Wynnewood

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.

Actor Patrick Dempsey heads an impressive list of local and national Grand-AM racing stars expected to compete this weekend at New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville. The main event on Saturday is the B+ Foundation Heroes 200, featuring competitors in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge. The Rolex Sports Car Series takes center stage on Sunday with the American Red Cross 250. Among the locals to keep an eye on are Wynnewood native and defending Grand Touring champion Jeff Segal, Malvern's David Donohue, Andrew Aquilante of Chester Springs and B+ Racing co-drivers Hugh Plumb of Chadds Ford and Al Carter from Wilmington.

In this day and age (read: lean economic times), how do you sell a Main Line manse? Well, by invitation only, and with $1,800 worth of finger food. And make sure to hire valets to park everyone's car so an impatient agent doesn't drive across the freshly seeded lawn - which is just what happened one Wednesday in October at the first open house for the estate in Wynnewood called Pen y Bryn, for "top of the hill. " Craig and Mac Brand, the husband-and-wife real estate team showing 212 Cherry Lane, went all out for the reconstructed estate's debut.

In 1913, at the urging of magazine editor Edward W. Bok, the Merion Civic Association decided to replace the hodgepodge of wooden street markers on every Merion corner with cast-iron road signs "of distinctive design. " Two years later, 93 of the scrolled green-and-gold signs were in place. Four years after that, they became the model for landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. as he planned communities across the nation. Elegant signs, he wrote, "will add to the attractive character of the streets and, at the same time, give visible evidence of civic activity.

FISHTOWN HARPIST Mary Lattimore is just back from Los Angeles, where she recorded on Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore 's solo album. They recorded at Beck 's house in Malibu. Lattimore, Moore and violinist Samara Lubelski stayed nearby at the home of Mike D . from the Beastie Boys . Lattimore and Lubelski perform with Moore and Bill Nace Dec. 18 at the First Unitarian Church (2125 Chestnut). Tickets available at R5Productions.com. Lattimore, 30, has been quite busy recording lately.

Jeanette J. Barrell-Weislow, 71, a longtime Wynnewood resident and sales manager for a Philadelphia real estate company, died Tuesday, Oct. 5, of complications from a stroke at her home in the Watermark in Logan Square. Mrs. Barrell-Weislow was born in London, and in the late 1950s she worked as an administrative assistant for Hillier, Parker, May & Rowden, a commercial-property services firm in Britain. She met Owen Weislow, an American serving abroad in the Air Force, on a blind date, and they married in 1959.

'Dogs read the world through their noses and write their history in urine," observed J.R. Ackerley, the late British man of letters, in My Dog Tulip . Few lovers have evoked their beloved with such blunt poetry. Ackerley's 1956 ode to his unspayed German shepherd is the basis of Paul and Sandra Schuette Fierlinger's movie, which opened Friday at the Ritz at the Bourse. Tulip , the recipient of ecstatic reviews in New York, was almost entirely produced in their curio-filled cottage on a tree-lined Wynnewood street.

Florina M. Tomescu Gogarnoiu, 52, of Wynnewood, an artist and management consultant, died Monday, Aug. 30, of ovarian cancer at home. Mrs. Gogarnoiu's art appeared in a national cultural magazine and was included in three exhibits in her native Romania before she was 18. In 1980, she graduated from the University of Bucharest with a bachelor's degree in foreign language and literature. That year, she married her high school sweetheart, Dumitru "Danny" Gogarnoiu. When the couple applied to leave Romania, then under communist rule, her husband was expelled from dental school.

Age: 50 Education: Bachelor's degree from Yale, where she studied theater and art history. Job: Co-owner of the Philadelphia Eagles. President of Eagles Youth Partnership, the team's charitable arm. Cofounder of Vox3 Films, an independent film company in New York. Previous jobs: Developed a side company producing films for Ron Moler in Hollywood; associate produced the 1990 film I Love You To Death . Family: Lives in Wynnewood with husband Jeffrey and their teenage daughter and son.