Vincent, Gordon

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Obituary

Gordon Vincent

EAST BERNE — Gordon Vincent was a family man who built his home with his own hands.

“His whole life was his family,” said his wife of 60 years, Dorothy Vincent. “We had four children.”

She went on, “We built our house in 1950, and it meant a lot to him to die at home.”

Mr. Vincent died in that East Berne home on Sunday, Oct. 14, 2012, with his family by his side. He was 88.

He was born in Westerlo on April 4, 1924, the son of the late Carl and Lona (Snyder) Vincent. “He lived with aunts and uncles,” said Mrs. Vincent. “It was a typical story of the 1930s — you grew up wherever you could find a bed. I was raised by grandparents. We were two orphans,” she said of herself and her husband. That made family life all that much more important to them when they married and set out to raise a family of their own after World War II.

Mr. Vincent had served in the United States Army during the war — in the Luzon, New Guinea, and Southern Philippines campaigns. “In active duty, it was pretty gory in the Philippines. They don’t talk about it,” Mrs. Vincent said of those who served then. By the time Mr. Vincent had returned from the war, Mrs. Vincent was in her last year of high school, having moved to Schenectady after going to school in Berne earlier. Mr. Vincent remembered her. “When he got out of the Army, he asked, ‘Who is that?’” she recalled. They began dating and, when they got married, they bought a hayfield in the Hilltowns where they built their home and raised their children.

Mrs. Vincent described their life together as “simple.” She said, “He worked and took care of the house. I took care of the kids.” Mr. Vincent worked for General Electric in the turbine division with coils. “He worked on huge turbines”; it was work he did out of a sense of duty rather than pleasure, his wife said. “He had a fam‑ ily, and put in 40 years.”

He retired when he was 60 and opened his own business — Vin‑ cent’s Taxi Service, a job he truly enjoyed. He got the idea for the business when he was at a tavern in East Durham. “They said, ‘We have trouble getting people here from the train station,’” his wife recalled.

“He loved it,” said Mrs. Vincent. “He loved seeing and talking to so many people.” He came to be very fond of his customers, she said, and particularly worried about the wealthy widows from Rensselaerville that he transported to doctors and other appointments. “He always worried what they’d do if he died, but they died first,” she said. His family wrote in a tribute, “He will be remembered as a friend to all he met.”

“He liked gabbing with people,” Mrs. Vincent said. “We weren’t social in the sense of movies and clubs. He loved his garden.” Every year, Mr. Vincent raised all kinds of vegetables in a huge garden, and Mrs. Vincent cooked and canned the produce he had grown. “We had blueberry bushes, and you could pick them by the pail‑ ful,” she recalled. “He was proud of them. We had to keep inviting people up to pick them all.” She concluded, “It was just a simple life but a good one.”

Gordon Vincent is survived by his wife of 60 years, Dorothy (Scheffel) Vincent; two sons, Victor Vincent and Mark Vincent; two daughters, Kathleen Palma and her husband, Joseph, and Karen Vincent; and six grandchildren. He is survived, too, by his two half brothers, Carlos Sala and Joseph Sala.

His brothers — Donald, Ezra, George, and Leland Vincent — died before him as did his sister, Cora Lounsbury. The funeral service and interment will be at the convenience of the family. Arrangements are by the A.J. Cunningham Funeral Home in Greenville. Mourners may express their condolences online at ajcunninghamfh.com.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Helderberg Ambulance, Post Office Box 54, Berne, NY 12023 or to the Community Hospice of Albany County, 445 New Karner Road, Albany, NY 12205. — Melissa Hale-Spencer

Altamont Enterprise – Thursday, October 18, 2012

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