Lafayette Hill

Louise Roberts Branigan, 80, a former high school language teacher and Navy ensign, died Saturday at West Jersey Hospital in Voorhees, N.J., after a long illness. She moved to Voorhees six years ago from Lafayette Hill, where she had resided for 30 years. Earlier, she lived in Norristown and East Norriton Township. Mrs. Branigan taught French, English and Greek at Soudertown High School for a short time before World War II. During the war, she was a Navy ensign in communications at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

Guido J. "Guy" Cimini, 68, of Lafayette Hill, an honored Air Force veteran and a school maintenance supervisor, died Friday at Chestnut Hill Hospital of an apparent heart attack. Mr. Cimini, who retired in 1975 as an Air Force lieutenant colonel, had been director of maintenance at La Salle College High School in Wyndmoor since 1983. During the Vietnam War, he was a senior navigator and earned the Air Medal for meritorious achievement while participating in reconnaissance missions over Southeast Asia.

Felisa Lloren Ojeda of Mays Landing, N.J., a homemaker and former resident of Lafayette Hill, died Monday at the Hershey Medical Center, one week before her 92d birthday. She had been injured in a traffic accident the previous day while being driven to a daughter's funeral in Minnesota. Mrs. Ojeda and another daughter, Georgiana Papa, were ejected when their rented sport-utility vehicle hit an embankment on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Lancaster County. Papa was treated at Hershey Medical Center and released.

Joe Forman and his family needed temporary housing while their new home was being built. Jerry Nichols was looking for longer-term housing near his work, yet close enough to Philadelphia and one of its cultural hot spots, Manayunk. Both the Forman family and Nichols ended up among the first residents of the newly opened Glen at Lafayette Hill, a luxury apartment complex in Whitemarsh Township, near the intersection of Ridge Pike and Joshua Road. Virtually across the street from Green Valley Country Club, the Glen at Lafayette Hill features such amenities as a business room with computer, copier and fax machine; a dozen 100- to 150-square-foot business suites; and Direct TV. The Direct TV provides residents with up to 95 channels and the cost is included in the rent.

Michael M. Kushwara, 58, of Warminster Township, an accountant who liked skydiving and cooking, died Sunday at his apartment in Atlanta after suffering a heart attack. For the last three years, he worked for U.S. Securities Associates, a loan services firm, in Atlanta and maintained an apartment there as well as his Bucks County residence. Previously, he worked for Wells Fargo Alarm Systems in King of Prussia for 18 years. Mr. Kushwara was born in Pottsville, Pa., and graduated from Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary High School there in 1958.

William C. Parker, 83, a former prisoner of war and retired retailing manager, died Saturday of cancer at his home in Lafayette Hill. Mr. Parker was serving as a second lieutenant and bombardier in the Army Air Corps when his B-24 Liberator was shot down during World War II. "He spent a year and 27 days as a prisoner of war at a camp in Sagan, Germany," said his wife, Mary Murray Parker, to whom he would have been married for 50 years in...

The names of the apartments bespeak a stately elegance: the Englander, the Devonshire, the Chesterfield. Now, it is just a matter of leveling piles of dirt, putting in sewers, and turning skimpy wooden frames into 139 units of lush living quarters. The Glen at Lafayette Hill - formerly known as the Andorra Glen Apartments - at the corner of Joshua Road and Ridge Pike, will be ready for occupancy by mid-August, developer Barbara Kravitz said. The entire project, five buildings in all, will be completed by December.

Dozens of residents opposed to plans to erect a 130-foot cellular tower in a church parking lot were frustrated last night when they had to sit through a long technical presentation that cut short their chance to speak. About 60 people showed up at the special zoning board hearing to oppose the proposed tower Sprint Spectrum wants to build at St. Peter's Lutheran Church on Church Street in Lafayette Hill, which already has a Comcast Metrophone cellular tower in its steeple. The Rev. Bruce Todd, pastor of the church, would not discuss how much the church had received under its arrangement with Comcast Metrophone or how much it would receive if the Sprint tower were approved.

Joseph A. Goldbeck Sr., 73, of Lafayette Hill in Montgomery County, a retired mortgage banking executive, died Tuesday at the Integrated Health Services facility in Springfield Township, Montgomery County, of complications from Alzheimer's disease. In 1980, Mr. Goldbeck retired as president and vice chairman after 35 years with Central Mortgage Co. in Philadelphia. Born in Philadelphia, he graduated in 1942 from Roxborough High School and served in the Army during World War II. Mr. Goldbeck was a Lafayette Hill resident for the last 23 years and formerly lived in Blue Bell for eight years, and in Philadelphia's Andorra section for 17 years.

Berenice T. Costello McNeilly, 78, of Plymouth Meeting, a retired administrative assistant who was active in church-related activities, died Sunday at her home after an illness. Born in Glenside and educated in parochial schools in the area, she was a Plymouth Meeting resident since 1952. Mrs. McNeilly retired in 1992 after 15 years as the administrative assistant at Ivy Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. Previously, she held a similar position for an insurance company. She was an active member of St. Philip Neri Roman Catholic Church in Lafayette Hill, where she belonged to the women's guild and the Philippians social group.