an energetic supporter of progressive issues and a dedicated volunteer in national, regional, and local Democratic political campaigns. She was a member of Princeton Friends Meeting and Haverford Friends Meeting.

Lynn enjoyed worldwide travel, food and wine, advanced learning programs and study in art history, science, political studies, and social research, as well as celebrating a lifetime of long friendships, while always cultivating new connections and learning adventures. She will be fondly remembered for her tenacity, wit, and beautiful spirit.

Lynn was predeceased by Lew Scheffey, from whom she was divorced in 1977. She is survived by her three sons, Thomas Benham (Melissa) of Ewing, NJ, Stephen Thun of Boulder, CO, and Daniel Cox, of New York, NY; four grandchildren, Nathan (Caroline), Aubrey (Christopher), Adrienne (Vikrama), and Leigh (Rafael); and three great-grandchildren, Maxwell, Penelope, and Bela.

A memorial service is scheduled for Saturday, May 17, 2025 at 11 a.m., in the Meetinghouse at Princeton Friends Meeting in Princeton NJ, with a reception immediately following in the Meeting’s Friendship Room. Interment in the Cox Family lot at Arlington Cemetery in Drexel Hill, PA, will take place with family members at a later date. In Lynn’s memory, donations can be made to Princeton Friends Meeting.

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Margaret “Peggy” Arlene Thompson
August 9, 1940 – April 3, 2025

Margaret “Peggy” Arlene Thompson, 84, of Pennington, NJ, passed away peacefully on April 3, 2025, after a long illness.

Born and raised in Princeton, NJ, Peggy was the daughter of Nelson W. and Anne T. Thompson. She spent her childhood near Lake Carnegie and later on The Great Road, forming a deep love for nature and community that stayed with her throughout her life. She graduated from Princeton High School in 1958.

In the early 1960s, Peggy moved to San Francisco, where she graduated from Grace Ball Secretarial College in 1963. While in California, she worked for the Freeman-Cooper Company, and later, back in New Jersey, she worked at the Ingersoll Rand Company in Rocky Hill.

From 1967 to 1969, Peggy lived in Vietnam during the war, serving with the U.S. State Department and the Agency for International Development. Stationed inside the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, she developed deep friendships and a lasting sense of service. She was a proud member of the American Foreign Service Association. While in Vietnam, she met Robert Spinner, a U.S. Navy officer. They were married in January 1970 and divorced in 1993.

Following her time in Vietnam, Peggy traveled throughout Asia, visiting Nepal, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and other countries. She later settled in Pennington, NJ, where she raised her family and built a 35-year career as an administrator at Princeton Montessori School — a school where her daughter now works and her grandchildren attend. She retired at 78.

Peggy had a lifelong love of horses and was a skilled and competitive tennis player, winning multiple titles in the USTA/Volvo League. She was also a proud member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and deeply connected to her family’s historical roots in Princeton, including their legacy at the Kingston Mill.

She is survived by her daughter, Tracey A. Baskin (Noah), and son, Steven B. Spinner (Katie); her four grandchildren, Brooke, Skylar, Amelia, and Colin; her sister, Annelle Beckenbaugh (Bill) of Houston, TX; and her brother, Nelson Thompson (Mary Lee) of Myrtle Beach, SC. She was a cherished aunt to many nieces and nephews.

Peggy was predeceased by her parents and her sisters, Joan-Anne Dismukes and Meta Rasmussen.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, April 12, at Hopewell Presbyterian Church in Hopewell, NJ. Calling hours will be from 9 to 10 a.m., with the service to follow at 10 a.m. Interment at Highland Cemetery in Hopewell will be private. A luncheon will follow at Salt Creek Grille in Plainsboro.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Peggy’s memory to Ryerss Farm for Aged Equines at www.ryerssfarm.org.

