David Arnold Hyman
Baseball umpire David Hyman liked to drag out his strike calls with an extra syllable.
Stee-rike!
The 74-year-old was a mainstay on baseball fields in Mount Laurel and the Pinelands for 38 years, teaching youngsters the game that was his passion from the time he was growing up in Camden.
“He loved the sport so much,” noted David’s wife, Dianne. “He knew the game inside out. Helping young people learn to play and understand the sport was important to him.”
David took on kids from 7 to 9 years old as a coach and began officiating games in 1983, as Mount Laurel became fertile with baseball fields. And it wasn’t unusual for kids to learn swimming in the ump’s pool.
“Our home was always an open place for family and friends,” said Dianne, who recalled 40 years of the couple’s annual 4th of July barbecues. “He had a great impact on a lot of lives.”
David spent 33 years at Aluminum Shapes in Atco and later had his own videography business. He courted Dianne after a rather creative pitch at the Jefferson Ward store where she worked.
“Do you have the habit of eating?” he asked her.
“Of course,” she answered.
“Filet mignon?” he wondered.
“I prefer lobster,” she shot back.
And a relentless pursuit was on.
Dianne – who was 12 years younger than her husband – thinks they ended up at the Pub in Pennsauken for that filet mignon and lobster. She recalled her husband as a “snazzy guy” with a kind of old-school swagger who did a sharp cha-cha and wore custom monogrammed shirts.
A splash of Chanel Antaeus cologne didn’t hurt either.
David Hyman was simply of another time, when men dressed in suits and ties and chivalry wasn’t dead. He insisted that no woman should pay for a meal, his obituary notes, nor should she be unescorted from the curb to the sidewalk.
“He was my old man sweetheart,” Dianne remembers of her husband’s old-fashioned mindset. “We had a wonderful marriage. I’m just grateful I had the opportunity to share my life with him.”
Sharing the baseball field with David were hundreds of youngsters he taught over the years to play what he called “the true game.”
“He studied that rule book,” Dianne emphasized. “He knew that rule book.”
It’s doubtful Stee-rike! is in that publication. David Hyman made that one all his own.
Sources: Boyd Funeral Services, Legacy.com
JoAnn Theresa Beckson
JoAnn Beckson spent much of her life as an actress in New York City, where she championed other actors and celebrated their success as much as her own, a former student and friend noted in the 76-year-old’s obituary.
Back home in Camden County in 2020 to live the rest of her life, JoAnn loomed large in the lives of her nieces and nephews, emphasizing “the importance of education, travel, how to set a table, how to put on mascara, how to – and how not – to dress.”
Not to mention taking time “for a nice merlot.”
The Philadelphia native began her career as a high-school history teacher, according to the obituary. She ventured into acting – and eventually New York City – in the ‘70s, learning her craft at the Neighborhood Playhouse. JoAnn founded the prestigious Circle Repertory Company LAB and also dabbled in coaching, teaching, directing and producing.
Her favorite roles were in comedies. She wrote and produced “Say Something Funny,” a theater piece performed by seven stand-up comics. But she could be funny, too, according to her friends and family. A favorite line was, “You gotta leave them laughing.”
“And so our beloved JoAnna,” a mourner wrote in a tribute, “you leave us laughing … And, oh, so very loved.”
Sources: Kain-Murphy Funeral Services, Legacy.com
Thomas F. Rhile
Tommy Rhile’s 80-year life made for one very long obituary, among the longest this column has ever seen.
Here’s a short version: Crazy about sports. A speedy baseball utility player who nearly pitched a no-hitter. No. 17 on his American Airlines softball team of co-workers. A spiffy dancer. Still called his spouse of 56 years, Joanne, “my bride.” Ate the eel at her family’s Seven Fishes Christmas feast – a big deal if you’re not Italian.
Truly “a class act,” said one mourner of Tommy in a tribute.
“Tommy Rhile was the best ball player I ever saw,” a spectator once noted.
By all accounts a quietly terrific guy, Tommy loved to give people nicknames – he himself was known as TR – and was always ready to help anyone, so much so that he “is now an angel waiting to assist,” as a neighbor put it.
Tommy’s two daughters would bound down the stairs to greet him, according to his obituary. He was there to patiently help with math problems, despite working the overnight shift. He taught one of his four granddaughters how to bat left handed.
Tommy loved cars, gardening and horseshoes with “Ralph down the street.” He could fix anything and spent hours in his basement workshop listening to his beloved baseball. His favorite team was the St. Louis Cardinals.
Jimmy Downes saw his friend two days before he died.
“As I looked down at him holding back my tears, I wondered what could I say to him,” Downes recalled in an online tribute. “Out of nowhere, words came out of my mouth: “The Cardinals traded their closer.”
A weak Tommy nonetheless responded with a nickname. “Flakes, I told you they always get rid of their best players!”
So it seems fitting to give three of Tommy’s nieces and nephews the last word on their best player: “May he finally pitch that perfect game in heaven.”
Sources: Falco Caruso & Leonard Funeral Home, Legacy.com
The Good Life appears twice a month. To suggest someone who recently passed away for a tribute, email Christina Mitchell at cmitchell@donnelly.media. Please describe in a few words something about the person’s life.
