Engaged. E.J. ("Jake") Garn, 44, Republican Senator from Utah; and Kathleen Brewerton Bingham, 27, former wife of the Senator's administrative assistant. Garn's first wife Hazel died in an automobile accident in August; he and Bingham will wed on April 8 at the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City.

Died. Diana Hyland, 41, versatile, blonde character actress who most recently played Joan Braden, energetic wife of Washington Columnist Tom Braden and mother of their attractive brood, in ABC's Eight Is Enough; of cancer; in Los Angeles.

Died. Will Herberg, 75, leading Judaic scholar and sociologist; of heart disease; in Chatham, N.J. Herberg was a professor of philosophy and Jewish studies at New Jersey's Drew University. In his 1955 study Protestant--Catholic --Jew, an innovative interpretation of the role of religion in America that is still widely used in college sociology courses, he noted a religious revival in the U.S. but warned that the major faiths had become secularized, that "believing" was now simply a way of "belonging" in society.

Died. William Stuart Nelson, 81, former dean of religion at Washington's Howard University and an early advocate, along with Martin Luther King Jr., of nonviolent protest to combat racial segregation; in Hyattsville, Md. A soft-spoken but self-assured Baptist minister. Nelson became a convert to the strategy of passive resistance after he met Mahatma Gandhi in India in 1946. In the early 1960s, he predicted that it would "reshape the entire structure of race relations in the U.S."

Died. Elizabeth Ames, 99, longtime doyenne of Yaddo, one of the first U.S. artists' retreats; in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. A charming and commanding Minnesotan, she was enlisted to carry out the dream of Katrina Trask Peabody, to convert Yaddo, her 500-acre estate in Saratoga Springs, into a working haven for writers, musicians and artists. Mrs. Ames decreed that the 54-room Yaddo mansion must remain "a splendid private home, where a small 'house party' of friends may feel wholly at ease," and she ran it in that Jamesian way until 1969, keeping Yaddo short on rules (no visitors from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.) and long on big-name residents. They included James Baldwin, Leonard Bernstein, Edward Hopper, Louis Kronenberger, Carson McCullers and Clyfford Still. John Cheever, another visitor, credited Mrs. Ames with a "softly imperious" ability to keep Yaddo running smoothly, though faced with "a zoo of cranky artists."

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