In passing

Samuel Johnson, 76, CEO of SC Johnson

Milwaukee Samuel Johnson, who became a billionaire by expanding the wax company started by his great-grandfather into the consumer products giant SC Johnson, died of cancer Saturday, his family said. He was 76.

Johnson, who retired as chairman of the Racine-based company in 2000, was ranked as the richest man in Wisconsin, with a personal wealth estimated by Forbes magazine this year at $7.4 billion.

In 1967, Johnson became the fourth generation to lead the 118-year-old family business that once was called Johnson Wax. He turned the business into four global companies that now employ more than 28,000 people, making furniture polishes, waxes and other household cleaning products.

SC Johnson’s annual sales rose from about $171 million to about $6 billion under Johnson’s leadership. The company now generates more than $8 billion in annual sales and operates in more than 70 countries, according to the company’s Web site.

Johnson also was a philanthropist who showed a civic commitment to many projects. He was a founding member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, which advised world leaders at the historic 1992 Rio Earth Summit.

Johnson’s son Fisk Johnson succeeded his father as chairman.

Bernard Lefkowitz, 66, social issues writer

New York Bernard Lefkowitz, an investigative journalist and author whose books explored contemporary culture, died Friday of cancer his wife Rebecca Aikman said. He was 66.

In 1997 Lefkowitz wrote “Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb,” about the 1989 gang rape of a mentally disabled girl by a group of popular high school students in an affluent New Jersey suburb. The book explored the town’s willingness to rally around the perpetrators and disparage the victim.

A New York Times notable book of the year and an Edgar Award finalist, “Our Guys” was also made into a television movie.

His books, “The Victims” (1969), “Breaktime: Living Without Work in a Nine-to-Five World” (1980) and “Tough Change: Growing Up on Your Own in America” (1987), also explored social issues.

Gloria Anzaldua, 61, explored border culture

Harlingen, Texas Gloria Anzaldua, a Mexican-American writer acclaimed for works that explored the sometimes prickly blend of culture along the Texas-Mexico border, has died. She was 61.

She died May 15 of complications from diabetes.

Anzaldua was best known for two books about being a woman on the border: “This Bridge Called My Back: Writings of Radical Women of Culture” and “Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza,” which Hungry Mind Review and Utne Reader called one of the 100 Best Books of the Century.

Beyond being considered a pioneer in cultural theory, Anzaldua was followed in feminist circles as the first openly lesbian Chicana writer. She published children’s books as well as poetry, essays and short stories, and was the editor or co-editor of three anthologies.

Her awards included the National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Award, the American Studies Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award, the Lamda Lesbian Association Small Book Press Award, and the Sappho Award of Distinction.

Anzaldua was born in a ranching area of rural Raymondville. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas-Pan American University and a master’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin. She was working on a doctorate degree at University of Santa Cruz-California when she died.

Robert F. Seedlock, 91, led Burma Road work

Arlington, Va. Retired Army Gen. Robert F. Seedlock, who led the arduous construction of the Burma Road that broke the Japanese blockade of China during World War II, died May 5. He was 91.

As a colonel, Seedlock oversaw a force of 1,000 U.S. engineers and other troops, plus 20,000 Chinese laborers, as they built more than 600 miles of road across the Himalayas between China and Burma, often in extreme weather and under threat of attack.

In 1942, Japanese forces had taken control of northern Burma and had destroyed sections of a highway that was the sole overland route from India to China. After allied forces recaptured parts of Burma in 1944, Seedlock was given command of the Burma Road Engineers. His mission: Build the eastern half of the highway, the Burma Road.

After the war, Seedlock remained in China, where he was part of Gen. George C. Marshall’s failed mission to mediate a settlement to the civil war that led to the communist takeover of the country.

At the end of his Army career, Seedlock took command of Fort Belvoir in northern Virginia in 1966 and led an effort to desegregate off-base housing.

He retired from the Army in 1968 and went on to manage major engineering projects in the private sector, including construction of rapid-transit systems in Pittsburgh and Atlanta and the Jiddah airport in Saudi Arabia.

He held a master’s degree in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.