Obituaries - Feb. 19, 1999

Bessie Adel; Volunteer for Charitable Groups

Bessie Adel, 97, fund-raiser and volunteer for charities. Born in Stashov, Poland, she began working as a domestic servant at age 7. When she was 19, she immigrated to America, where she worked in Chicago before moving to Los Angeles. A young divorced mother during the Depression, she supported herself and her daughter Lillian working as a waitress in Boyle Heights. After marrying the late Sam Adel, business manager of the Painters Union District Council, she became active in philanthropy. At the end of World War II, Adel organized shipments of food and clothing to Jewish refugees in Europe. Over the years, she helped raise funds for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the City of Hope National Medical Center, the Reseda Home for the Aging, the Jewish National Fund and the Southern California chapter of Women’s American ORT (Organization for Rehabilitation Through Training). During the final decade of her life, Adel raised money for a roof and a day-care center for a Yemenite synagogue in Jerusalem. On Friday in Los Angeles.

Geralyn Donald Belcher; Former Ballet Dancer

Geralyn Donald Belcher, 63, former dancer with the New York City Ballet. At age 17, Belcher became the first American to study ballet at the Sadler’s Wells School in London. She joined the New York City Ballet in 1954. Seven years later, Belcher joined Jerome Robbins’ troupe for a tour of Europe. In later years, she performed with the San Francisco Ballet and various civic light opera companies. On Monday in Walnut Creek, Calif., of cancer.

Gerald Dickler; Attorney for Blacklisted Figures

Gerald Dickler, 86, a New York attorney who represented artists and broadcasters, including some who were blacklisted in the McCarthy era. Dickler began his legal career in the 1930s helping to organize the first radio workers union, a forerunner to the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. In the 1950s, he joined others to buy an Albany radio station and a Durham, N.C., TV station. The outlets developed into Capital Cities Communications, the media giant that bought ABC in 1986. (Capital Cities/ABC Inc. has since been bought by Walt Disney Co.) During the McCarthy era, Dickler represented radio and television personality John Henry Faulk, who was fired by CBS in 1955 amid allegations of Communist sympathies. At the time of his death, Dickler was chairman of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, which he helped establish in 1985 under the will of Lee Krasner, widow of painter Jackson Pollock, to offer grants to struggling artists. Dickler retired in 1989 as a founding partner of Hall, Dickler, Kent, Friedman & Wood. Survivors include his wife of 65 years, Ruth Cronin Dickler; three daughters, four grandchildren. On Saturday in New York of pneumonia.

Gary Jennings; Author of Historical Novels

Gary Jennings, 70, author of epic historical novels, including the bestseller “Aztec” in 1980. Jennings was known for painstakingly researched novels filled with meticulous period detail. His nine novels generally centered around a narrator who comes of age at a crucial moment of history and enters adulthood fraught with danger and sexual adventures. One of his best-known works was “Aztec,” a tale about the overthrow of the native Mexicans told through the voice of an Aztec named Mixtli. Jennings spent 12 years in Mexico researching Aztec culture and the Spanish conquest. For “The Journeyer,” published in 1984, he retraced Marco Polo’s route through Italy, the Middle East and Asia, sometimes traveling on camel and elephant. For “Spangle,” released in 1987, he accompanied nine circus troupes through the United States and Europe. “There is something mesmerizing about the world he creates,” Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in the New York Times. For his 1992 novel, “Raptor,” Jennings reached back to the 5th century to spin an elaborate yarn about a hermaphrodite named Thorn. On Saturday of heart failure in Pompton Lakes, N.J.