Office Manager

The roots of William Buckman's distrust of police can be traced to 1971, when he was arrested in Washington with hundreds of other college students while protesting the presence of U.S. troops in Cambodia. Buckman, a Northeast Philadelphia native who was studying sociology at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, remembers standing in a cramped jail cell for three days and being offered only a bologna sandwich. "The police surrounded a group of us marchers in an intersection and announced, if we didn't disperse, they would arrest us," said Buckman, who now lives in Cherry Hill.

John W. McCarthy, 66, of Mayfair, a retired office manager and antiques dealer, died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma Wednesday at Frankford Hospital-Torresdale Campus. Mr. McCarthy grew up in Feltonville. After graduating from Cardinal Dougherty High School, he worked as a clerk for the Social Security Administration in Philadelphia. He retired as office manager of the mid-Atlantic regional office of Social Security in 2001. Since 1968, he had been married to Renee Winkler. The couple met in Margate, N.J. When their son was growing up, Mr. McCarthy coached soccer, baseball and basketball for the Holy Terrors Youth Organization in Mayfair.

Gussella W. Gelzer, 86, of Mount Airy, who as legal secretary to two prominent Philadelphia judges helped break a color barrier, died Tuesday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania of complications from a stroke. "She was a pioneer," said attorney Richard H. Knox, a friend of 50 years who met her when he became a clerk for Common Pleas Court Judge Raymond Pace Alexander, for whom Mrs. Gelzer worked. Knox recalled that at the time, African American legal secretaries were a rarity.

A well-known Woodbury pediatrician whose wife was killed in a fire at their home last week died from his injuries late Friday at Cooper University Hospital in Camden. Lawrence Epple, 54, had suffered a heart attack on the way to the hospital Wednesday, shortly after falling out of a second-floor window while a police officer tried to rescue him. Nancy Johnson-Epple, 55, the office manager at her husband's Woodbury Heights practice, died Wednesday of smoke and soot inhalation.

A beloved Gloucester County pediatrician was injured and his wife killed in a fire that ripped through their historic Victorian house early yesterday. The blaze, which started shortly before 1 a.m. in the 100 block of Delaware Street in Woodbury, killed Nancy Johnson-Epple, 55, an office manager in her husband's pediatric practice in Woodbury Heights. Firefighters found her body in an upstairs bedroom. An autopsy attributed her death to smoke and soot inhalation. Lawrence Epple, 55, who sometimes wears Mickey Mouse ties to cheer up sick children, was injured in a fall from a second-story window at their three-story home.

The monetary meltdown that has mauled mutual funds, strangled retirement accounts, triggered layoffs, and frozen lending is forcing anxious adjustments across the region in all walks of life: The Manayunk ironworker who defers servicing his car. The Bensalem supermarket worker who reluctantly puts off his planned retirement. The New Jersey couple downsizing their wedding. All are pinching pennies, making painful compromises. "Those who have been putting money away for a rainy day and have a few thousands saved up might be better off," said Devin Pope, a Wharton expert on the psychology of consumer decision-making.

Pediatrician John DeLeonardis keeps busy, splitting professional hours between offices in Upper Deerfield and Mullica Hill. This father of four (including triplets) often sees upward of 150 patients a week. Registered nurse and wife Judith (or Jude as she prefers) is office manager. Then, on his day off, Doc, as he is affectionately known, readily trades in his white lab coat and stethoscope for jeans, sneakers and a sweatshirt to head to his second job at the Delsea Drive?In Theater in Vineland.

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Even through an eggplant, perhaps. Felicia Teske of Boothwyn was slicing on Sunday a pear-shaped purple veggie that she had purchased at a local produce stand when she noticed that the seeds formed a word. And the word was God. "It's definitely there," said her husband, Paul. Unlike similar claims, you don't have to strain your brain this time, he said. You may have heard, for example, about a Jesus in a Chihuahua's ear or a Virgin Mary in the grease stain of a pizza pan. "There's no imagination here," he said.

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Even through an eggplant, perhaps. Felicia Teske of Boothwyn was slicing on Sunday a pear-shaped purple veggie that she had purchased at a local produce stand when she noticed that the seeds formed a word. And the word was God . "It's definitely there," said her husband, Paul. Unlike similar claims, you don't have to strain your brain this time, he said. You may have heard, for example, about a Jesus in a Chihuahua's ear or a Virgin Mary in the grease stain of a pizza pan. "There's no imagination here," he said.

"Whose woods these are I think I know. " In Severance, they belong to hooded Hungarian homicidal maniacs. A grisly horror comedy from director Christopher Smith, Severance takes a busload of coworkers for a British munitions company and plops them down in spooky, booby-trapped forests far from beautiful downtown Budapest. The idea was for a bit of "team-building" in a fancy rural retreat. The reality: dismemberment, disembowelment and death at the hands of a masked band of terror mongers.