Wynnewood

I can agree with the June 17 Letter to the Editor by Harold Riloff of Wynnewood to legalize prostitution under one condition. It is: The city must bus all the prostitutes from my Center City neighborhood to the streets of Wynnewood. Then maybe Mr. Riloff and his neighbors can witness firsthand why many people still consider street-walking prostitution and the crime it breeds a disgrace. I hope the experience would change his mind. Chris Israel Philadelphia.

Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El, Remington Road and Lancaster Avenue, Wynnewood, will host a Torathon, a series of classes on various Jewish subjects, from 7 to 11 p.m. tomorrow. Participants may choose three one-hour sessions from topics covering Jewish religion, culture, politics and contemporary issues. There will be about 20 presenters, including Rabbi Neil Cooper; Adena Potok, educator and writer; and Paul Wolpe, a fellow of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

The 1998 Catholic Revival Conference will be held beginning with a Mass at 6 p.m. June 21. It continues at 7 p.m. June 22 through 25 at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church, 230 Haverford Rd., Wynnewood. Services at 10 a.m. will also be held on June 23, 24 and 25. The revival celebrates the Holy Spirit with a series of special services and prayers. The conference will be led by Msgr. Vincent M. Walsh. Speakers include the Rev. Thomas Di Lorenzo and Ruth Ward Heflin, author of Glory and Revival Glory.

Benjamin F. Schireson's two sons used to look with curiosity at pictures of their father holding a dying man in the trenches of France. Their father, born in 1903, would have been too young to serve in World War I. Those pictures, in fact, were of Mr. Schireson portraying a bit part in Seventh Heaven, a movie that won three Oscars in the 1927-28 Academy Awards. The dying man in question: actor George Stone. Mr. Schireson, 90, a resident of Wynnewood for more than 40 years and a comedian in the earlier part of his life, died Nov. 1. Mr. Schireson was born in Baltimore, the son of one of the first plastic surgeons, Henry Schireson.

A Purim celebration will be held at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Kaiserman Branch of the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Philadelphia, 45 Haverford Rd., Wynnewood. The free afternoon of family fun features a performance by the Segal Puppet Theater, hands-on holiday arts activities, a costume contest with prizes, food and music. The event is co-sponsored by the Gan Israel Day Camp and Lubavitch House. For more information, call 610-896-7770. LECTURES AND MEETINGS Janet Zolot, a national vice president of Hadassah, will speak as part of a conference on "The Middle East: Healing the Conflict, Building the Peace" at 8 p.m. Monday at Pendle Hill Quaker Study Center, 338 Plush Mill Rd., Wallingford.

The Wiffledust Salon presents performances by musicians Ben Arnold, Christopher Colucci and Beth Williams at 8 p.m. tomorrow. The new coffeehouse and dessert place presents the musicians in a smoke-free and alcohol-free environment. Tickets to the concert are $10 and may be bought in advance or at the door. For more information, call 610-649-9259. The Wiffledust Salon is at 1516 Surrey Lane, Wynnewood. Work by Women Artists: Selections from the Scott Memorial Study Collection opens Wednesday at the Campus Center Gallery of Bryn Mawr College.

Alan C. Kessler of Wynnewood was recently named to the board of directors of the Central Philadelphia Development Corp. (CPDC). CPDC is a nonprofit organization founded in 1956 and dedicated to the revitalization of Center City Philadelphia. The organization, which is supported by businesses, concentrates its efforts in transportation, planning and civic improvements. Kessler, a Lower Merion Township commissioner, is a partner in the Philadelphia law firm Mesirov, Gelman, Jaffe, Cramer & Jamieson.

Rabbi Paul J. Citrin has been named senior rabbi at Main Line Reform Temple Beth Elohim in Wynnewood. He replaced Rabbi Max Hausen, who retired this year after 24 years with the temple. Rabbi Hausen is now rabbi emeritus. Rabbi Citrin was the religious leader of Congregation Albert in Albuquerque, N.M. for 18 years. Before that, he was associate rabbi at Temple Israel in Boston. He is a graduate of the University of California-Los Angeles and Hebrew Union College. He received his master of arts degree in Hebrew literature in 1973, the year he was ordained.

Authorities suspect foul play in the death of a Wynnewood woman on April 6. Marilyn Geehan, 65, was found dead at her home at 3:30 p.m. that day, said Lower Merion Police Lt. Michael Tansey. An autopsy revealed that she had died of multiple injuries, specifically a blow to her liver, said First Assistant District Attorney Bruce Castor Jr. The death is being ruled a homicide, and investigators are considering several suspects, Castor said. There was no sign of forced entry.

Patricia A. Weldon of Wynnewood has been promoted from assistant vice president of personnel to vice president of personnel for SpectaGuard Inc., Wynnewood. Weldon will direct personnel recruiting, service recognition and benefits administration. Weldon attends Delaware County Community College. She is a member of the American Society of Personnel Administrators, and the Sports and Entertainment Network. SpectaGuard provides event security and related services at sports and entertainment events, malls, office complexes and industrial sites throughout the tri-state area.

