Obituaries - March 4, 1999

Xie Bingxin; Wrote Children’s Novels in China

Xie Bingxin, 99, prominent children’s novelist in China. Known to readers as Bingxin, Xie wrote several books widely used in Chinese schools, including “For Small Readers,” “Little Tangerine Lamp” and “Ode to a Cherry Blossom.” She had continued to write into her 90s and was regarded as a contender to be China’s first recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature. Born in southeastern Fujian province to the family of a high-ranking naval officer, Xie received a classical education and showed early promise as a writer. After graduating from Yanjing University, the predecessor of elite Beijing University, she earned a master’s degree at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Like many intellectuals, the writer was purged during the early years of the 1966-76 ultra-leftist Cultural Revolution. She resumed her career in 1972. On Sunday in Beijing.

Ottley Briggs; Watercolor and Collage Artist

Ottley Briggs, 76, watercolor and collage artist. Born in Los Angeles, she was the daughter of artist Reynolds Briggs and studied art throughout her life in California and Mexico. She had many one-person shows in California and in Washington state. Briggs was active in the Viewpoints Gallery in Los Altos, Calif., and was president of the Palo Alto Art Club, which has become the Pacific Art League. Married twice, she moved to San Juan Island, Wash., with her second husband, Howard Schonberger, in 1979. There she was a founding member and president of Sunshine Gallery in Friday Harbor. In a panel with Stanford art department faculty members, Briggs once described her artistic goal: “What I wanted to express in my paintings was a desire for tranquillity, as the world goes screaming and streaking by.” On Feb. 17 in Bellevue, Wash., of heart disease and pneumonia.

Robert Bromberg; Developed Engine for Module

Robert Bromberg, 77, the TRW engineer who developed the lunar descent engine that landed American astronauts on the moon. Born in Phoenix, Bromberg earned an engineering degree at UC Berkeley and a doctorate at UCLA, where he taught engineering. In 1953, he joined Ramo Wooldridge Corp., which later merged with Thompson Products to become TRW Inc., and by 1966 was general manager of its science and technology division. Under his direction, the company developed the Apollo 11 lunar module that landed Neil Armstrong and others on the moon in 1969, and the engines for subsequent moon landings. During the troubled Apollo 13 mission in 1970, the descent engine was used to bring the astronauts back to Earth. Bromberg also supervised TRW’s manufacture of trajectory and reentry systems for intercontinental ballistic missiles and the Viking space probe that searched for life on Mars. Bromberg was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 1968 and later served as its president. He was a trustee of the UCLA Foundation, chairman of UC’s Engineering Advisory Council and in 1969 was the UCLA engineering alumnus of the year. On Feb. 25 in Los Angeles.

William M. Bronk; National Book Award Winner

William M. Bronk, 81, a poet who won the National Book Award in 1982 for “Life Supports,” a collection of his poems written over 32 years. Bronk grew up in Hudson Falls, N.Y., in the same Victorian home where he lived the rest of his life. He did not drive, rarely traveled and hardly ever gave readings. He attended Dartmouth College and was in the Army during World War II. He taught college briefly and then took over the family business, a coal and lumber company in Hudson Falls that he ran until the late 1970s. Bronk’s poems considered the limits of human knowledge, and although they described the anguish and uncertainty of modern life, they were not despairing. Critics were impressed with Bronk’s clarity and precision of style and compared his work favorably with that of Wallace Stevens. On Feb. 22 in Hudson Falls of respiratory failure brought on by emphysema.

David McAdam Eccles; Helped Create Library

David McAdam Eccles, 94, a titled English businessman who held Cabinet posts and helped create the new British Library. Nicknamed “Smarty Boots” for his blunt comments, Eccles was elected to the House of Commons in 1943 and elevated to the House of Lords in 1962 after being dismissed from Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government. Two years later, Macmillan’s successor, Alec Douglas-Home, gave Eccles a hereditary title as Viscount Eccles. In Edward Heath’s government in the 1970s, Eccles served as paymaster general and arts minister. In the latter capacity, he took the lead in separating the library from the British Museum, combining it with the National Central Library and the National Lending Library for Science and Technology to create the British Library. He served as the first chairman of the new British Library Board, from 1973 to 1978. A graduate of Oxford University, Eccles made a fortune in an investment company whose holdings included a Spanish railway. During the early part of World War II, he was sent to Spain and Portugal for the Ministry of Economic Warfare, in a job he described later as “an apostle of bribery.” As minister of works in 1952 and 1953, Eccles supervised preparations for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. He outraged many by describing the event as “show business” and the queen as “a perfect leading lady.” She granted him a knighthood in 1954. On Feb. 24 in London.

Samiha Khalil; Palestinian Social Worker, Activist

Samiha Khalil, 76, a social worker and political activist who challenged Yasser Arafat in a losing bid to become president of the Palestinian Authority in 1996. Khalil, a grandmother of 13, became something of a household name to Palestinians in 1965 when she established the Society for the Rehabilitation of the Family, a welfare and educational organization that provided women with learning options and vocational training. Starting in a small garage with a budget of $140, Khalil expanded the organization into three buildings with six vocational departments and a budget of $400,000. More than 6,000 women have graduated from her program and entered the work force. Born on the West Bank, Khalil ran against Arafat for president of the Palestinian Authority to voice Palestinians’ anger at what she viewed as the injustices of the autonomy accords that Arafat had negotiated with Israel. On Friday in Ramallah, West Bank, of a heart attack.

Jocelyn S. Pickens; Longtime UCLA Administrator

Jocelyn S. Pickens, 77, UCLA administration official in charge of student records. Born Jocelyn Sims in Florence, Ariz., she moved to Los Angeles as a teenager and briefly attended UCLA. She went to work as a clerk at the university when her husband, Oliver “Pick” Pickens, joined the Army in World War II. He was killed in action. Jocelyn Pickens, who never remarried, worked for the university for 43 years. As assistant registrar, second in command of that office, she oversaw a staff of 70 and was responsible for the accuracy of all student records. With no children of her own, she became a mother figure to the legions of university employees and students she trained over the years. After her retirement in 1987, Pickens continued to work as a UCLA consultant. On Friday in Los Angeles of an apparent heart attack.