Obituaries of note

RUBY GRANT MARTIN, 70, civil rights director under President Lyndon Johnson and a cabinet member in the administration of Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder, died Thursday in Richmond. In 1967 she became the first director of the Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. She was appointed Virginia's secretary of administration by Wilder in 1990.

CHRISTOPHER FAIRFIELD EDLEY, 75, who served as president emeritus of the United Negro College Fund, died Monday in New Rochelle, N.Y., of a heart attack. In 1973, he succeeded Vernon Jordan as president of the fund. A graduate of Howard University and Harvard Law School, Mr. Edley used the organization's trademark slogan, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste," to raise more than $700-million to help students bound for historically black colleges. In 1979, he started the fund's yearly telethon. The telethon has raised more than $100-million.

MARIE-CLAUDE LALIQUE DEDOUVRE, 67, the granddaughter of the renowned French glass maker RenDe Lalique and a noted designer, died April 14 at her vacation home on Captiva Island. She was the last to bear the family name made famous by her grandfather early in the 20th century. She had retired and sold the company bearing her family name in 1994.

ELAINE STEINBECK, 88, a former actor who married John Steinbeck and became a self-described ambassador of the Nobel laureate's legacy, died April 27 in New York City. Over the past 35 years, she edited volumes of his work, showed off his Nobel medal to visiting reporters and spoke tirelessly on his behalf. Her husband, author of such classics as The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, died in 1968.

HADHRAT MIRZA TAHIR AHMAD, 74, spiritual leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim sect that believes Jesus escaped the cross and traveled to India, died April 19 in London. The Ahmadiyyas are regarded as heretics by mainstream Islam because they believe their 19th-century founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was the final prophet and messiah.

ALLAN SACK, 88, a pioneering speed-reading educator who taught fast ways to absorb information from the printed page well before Evelyn Wood became a franchised household name, died April 27 in San Diego. Working in adult reading education for more than 50 years, he taught a method based on analyzing the meaning and organization of a text to enhance comprehension and performance in reading, writing and note-taking. His latest book, meant for teachers, was Raising Reading Scores. It was issued last year.

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