She practiced family medicine and obstetrics and gynecology and was affiliated with several area hospitals, including Capitol Hill Hospital. She treated as many as six generations of a family and maintained that her greatest accomplishment was in educating women on the importance of Pap smears in early cancer detection.
Dr. Gay, who received the D.C. government’s Capitol Hill Community Achievement Award in 1986, served on U.S. presidential health commissions and was a past president of the D.C. chapters of the American Academy of Family Practice and the American Medical Women’s Association. She also was a fellow of the American Academy of Family Practice and a member of the Pan American Medical Association.
Her first husband, Dr. Lendall C. Gay, died in 1971. Her second husband, Dr. James Bryant, died in 1985.
Survivors include two sons from her first marriage, Gordon B. Gay of Fredericksburg and Dr. Spencer B. Gay of Charlottesville; six grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.
Reading Tutor Mildred Pauline Farley, 85, a reading tutor in the 1950s at the old Hollin Hills Elementary School in Alexandria, died of cardiac arrest Dec. 13 at an assisted living center in Los Gatos, Calif.
Mrs. Farley, a native of Pine Bluffs, Wyo., moved to the Washington area in the late 1940s. She lived in Alexandria from the 1950s to 1962, when she moved to Paris. She returned to Alexandria in 1967 and moved to California in the late 1970s.
Survivors include her husband of 63 years, Philip J. Farley of Los Gatos; two sons, Kenneth G., of Manassas, and Paul J., of Soquel, Calif.; a daughter, Katherine F. Dietrich of Palo Alto, Calif.; a sister; 11 grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter.
Washington Lawyer Albert Rhett Simonds Jr., 58, a Washington lawyer specializing in regulatory law from 1970 until retiring in 1998, died of cancer Dec. 10 at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis.
He had lived in the Washington area since the late 1960s and maintained residences in Annapolis and Alexandria.
Mr. Simonds, a native of Charleston, S.C., was a 1965 graduate of the University of North Carolina and a 1968 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania law school.
From 1968 to 1970, he was an aide to Rep. L. Mendel Rivers (D-S.C.) on the House Armed Services Committee.
He was an associate and then a partner at the firm of Debevoise & Lieberman from 1970 to 1977. He was a partner at Bruder, Gentile & Marcoux from 1977 to 1998.
During his career, Mr. Simonds represented several major public utility clients and was an expert on the Federal Power Act.
He served on the board of directors for the Federal Energy Bar Association.
He also was an official of the Jet-14 Class Association, and he and his wife won the group’s national sailing championships six times. He was a member of the Severn Sailing Association.
Mr. Simonds was a member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Alexandria.
Survivors include his wife of 27 years, Marie Celeste Simonds of Alexandria; two daughters, Caroline Simonds of Alexandria and Frances Simonds of Swarthmore, Pa.; and his parents, Albert and Frances Simonds, of Charleston.
NASA Procurement Officer William Ezikel Doles, 80, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration procurement officer from about 1960 until retiring from Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt in the early 1970s, died Dec. 19 at a hospital in Inverness, Fla. He had Alzheimer’s disease.
After leaving NASA, Mr. Doles owned and operated a wholesale seafood business called Good Luck Seafood in Bowie. He moved from Lanham to Florida in 1976 and continued the seafood business until the mid-1990s.
Mr. Doles was born in Tifton, Ga., and served in the Marine Corps in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received a Purple Heart while fighting with Edson’s Raiders, the name given to the 1st Marine Raider Battalion commanded by Merritt A. “Red Mike” Edson.
He moved to the Washington area after the war and did contract negotiations work for the Army Corps of Engineers.
His first wife, Dorothy Glascoe Doles, died in 1986.
Survivors include his wife of seven years, Dorothy J. Doles of Crystal River; and a daughter from his first marriage, Sandra Ross of St. Petersburg, Fla.
Plumbing Consultant Patrick J. Higgins, 51, the president of P.J. Higgins & Associates Inc., consultants to the plumbing industry, died of a pulmonary embolism Nov. 28 at Anne Arundel Medical Center.
For the last 20 years, Mr. Higgins and his company monitored federal and state activities affecting the plumbing industry, including codes, regulations and standards.
He was chairman of a plumbing materials and equipment committee for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and a member of its council of codes and standards and chairman of its board of standardization. He helped develop model plumbing codes and was a liaison to plumbing industry committees.
Mr. Higgins, who lived in Mt. Airy, was born in Bethesda. He graduated from Our Lady of Good Counsel High School in Wheaton and the University of Maryland.
Before starting his business he was a journeyman plumber and then technical director of the National Association of Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors.
Survivors include his wife, Denise Higgins of Mt. Airy; three children, Courtney Higgins of Denver, Trevor Higgins of Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Brendan Higgins of Boston; his parents, Charles P. and Margaret Ruth Norris Higgins of Kensington; four sisters, Marie Priest of Silver Spring, Jo Anne Porter of Salisbury, N.C., Mary Katherine Shepard of Mt. Airy and Margaret Irene Francis of Topeka, Kan.; three brothers, John Higgins of Rockville, Michael Higgins of Morrison, Colo., and David Higgins of Evergreen, Colo.
Landscape Designer Linda Louise Buckley, 54, a Washington-area residential landscape designer who ran her own self-named business for the last 15 years, died of melanoma Dec. 18 at her home in Washington.
Ms. Buckley, a Washington native, grew up in Cheverly and was a 1965 graduate of Bladensburg High School.
She was a 1969 fine arts graduate of the College of William and Mary and attended landscape-design classes at George Washington University.
She was a professional landscape painter — usually abstract acrylics — before starting her landscaping business. She exhibited her paintings in area galleries, restaurants and office buildings.
Her marriage to David Pruitt ended in divorce.
Survivors include her husband of 23 years, Rae Hamilton of Washington; two sons from her second marriage, Jonah Buckley Hamilton and Tyler Buckley Hamilton, both of Washington; her mother, Mildred Buckley of Catonsville; and five brothers, James Buckley of Camdenton, Mo., Robert Buckley of Williamsburg, Jay Buckley of Potomac, David Buckley of Winchester, Mass., and Bruce Buckley of Charlotte.
