Married. Frances Mary Nimitz, 24, granddaughter of Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander and hero of the Pacific theater in World War II; and Edwin Gordon Johns, 28, Manhattan adman; in New Canaan, Conn.

Married. Arthur Koestler, 59, Hungarian-born author, once a Communist, later a supreme critic (Darkness at Noon); and Cynthia Koestler, 37, his South African-born secretary, who changed her name from Paterson to Koestler in a legal action a year ago in London; he for the third time, she for the second; by a city clerk in Manhattan.

Died. George Washington Oakes, 55, one of the New York Times's Ochs (Oakes) clan, who founded in 1947 an idealistic but ill-fated London weekly (American Outlook), later wrote a series of successful walking-tour guides to Europe; from injuries suffered in an auto accident that also killed his wife, Joanna, 49, and only son James, 17; near Brattleboro, Vt., when James, who was driving, lost control on an icy road as the family was returning to the Choate School from a precollege interview at Dartmouth.

Died. Milton Clark Avery, 71, pre-abstract-expressionist painter whose studies of blocky, faceless figures and wispy, grey-green seascapes in the 1920s drew a blank with the public, yet so inspired such young artists as Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb that he became a pivotal influence on them, even though he himself had to wait until the 1950s before his own primitivistic, relatively representational canvases finally brought as much as $10,000; after a long illness; in New York City.

Died. Lady Violet Astor of Hever, 75, wife of Lord Astor, owner of the Times of London, who spent her life as one of Britain's most energetic social-work volunteers until two years ago, when she and her husband left England for good to escape Britain's heavy death duties; after a long illness; at their Cote d'Azur villa in Pegomas, France.

Died. Thomas Stearns Eliot, 76, expatriate U.S. poet and man of all letters; of pulmonary emphysema; in London (see p. 86).

Died. Frank Mozley Stevens, 84, president of Harry M. Stevens Inc., the nation's greatest purveyor of food to sports fans, who expanded his father's hot-dog concessions into a $20 million annual feast at 45 tracks including the caviar and peach Melbas served at such fancy beaneries as the Diamond Club at the New York Mets' Shea Stadium and a soon-to-open splendor at Florida's Hialeah race track; after a long illness; in Manhattan.

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