Obituaries - Aug. 31, 1999

* Abdullah al-Baradouni; Yemeni Political Poet

Abdullah al-Baradouni, 70, Yemeni poet repeatedly imprisoned for his politically charged writings. Well-known in Arab countries, al-Baradouni became a teacher of Arabic literature and political history even though he was blinded as a young child by a bout with smallpox. He was a strong advocate of democracy and women’s rights, evoking death threats from Yemen’s fundamentalist Muslims who considered him an infidel. Al-Baradouni served time behind bars in the 1950s, the 1960s and the 1970s for poems that criticized rulers during that period, including religious leaders and the military revolutionaries who overthrew them in 1962. He published 12 books of poetry and six books on politics, literature and folklore. On Monday in San’a, Yemen, of a heart attack.

* Rev. Olin T. Binkley; Civil Rights Activist

The Rev. Olin T. Binkley, 91, a former president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary who spoke out for racial integration early in the civil rights era. A Yale Divinity School graduate, Binkley served as president of the Southern Baptist school from 1963 until his retirement in 1974. He was also president of the Assn. of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada from 1964 to 1966. Binkley served at the Chapel Hill Baptist Church in the 1930s and later taught at Wake Forest College in North Carolina and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. He moved to Southeastern Seminary in 1952. Inspired by Binkley, his former parishioners formed a new congregation in 1958 dedicated to integration called the Olin T. Binkley Baptist Church. The church was expelled from the Southern Baptist Convention and Baptist State Convention in 1992 for giving a preaching license to a gay divinity student. On Friday in Wake Forest, N.C.

* Chester B. Kerr; Longtime Publisher

Chester B. Kerr, 86, publisher of scholarly and commercial works, including Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” Kerr was for 20 years the head of Yale University Press, where he published a number of books that earned Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards and Bancroft Prizes. He also worked in commercial publishing as an editor or editorial director at Harcourt, Brace & Co., Atlantic Monthly Press and Ticknor & Fields, a division of Houghton Mifflin Co. During his 30-year career, his proudest acquisitions were “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” Calvin Trillin’s “Third Helpings,” and Sir John Masterman’s “The Double-Cross System in the War of 1939 to 1945.” At Ticknor & Fields, a century-old imprint revived by Houghton Mifflin when it hired Kerr in 1979, he published such books as “Floater,” a novel by Trillin, “Albums of Early Life” by Stanley Kauffman, and “The Letters of Evelyn Waugh.” Kerr was well known in the industry for a 1948 report for the Assn. of American University Presses that said academic presses needed to consider more commercial works in order to survive. On Aug. 22 in a nursing facility in New London, N.H.

* Doris R. Schwartz; Pioneer in Geriatric Nursing

Doris R. Schwartz, 84, a nurse whose research findings on geriatric nursing led to improvements in elderly health care. A professor at the Cornell University-New York Hospital School of Nursing, Schwartz began learning about geriatric care as an Army nurse during World War II. She later initiated research by the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing into the use of physical restraints on patients in nursing homes and hospitals. Her work led to changes in restraint procedures. At Cornell, she co-directed two programs to train geriatric and family nurse practitioners and worked with victims of strokes and dementia. On Aug. 22 in Gwynedd, Pa.