Richard Van Sloten; Fought Illness for Children’s Sake

Richard Van Sloten, a Los Angeles County prosecutor who waged a desperate fight to live after being found to have brain tumors even as his wife was dying of breast cancer, died Wednesday night. He was 49.

After a yearlong battle, first with one tumor and then a rapidly growing second one, Van Sloten died at 8:15 p.m. Wednesday at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, a nursing supervisor said.

His wife, Martha, a 40-year-old legal secretary, died April 17.

Family and friends had gathered at the Van Slotens’ Walnut home earlier Wednesday, when it had become apparent he was slipping. They said Thursday that it was bittersweet that he died on the eve of Thanksgiving.

“The family is at peace because, finally, he is at peace,” said Kathy Van Sloten, 42, a relative from Washington state.

The sequence of events that took the lives of Martha and Richard Van Sloten, the parents of three daughters, occurred with astonishing speed. Their terminal illnesses were diagnosed within weeks of each other in late 1995.

As they struggled to cope, they also dared to hope that their daughters would remember them. Their saga, publicized in a story that ran in The Times, prompted an outpouring of donations from readers, who sent not just cash but food, airline frequent flier miles, poems and prayers.

Fellow prosecutors gave up weeks of vacation time so that Van Sloten could still draw a salary. Church groups offered to run errands and clean house. At least a dozen people even offered to adopt the children.

Boosted by donations from around the country, a trust fund established for the girls--Lisa, 20; Lindsey, 8; and Lauren, 4--now tops $120,000, said a close family friend, Deputy Dist. Atty. Hyatt Seligman.

“On Thanksgiving,” Seligman said Thursday of Richard Van Sloten, “we’re focusing on the blessing of his life, on the ending of his suffering and on the fact that he had such a strong influence on his children--so they can go on in his memory.”

He added: “Because his death was delayed and he did fight so long and so well, the family can go on. They will survive.”

In 1994, Martha Van Sloten seemed to have recovered from a lumpectomy. But last December, she complained that she did not feel well, and doctors found that the cancer had spread to her bones.

At the same time, her husband began experiencing a series of seizures. Doctors found a tumor in his brain.

Before Martha died, they settled on a plan to place the younger girls with relatives in Washington--Kathy Van Sloten and her husband, Jeff, who have four children of their own. Lisa, a student at UC Riverside, returned to college this fall.

Six weeks after Martha died, Richard Van Sloten underwent surgery. When he woke up, he said: “Thank God I’m alive.”

For most of the summer, he seemed better. But then he suffered a major seizure and doctors discovered rapid growth in a second tumor.

Another surgery followed. Van Sloten never really recovered.

About three weeks ago, he demanded to go home from the hospital. He spent his last days at home, fed by a tube--but surrounded by his daughters.

On Wednesday afternoon, they took turns kissing their father farewell. Other relatives and friends also said their goodbyes. Then Van Sloten was driven to St. Jude.

Kathy Van Sloten said she promised him Wednesday afternoon that she would make the girls a Thanksgiving dinner at which “we would sit down at the table and be thankful for the blessings we have. For the lives that Martha and Richard led. For family.”

She added that although he could not talk, his eyes were alert: “He was focusing on us. I think he was at peace and ready to say goodbye. I think he waited to go until he knew that the entire family was together, here for the holiday.”

Lisa, the eldest daughter, said Thursday: “He was smiling before he left for the hospital. It was like Martha was there with him.”

Funeral services are pending.