Longtime Santa Monica resident Herbert Shank Chase, Jr., who owned the former Santa Monica Independent Journal newspaper and was active with a variety of youth organizations in the city, passed away July 6 following a brief illness. He was 90.
Born March 21, 1923 to Herbert S. Chase Sr. and Hazel Noera Chase, he grew up in Elizabeth, NJ where he attended Pingry School. He finished at Governor prep school and later attended Hamilton College and Colgate University.
Chase, who enlisted in officer training in the Marines and was stationed at Camp Pendleton in California, served in the Pacific theater during World War II. While at Camp Pendleton, Chase developed a love of California.
He married Elise Kirkland, also of Elizabeth, and they left the East Coast to settle in Malibu. When Chase later moved to Santa Monica, he purchased the Santa Monica Independent Journal weekly newspaper from Henry Luce. Through his newspaper he led many crusades including opposition to oil drilling in the Santa Monica Bay and against corruption and development schemes that he believed would have compromised the natural beauty of local beaches, his family said.
He later married Marjorie Zickler of Holland, Mich. in 1970 through a shared love of horses. Chase devoted himself to a career as editor and publisher of various publications including the “Good Life,” his family said.
He was also devoted to the Boys & Girls Club and served on the board for over 50 years. Chase was a longtime booster of Santa Monica and in his final years launched an online publication called “Santa Monica Boosters.”
Active with the local sports scene, Chase coached Santa Monica Little League baseball, Santa Monica Bobby Sox softball, American Youth Soccer Organization teams and youth football. Chase loved kids of many ages and his life as a parent was distinguished by involvement with his children’s many friends, his family said.
He is survived by seven children, Anne Chase-Stapleton of Samish Island, Wash.; Ashley Andrews and husband Vincent of North Salem, NY; Herb Chase III of Pacific Palisades; Frances Workman and husband Henry Workman of Newbury Park; Carole Elliott and husband Glen of Palo Alto; step daughter Lory Bierschenk and husband Kurt of Pacific Palisades; and Paige Chase of Santa Monica; as well as 15 grandchildren.
A gathering in memory of Chase in scheduled Friday, Aug. 2 in Santa Monica.

Steve Picciolo, Jr., a World War II veteran and former Santa Monica resident who formerly owned the Ocean House assisted living facility in Santa Monica, passed away peacefully July 20. He was 85.
Picciolo was born Feb. 15, 1928 in New Kensington, Penn. and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was a teenager. “Pic,” as he was known, served in the U.S. Army where he was an athletic instructor and paratrooper.
Upon his return from World War II, Picciolo became very active in the Santa Monica community and married Joyce Lake, with whom he had two sons, Tony and Steven.
Picciolo had a great love for older people and because of that admiration and respect, he was responsible for the development of Ocean House, a retirement residence in Santa Monica, his family said. In 1961 he sold Ocean House to build Casa Descanso, a licensed board and care facility in Los Angeles.
Picciolo later married Beth Wayne, who brought to his family Brad and Patty Wayne. Picciolo had a true passion for real estate and acquired many properties through the years.
Among his many hobbies were golfing, playing gin rummy, boating and body surfing. He won several member golf championships at Riviera Country Club and was active at the California Yacht Club in Marina del Rey and Sand and Sea Club for over 30 years.
During his retirement, horse racing brought excitement to his life. One of the highlights in Picciolo’s life was that one of his horses ran in the 1996 Kentucky Derby, his family said.
Picciolo, who later moved to Rancho Mirage, also loved to travel, to collect antiques, and to cultivate cactus.
He is survived by his son Tony; his brothers Johnny, Angelo and Jimmy Picciolo; grandchildren Steven, Flurette, and Angelo; and great-grandchildren Emily, Ava and Aubrey.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Concern Foundation of Los Angeles to help “conquer cancer now.” Information (310) 360-6100.

Rhoda I. Rich, a longtime Marina del Rey resident and Realtor, died earlier this summer in Pasadena after a long illness. She was 84.
She was born March 20, 1929 in Brooklyn, NY, where her father was a financial advisor.
Rich moved to California in 1959 and married Herschel Rich in 1963.
Rich, who worked a long real estate career at Fred Sands, Prudential and Jon Douglas Realty, lived for many years at the Marina City Club.
Her hobbies included tennis, sailing and cooking for her grandchildren.
She is survived by her daughter Melanie Anson, son-in-law Patrick, and grandsons Matthew and Mark Anson.
A private ceremony was held in her honor on Aug. 8 in Marina del Rey.

