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January 8, 2011

Michael E. DeGraba, 86, a Navy Department employee who retired in 1986 from what was then the Naval Surface Weapons Center and helped conduct research on battery technology, died January 8, 2011, of kidney failure at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Md.

Mr. DeGraba spent 35 years with the Navy Department, initially as a sheet-metal worker. Michael Eugene DeGraba, a Kensington, Md., resident, was born in Pittston. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army in Europe and participated in the Normandy invasion.

After his retirement, he worked as a starter and pro-shop employee at Sligo Creek Golf Course in Silver Spring and the Naval Surface Weapons Center golf course. He was a member of St. Catherine Laboure Catholic Church in Wheaton, Md., where he was a member of the Holy Name Society.

He was preceded in death by brothers and sisters, Dominick DeGraba, Mary Pertino, Flora Riccetti, Regina DeGraba, and Joseph DeGraba.

Survivors include his wife of 59 years, Lucille Ardoline DeGraba of Kensington; four children, Michael J. DeGraba and Lucille DeGraba-Brown, both of Germantown, Md., Patrick J. DeGraba of Rockville, Md., and Thomas J. DeGraba of Potomac, Md.; two sisters, Gloria Pupa and Elizabeth DeGraba, Pittston; and seven grandchildren.

Viewing was held at Collin’s Funeral Home in Silver Spring, Md. Interment was held at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Maryland.