Pfc. Markie T. Sims, 20, of Citra, Fla., a Stryker Brigade soldier from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, was killed by a roadside bomb. Dec. 29 in Panjwal, Afghanistan.

Jeri Lafromboise, 79, of Laurelhurst and Kent, who as a young widow took over the newspaper chain her first husband had assembled and kept the business going, controlling The Chronicle in Centralia, two weekly newspapers and other interests and passing the chairmanship to her daughter, died of leukemia Dec. 28

Rita Levi-Montalcini, 103, a Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist who began her research on cell development while dodging bombs and fleeing Nazi persecution during World War II, died Sunday at her home in Rome.

Patti Page, 85, the best-selling female singer of the 1950s, who recorded unforgettable songs such as "Tennessee Waltz" and "(How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window?", died Tuesday in Encinitas, Calif. She had heart and lung disease.

John Sheardown, 88, an unflappable Canadian diplomat in Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis who helped shelter six American "house guests" at his home, at great personal risk, until they were secretly shuttled out of the country, died Dec. 30 in Ottawa. He had Alzheimer's disease.

Gerda Lerner, 92, a scholar and author who helped make the study of women and their lives a legitimate subject for historians and spearheaded the creation of the first graduate program in women's history in the nation, died Wednesday in Madison, Wis.

Jane Holmes Dixon, 75, who was ordained an Episcopal priest in her 40s and was the second woman ever to be elevated to bishop in the Episcopal Church, died Dec. 25, apparently of a heart attack, in Washington, D.C.

Mamie Rearden, 114, of Edgefield, S.C., who held the title of the oldest living American for about two weeks, died Wednesday at a hospital in Augusta, Ga.

Robert C. Pew II, 89, a retired Steelcase executive who co-founded the Robert and Mary Pew Public Education Fund, which has awarded $22 million to public schools, died Dec. 22 in Palm Beach County, Fla., 10 days after a stroke.

Beate Sirota Gordon, 89, who while working for the U.S. army of occupation at 22 almost single-handedly wrote women's rights into the constitution of postwar Japan, only to become a feminist heroine there in recent years, died of pancreatic cancer last Sunday in Manhattan.

Reuben Pannor, 90, a Los Angeles social worker and trailblazer for the open-adoption movement who paved the way for a paradigm shift in adoption culture and also gave a voice to unwed fathers, died Dec. 22 in L.A.

Midge Turk Richardson, 82, a nun and parochial-school principal who cast off her habit and then reigned for nearly two decades as editor of Seventeen magazine, was found dead of natural causes Dec. 17 in her New York City home.

Harry Carey Jr., 91, who made his mark as a boyish sidekick to John Wayne in John Ford Westerns such as "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949), and later became one of the most ubiquitous character actors in TV and movie Westerns, died Dec. 27 in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Mike Hopkins, 53, an Oscar-winning sound editor who worked on the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and other Peter Jackson films, drowned last Sunday in a rafting accident in New Zealand.

Carl Woese, 81, a biophysicist and evolutionary microbiologist whose discovery of a "third domain" of life in the vast realm of microorganisms altered scientific understanding of evolution, died last Sunday in Urbana, Ill.

Rebecca Tarbotton, 39, of Oakland, Calif., an environmental activist who helped persuade big banks to stop financing mountaintop-removal mining, died Dec. 26 in a swimming accident in Mexico.