Former Westchester resident David Stanley passed away after losing his battle with cancer. He was 51.
A lover of sportfishing and golfing, Stanley was a regular at Westchester Golf Course and Marina del Rey, where he often booked day trips on his favorite boat, the Spitfire.
Born in Santa Monica, Stanley graduated from Santa Monica High school and later attended Santa Monica College. A Jack of all trades, he started his career as a custom framer for Aaron Brothers and Taylor Custom Frame Co., his family said.
Over his 30-year career he worked for Playboy Feature Films, Golfsmith and was an interior designer for Sears Home Improvement and Expo Design Center.
Stanley had many interests including a love of the outdoors, gourmet cooking and magic. He was a child magician and performed at the popular Magic Castle, where he was also a lifelong member.
Friends say Stanley was a blessing to all who knew him and he will be missed by his many close friends and surviving family members.

Wanda Coleman performs a reading at Beyond Baroque

By Michael Aushenker

Wanda Coleman, who turned her experiences of racial prejudice into defiant, fierce and personal poetry that gained her widespread recognition as one of Los Angeles’ strongest literary voices, died Friday after battling a long illness. She was 67.
In her work, Coleman drew from all facets of the human experience — love, heartbreak, salvation — but found her sharpest voice in pushing back against social barriers and limitations due to race and gender discrimination.
Across four decades she authored more than 20 books of poetry, fiction and essays. Her 1998 poetry collection “Bathwater Wine” won the Lenore Marshall National Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and catapulted her to national attention.
Friends remember Coleman, a frequent participant in the Venice arts scene, as uncompromising, unflinching in the face of conflict and fiercely loyal, while at the same time having a soft spot for other artists.
“Wanda was always very generous and very supportive,” said Suzanne Thompson, a co-founder of the Venice Arts Council.
Thompson first met Coleman in the early 1990s at Robert Frost Auditorium in Culver City, where the two were involved in a fundraiser for El Rescate, a nonprofit that provides legal and social services for Central American refugees. She recalled Coleman’s reading that day as a transformative experience.
Coleman “was very quiet and contemplative, but when she got on stage she had the most powerful performance I’ve ever experienced in my life. Her words became alive. You were so there with her,” said Thompson. “I fell in love with poetry after that. She got me hooked on readings and poetry.”
Thompson also worked with Coleman on a restoration of Ocean Front Walk that featured a series of public art components. Since renamed the Venice Beach Poets Monument, it includes public displays of poetry. A passage by Coleman remains on the side of the Brooks Avenue public restroom on Venice Beach.
Coleman also maintained a decades-long association with Venice-based Beyond Baroque, where she frequently read her work, lectured and taught.
When Coleman was onstage, “People paid attention to what she had to say,” said close friend and fellow poet Laurel Ann Bogen, who is planning a memorial for January. “If you ever saw her read, you never forgot it.”
“Wanda was close to all of our hearts,” said Sherman Pearl, vice president of Beyond Baroque. “She had the most articulate voice of Los Angeles that I know of. Last year, she was given our annual award for achievement in poetry.”
Born in Watts and married with children by age 20, Coleman attended classes at Los Angeles Valley College and Cal State Los Angeles but eventually dropped out of school. She divorced in 1969 — later marrying poet Austin Straus — and worked odd jobs before landing a fleeting gig writing for NBC’s “Days of Our Lives.” Her work on the soap opera won her a Daytime Emmy in 1976.
Eschewing TV scripts to focus on family, Coleman eventually came to the more intimate medium of poetry and attended the Watts Writers Workshop, led by “What Makes Sammy Run?” novelist and “On The Waterfront” screenwriter Budd Schulberg, as well as work-shopping verse at Studio Watts and, later, Beyond Baroque.
Coleman’s first poetry collection was published in 1977 by Black Sparrow Press, which also released books by Charles Bukowski and Los Angeles literature godfather John Fante.
As a journalist, Coleman stoked controversy. She clashed with Angela Davis while covering a Black Panther fundraiser in the 1970s and in 2002 penned a scathing review of Maya Angelou’s memoir “A Song Flung Up to Heaven.”
In 1985, Coleman and Exene Cervenka of the seminal L.A. punk group X collaborated on a spoken word album, “Twin Sisters,” that was recorded at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica.
Cervenka said she had met Coleman at “a very golden time” for Beyond Baroque (from the mid-1970s to early ‘80s) and rattled off a lengthy roster of peers emerging from this “post-beatnik and post-hippie” scene.
But it was Coleman who made the greatest impression on Cervenka, she said.
“Wanda she stood out always every time she read. She was often imitated. Her cadence became the way everybody tried to read,” Cervenka said. “We just liked each other. We started doing readings together.”
Coleman had a no-nonsense approach to life that Cervenka recalled coming out during a plane trip to Amsterdam, where the two were headed to perform in a poetry festival.
While boarding the plane, “as I was sitting down, we saw a man bending over [dealing with his luggage],” Cervenka said. “I heard a voice go, ‘Get your fat white ass out of my face!’ It was Wanda.”