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Eleanor Phyllis Hamel
October 16, 1927 – January 7, 2025

Eleanor “Phyllis” Hamel (Evans) passed away peacefully on January 7, 2025 in Eugene, Oregon. She was surrounded by the love of her children and grandchildren. She remained active and independent up until just days before her passing.

Phyllis was born in Bermuda to Richard Evans and Elizabeth Potter on October 16, 1927. Though she lived there for only a few years, Bermuda held a lasting place in her heart, with cherished memories of her grandfather’s garden. These early experiences fostered a lifelong love of nature and beauty that shaped her artistic and personal pursuits.

Her childhood was marked by challenges and resilience. Following her parents’ divorce in 1930, she moved to the United States with her mother and grandmother (Rosa Carlotta Vincent Potter, known as “Tuttie”), living in various places, notably Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. Despite frequent relocations and withdrawals from primary schools, Phyllis developed a deep love of learning. She attended Holton-Arms School in Washington, D.C., from 1939, graduating in 1947 and participated in war-time volunteer efforts.

In 1948, she married Leonard Francis Lloyd Baynham, with whom she shared a love of adventure and boating on the Potomac River. In 1948, Leonard took her on a trip to Wales to reconnect with long-lost family members on her father’s side. This reunion was a profound experience, allowing her to rediscover her Welsh heritage and family. The family lived in Arlington, VA. Between 1950 and 1957, Phyllis and Leonard had four children: Morgan, Owen, Meredith, and Gwyneth. They divorced in 1958.

In 1959 Phyllis married John Jacob (“Jake”) Hamel. They lived for a time in New York City where Gwyneth was adopted, then settled in Princeton, NJ, in 1960. Jake and Phyllis then had two children: Jennifer and John Eric. During her nearly five decades in Princeton, Phyllis immersed herself in community life. She served as a board member at All Saints’ Church Nursery School and the Neuro-Psychiatric Institute. She was a member and President of the Garden Club and played an active role at Trinity Church and its Altar Guild. For a brief time, Phyllis was a runway model for Bill Blass.

Her passion for art and nature flourished. She took horticulture courses at the New York Botanical Gardens, pursued painting, and started a successful floral design business, Flora Interior Designs, eventually owning and running the Princeton Flower Shop until its sale in 1986.

In 2008, Phyllis and Jake moved to Eugene, Oregon, to be close to Gwyneth and her two children. There Phyllis embraced a vibrant and fulfilling life as a “Tuesday Regular” volunteer at Hendricks Park, member of the board of Friends of Hendricks Park, and was instrumental in raising funds for the beloved rhododendron garden. She was active on the board of the Eugene Garden Club; member of the Maude Kerns, Emerald Art Centers; and the Campbell Center, where she participated in a weekly rug-hooking group. She joined the Plein Air Painters and created watercolor greeting cards sold in local shops. Her artistic talents were recognized in publications and art shows, and her work — including a rug design of a tiger rug featured in Rug Hooking Magazine — was widely admired. She found immense joy in Eugene’s artistic and nature-loving communities, especially after Jake passed away in 2012. Phyllis attended and volunteered arranging altar flowers at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. These activities helped her form deep friendships that enriched her final years.

Phyllis was a woman of resilience, creativity, and boundless curiosity. Her love for the people around her, beauty in nature and art, her pet dogs and cats all remained central throughout her life. She leaves behind a legacy of strength, courage, paintings, sketches, hooked rugs, and an enduring appreciation for the natural world. She is a role model for fierce independence and perseverance.
Phyllis is survived by her six children: Morgan Frances Baynham (Laura), Owen Richard Baynham (Patti), Meredith Amy Baynham Watters (John), Gwyneth Elizabeth Hamel Iredale, Jennifer Potter Hamel, and John Eric Hamel; six grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Eugene, OR, on May 31, 2025 at 1 p.m. Her remains will be laid to rest at the family graveyard at Trinity Church in Princeton.

If you wish to honor Phyllis’s memory please share in her support of Friends of Hendricks Park by making a donation on friendsofhendrickspark.org.