Obituaries

MOLLIE WILMOT, a socialite who rose to celebrity in 1984 when a tanker ran aground at her Palm Beach mansion, died Sept. 17 at her New York City apartment. Reports of her age ranged from 73 to 78. The cause of death was not announced. A freak tropical storm drove the tanker, a rust bucket named the Mercedes, hard against her seawall, pounding the wall into concrete chips. The sight of the accident led her to confess that she was terrified by the thought of huge rats escaping from the ship. But she overcame her dread and served finger sandwiches, caviar and freshly brewed coffee to the crew of 10 and martinis to the journalists who showed up.

LUTHER HENDERSON, 82, the leader of a group of investors who purchased Pier 1 Imports in 1966 and transformed the company into a nationwide retail force, died Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas, of injuries sustained two weeks earlier in a traffic collision. He was Pier 1's chairman and president from 1966 until 1983 and its chairman from 1983 until 1985. He served as a director and founder-chairman from 1985 until 1993.

CAPT. KATHLEEN McGRATH, 50, the first woman to command a U.S. Navy warship, died Sept. 26 in Bethesda, Md. The cause was lung cancer, said her sister, Peggy McGrath. Capt. McGrath became commander of the frigate Jarrett, a 453-foot warship, with a 262-member crew, in the spring of 2000. She guided the ship to the northern reaches of the Persian Gulf, where the crew hunted boats suspected of smuggling Iraqi oil in violation of U.N. sanctions.

BOB WALLACE, 53, a pioneering programmer of the personal computer era who helped invent "shareware" software marketing, died Sept. 20 in San Rafael, Calif. An autopsy was ordered. He joined the Microsoft Corp. in 1978 as its ninth employee. At the time, the company was known as Micro Soft and was based in Albuquerque, N.M. He developed an early version of the Pascal programming language. He left the company in 1983 to found Quicksoft, a software company.

THEODORE PETTY, 49, a professional wrestler known as Flyboy Rocco Rock, who was part of the tag-team duo known as Public Enemy, died Sept. 21 in Jersey City, N.J., of a heart attack shortly after he competed in a match. Wrestling solo, Mr. Petty and his opponent, known as Crowbar, had struck each other over the head repeatedly with a garbage can during their match. Witnesses said Mr. Petty appeared to be fine when he left the arena.

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