“Wanda was close to all of our hearts,” said Pearl, vice president of Beyond Baroque. “She had the most articulate voice of Los Angeles that I know of. Last year, she was given our annual award for achievement in poetry.”

Bogen, who is currently in the early stages of planning a Jan. 19 memorial for her close friend, had met Coleman in the most in auspicious way back in 1979.

“She and her husband got together because of me. When Austin Straus came from New York, he and I used to go out together,” Bogen recalled. Straus, freshly arrived from the East Coast, was in Los Angeles to start a West Coast branch of Amnesty International. Straus, who did not yet have a car, had scheduled to be ready for Bogen, who was going to drive them to a Long Beach book store reception for poets who had contributed to the anthology “Amorotica.” Blissfully unaware of the time needed to traverse the city in traffic that, Bogen said, was horrific even in the late 1970s, Straus appeared a half hour late.“I had a bad habit of being early, so when I went to pick him up and he wasn’t there, I waited and I waited and I waited,” she recalled. “By the time he showed up, steam was coming out of my ears.”

They were running late, but “when we got there, he saw Wanda.That was it.”

By reception’s end, Straus told Bogen that, although he had come with her, he was leaving with Coleman.

“It was palpable,” Bogen recalled of their chemistry. “They were both very passionate human beings who believed in justice for everybody and weren’t afraid of speaking their minds.

As Bogen and Straus had been dating casually, there were no hard feelings. Bogen remained friends with the couple ever since.

“When they got together, I realized they were soul mates and it made me very happy that I got them together,” said Bogen, who likened Straus and Coleman’s union as akin to Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew” – intense.

“They had that kind of passionate relationship,” she said. “They fought, they got together. They would bounce off each other. But you never doubted that they loved each other.”

Coleman wrote a poem about Bogen in “The Lady in the Red Veiled Hat,” published in her 1999 collection “Mercurochrome,” which she placed as a National Book Award finalist.

“When she was your friend, that was it,” Bogen said.

Recently, Bogen could tell Coleman was sick, as she did not speak much, saving her voice only for her readings. That said, “I never expected to her to die. I will miss my friend.”

The last time Cervenka and Thompson saw Coleman was in May 2012 at the now-defunct 585Boardriders sports shop, where activists were organizing to remove graffiti from the Venice Beach Poets Monument project.
Thompson, a Beyond Baroque board member, intends to continue that mission in Coleman’s memory.
Poet Suzanne Lummis, who met Coleman in the 1980s, said there was much more to Coleman than the rage in her poetry that others have relied on to define her.
“One memory keeps returning to me, and it’s not about her electrifying performances on the stage, or her great, joyous, rocking laughter that swelled the walls when she was in the audience,” said Lummis.
“Both of us had regularly attended a literary salon at the little house of the beloved elder poet of the Los Angeles literary world, William Pillin, a refugee whose family had fled the Russian pogroms,” Lummis said. “The news of his death grieved me deeply, but when I called Wanda, I could not have anticipated her response: She exploded into tears, naked wails of sorrow, open-hearted sobbing. To this day, I stand in awe of that emotion, and the depth of her attachment to a frail old Polish Jew and fellow poet. And that, I’d like people to know, is the flip side of Wanda’s rage that we hear so much about: love.”
Coleman is survived by Strauss, children Tunisia Ordoñez and Ian Grant, brothers George Evans and Marvin Evans, sister Sharon Evans and three grandchildren.
Michael@argonautnews.com

 I DID IT MY WAY

Delores H Gudish, a longtime resident of Playa Del Rey and Windsor Hills, Ca. died at age 96 from natural causes on 9/05/13. She had been living with her son, Steven Gudish in Huntington Beach, CA. Delores Hobbs was born on 7/10/1917 in Springfield, Mo. She married William G Gudish on 5/17/1938 in Marshfield Mo. They later moved to California. She was the mother of 5 young children and also worked with her husband, Bill to build business in Gardenia Ca. called Specialized Welders. She found time to become a Broker and sold real estate thru Paradise reality located in the Windsor Hills area. The family moved to Playa Del Rey in the early 1970s. She loved her ocean view and was happy to share her home with family. She is survived by son William Anthony (Pam) Gudish, daughter Michele (Larry) McKinnon, son Gregory B (Sandy) Gudish, son Jeffrey P (Kat) Gudish and son Steven S. Gudish, 8 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren. She is also survived by her younger sister Faun Barnhart. She will be remembered as a loving wife, mother and a thoughtful generous friend. Funeral services will be held at Holy Cross Cemetery, 5835 W Slauson Avenue, Culver City, CA on Friday 09/27/13. Family and friends will meet for the viewing at noon to follow with a graveside service at 1pm. Send online condolences to: familyofdeloresgudish @hotmail.com