Millard Fuller, 74, the visionary Christian with a single-minded focus that resulted in more than 300,000 houses built for the poor, died unexpectedly early Tuesday.
Fuller, a self-made millionaire, was the driving force in founding Habitat for Humanity in 1976, a nonprofit that started in Americus, Ga., and grew to a worldwide network that has provided shelter to more than 1.5 million people. After a split from the organization in 2005, he founded a new organization, the Fuller Center for Housing in Americus, which was doing the same work.
Fuller, who co-founded Habitat with his wife, Linda, died near his south Georgia home after suffering from chest pains, headache and difficulty swallowing, his wife said.
Lukas Foss, 86, the polyglot American composer, conductor and pianist, died Sunday at his home in New York. No cause of death was given, but Foss was known to have had Parkinson's disease.
Composer Aaron Copland once called Foss' works "among the most original and stimulating compositions in American music." Foss wrote more than 100 works, including four symphonies, three string quartets and many choral, chamber, orchestral and stage pieces. His work embodied almost every style available to a classical composer. His best-known works are "Time Cycle" (songs with orchestra after texts by W. H. Auden, A. E. Housman, Franz Kafka and Friedrich Nietzsche); "Baroque Variations" for orchestra (deconstruction of Bach, Handel and D. Scarlatti); "Echoi" (for four instruments); two operas, "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" (after Mark Twain) and "Griffelkin"; Symphony No. 3 ("Symphony of Sorrows); and "Renaissance Concerto" for flute and orchestra.
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