Alfred Weisskopf, age 16, died in Auschwitz in 1944. So did Eva Bulova, age 15. And Zuzana Winterova, who was just 11. But Dotan Yarden, Haley Weiss, and Dana Handleman are very much alive. Along with 23 other young actors in the play I Never Saw Another Butterfly, which will be performed Thursday at the National Museum of American Jewish History, they are capturing the voices of children who lived in the Terezin concentration camp during the Holocaust. Between 1941 and 1945, 15,000 children were transported to Terezin, created by the Nazis as a "model ghetto.

In January 1957, Dr. John B. Flick Jr. cut out of the heart of a 9-year-old girl a bullet that had been lodged there for 17 days. "Doctors said every time her heart beat, the bullet pushed against the wall of the heart," the Evening Bulletin reported. "In time, they said, it would have worn a hole in the muscle. " Thanks to Dr. Flick, the spent bullet became a belated Christmas present for the girl. "He followed up on her a couple of years later, and she was doing fine," Dr. Flick's daughter, Louise, said in an interview.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia today announced services for Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, who died in his sleep Tuesday night at the age of 88. Following a private viewing at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood on Monday, Feb. 6, Archbishop Charles Chaput will receive Bevilacqua's body at the Cathedral Basilica of Ss. Peter and Paul about 5:30 p.m. A public viewing follows at the Cathedral Basilica from 5:30 p.m. until 9 p.m....

A 4.4-acre meadow wedged among elegant stone homes in tony Wynnewood is all that is left of the Toland family farm, which once sprawled across 300 acres from the Main Line railroad tracks almost to Montgomery Avenue. Over the last century, the farm was whittled away piece by piece to create a new residential development, though as recently as the 1970s, cows grazed in an open pasture, and chickens scurried around a barnyard just blocks from Wynnewood Shopping Center. Then last year, the matriarch of the family, Polly Toland, decided to sell her own home, adjacent to the meadow, and move to a retirement home.

In what amounts to its biggest expansion move ever in the Philadelphia market, Giant Food Stores on Thursday announced it had acquired 16 Genuardi's supermarkets from Safeway Inc. for $106 million. The transfer of ownership to Giant of 16 of 27 Genuardi's stores in the region - coupled with the closing of three more stores and the hoped-for sale of the remaining eight - likely signals the end of the Genuardi's grocery name, which was among the region's most highly regarded before Safeway acquired the family-owned business in 2001.

David N. Pincus, 85, a passionate art patron and humanitarian, who lived life with gusto and devoted himself to relieving the suffering of children, died at his Wynnewood home Wednesday morning from leukemia. . Mr. Pincus, the retired chairman of Pincus Bros.-Maxwell, a family-owned clothing manufacturer, was well-known in Philadelphia art circles for his impressive modern collection. Some of his donated works adorn the region's most prominent museums and public spaces. A boisterous man, the nearly six-foot-five Mr. Pincus was a study in contradiction: He was intensely private yet impossible to ignore; he admired the paintings of Willem de Kooning as well as the cartoons of Charles M. Schulz.

Hilda Mary Plumley Abelson, 81, of Gladwyne, a real estate agent, died of cancer Sunday, Dec. 11, at Waverly Heights, a retirement community where she had gone for hospice care for a week. Mrs. Abelson was born in London and spent her early life in Newport, Wales. She attended Newport High School, and graduated in 1951 from Bath College with a degree in hotel management. She began her career in 1952 at Middlesex Hospital in London, managing domestic services. She met her future husband, Denis, in March 1953, when she accidentally knocked him over while swinging open a large door to the auditorium.

Amile Jefferson, at 6-foot-8 and 200 pounds, has a man's body, but he still exudes a boyish physical quality. Judging by his young face and not-yet-filled frame, it's easy to forget when he's mingling with his teammates or running through mundane drills what he's truly capable of on the court. But when the whistle blows, reminders come quickly. At a recent Friends' Central practice, Jefferson received the ball on the left wing outside the three-point line. A teammate crouched in a defensive stance as if he had convinced himself that it would make a difference.

Vincent J. Spiziri, 93, formerly of Wynnewood, a business owner and civic activist, died of cancer Sunday, Sept. 25, at Sunrise Assisted Living in Newtown Square. Mr. Spiziri graduated from South Philadelphia High School and attended Drexel University before joining his father, Francis, at Spiziri Corrective Shoes in Center City. In 1979, he sold the store to Greiner & Saur Orthopedics in Philadelphia and then worked for that firm for several years. After a brief retirement, he was a part-time clerk for a district judge in Lower Merion for 10 years until he was in his 80s, his son, Vincent Jr., said.

Hello there Dana worked in communications at the Center City offices of Mercer, a human-resources consulting firm, for about three years before John was hired and seated in a cubicle outside her boss' office. It was fall 2006, and the Wynnewood native had just graduated from Harvard University, where he studied government and played football. He had been a volunteer firefighter since he was 18. And he was cute. "He's just so young," Dana, who is from South Philadelphia, lamented to a friend.