Sally Witt
2006
Sally Witt Yochelson, 75, a homemaker and former administrator with the National Museum of Natural History, died of breast cancer Dec. 23 at her home in Bowie.
Mrs. Yochelson was born in the District and graduated from  Coolidge High School in 1948. She received her undergraduate degree from Bowie State University in 1964.
In Bowie, where she moved in 1962, she was a founding member and president of the One Hundred Club, a group of young homemakers devoted to charitable efforts. She also was active in the local PTA.
From 1966 to 1971, she worked under contract at the National Museum of Natural History, where she administered summer institutes in systematics. She also administered a 1972 writing conference for the museum that prepared "America's Systematics Collections: A National Plan." In 1973, she was in charge of the First International Congress of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology, held in Boulder, Colo.
She was briefly a volunteer editor at the American Geological Institute before working for the Scientific Manpower Commission for nearly a decade.
In 1984, she returned to the National Museum of Natural History to administer the First International Symposium on Grass Systematics and Evolution and subsequently helped edit the volume of the proceedings.
Survivors include her husband of 55 years, Ellis Yochelson of Bowie; two sisters, Harriet Raine of Rockville and Judi Fried of Tamarac, Fla.; three children, Jeffrey Yochelson of Baltimore County, Abby Yochelson of the District and Charles Yochelson of Sheridan, Ore.; and five grandchildren.