Ethel Mary Sumi Sleeper

03/20/2004

Ethel Mary Sumi Sleeper, 96, formerly of Great Barrington, died Saturday at Wesley Health Care Center in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Born in Prescott, Iowa, on Nov. 16, 1907, daughter of James and Clara Anna Victor Vonasek, she attended schools in Creston, Iowa, and received her bachelor's degree in nursing from the former Wesley Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in Chicago, an affiliate of Northwestern University. She later resided in New York City and Monterey, and had resided full time in Great Barrington since 1963. She moved to Saratoga Springs in December 2000. A registered nurse, she was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps in 1933, and served at Army hospitals in Denver, San Antonio and Hawaii. She resigned her commission in 1938. Mrs. Sleeper had assisted her husband, Milton B. Sleeper, with his several music, radio and TV magazines in New York City and Great Barrington. Her first husband, 1st Lt. Raymond W. Sumi, an Army Air Corps fighter pilot, whom she married in Hawaii in 1938, was killed in an aircraft accident while on active duty at March Field, Calif. Her husband, whom she married in 1942 in New York City, died in 1963. She enjoyed traveling throughout the world. She leaves five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. She was predeceased by her two stepdaughters, Sara Sleeper Shutts and Mary Sleeper Edgar Walker. FUNERAL NOTICE -- A graveside service for Ethel Mary Vonasek Sumi Sleeper, who died March 20, 2004, will be held at a later date in Corashire Cemetery in Monterey. Memorial donations may be made to the Meinhardt Partnership in care of the Wesley Foundation, 131 Lawrence St., Saratoga Springs, NY 12866. Mrs. Sleeper leaves five grandchildren, including Judith A. Stephens and her husband, Samuel, and two great-grandchildren, Alexander and Victoria Stephens of Saratoga Springs; a nephew, Donald E. Vonasek of Des Moines, Iowa; a niece, Phyllis Hammond of Newport Center, Vt., and longtime friends, Judy and Paul Arienti of Great Barrington; Kristen Arienti of La Mesa, Calif., and Marilyn and Bill Stevens of Maine and the state of Florida. Arrangements are under the direction of WILLIAM J. BURKE & SONS/BUSSING & CUNNIFF FUNERAL HOMES, 628 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs.

Obituaries

Celebrating Lives & Legacies

Ethel Mary Sumi Sleeper

Memorials