The week's passages

Bertha Davis, 97, who in a half-century of teaching and tutoring influenced generations of Ballard residents, and also worked on countless civic causes, died May 20 after a long illness.

Clara Luper, 88, a high-school teacher, radio host and author who led sit-ins that helped integrate drugstore lunch counters in four Midwestern states, died Wednesday in Oklahoma City, Okla.

Lilian Jackson Braun Bettinger, 97, the prolific, best-selling author of "The Cat Who ... " series, 29 humorous mystery stories involving a pair of domesticated felines, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease June 4 in Landrum, S.C.

Maqbool Fida Husain, 95, an artist whose modernist reinterpretations of mythic and religious subjects made him India's most famous painter and a target of right-wing Hindu groups, died of a heart attack Thursday in London.

John R. Alison, 98, a World War II fighter pilot who helped lead a daring and unprecedented Allied air invasion of Burma, and later retired as an Air Force major general, died Monday in Washington, D.C.

Leonard B. Stern, 88, an Emmy-winning writer, producer and director for television ("The Honeymooners," "Get Smart") whose frantic search for an adjective one day led him and a colleague to create Mad Libs, the game that asks players to fill in blanks with designated parts of speech to yield silly stories, died of heart failure Tuesday in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Mike Mitchell, 55, a former NBA All-Star who played 10 seasons for the Cleveland Cavaliers and San Antonio Spurs, died of cancer Thursday in San Antonio, Texas.

Genaro Hernandez, 45, a two-time world super featherweight boxing champion, died Tuesday in Mission Viejo, Calif., of a rare cancer, rhabdomyosarcoma, which attacks muscle fibers.

Brian Lenihan, 52, the finance minister who oversaw Ireland's struggle to avoid national bankruptcy and the collapse of its banks even as he battled pancreatic cancer, died Friday in Dublin.

Philip Rose, 89, a producer who expanded the horizons of the Broadway stage with his 1959 production of "A Raisin in the Sun," about an African-American family in Chicago, died after a stroke May 31 in Englewood, N.J.

Adolph Schwimmer, 94, a New York native who smuggled planes out of the U.S. to found Israel's aerospace industry and help in the nation's 1948 creation, died of pneumonia Friday in Israel.

Prince Khalid bin Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, 54, eldest child of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, died Friday, state media reported. He was not in line for the throne.

Jorge Semprun, 87, who chronicled his own experiences in the Nazis' Buchenwald death camp, struggled against dictatorship in his native Spain and later became its culture minister, died Tuesday in Paris, where he spent most of his life.

Andrew Gold, 59, who played in Linda Ronstadt's band and also had a recording career of his own with hits like "Lonely Boy" and "Thank You for Being a Friend," died June 3 in Encino, Calif. He had renal cancer.