Vincent Philip Pandolfi, 87, passed away peacefully in the early hours of January 8, 2018 at his home in McKinney, Texas, following a brief but valiant battle against pancreatic cancer.
On the nightstand beside his bed that morning were stacked his cherished record albums by Keely Smith, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Perry Como, Frankie Laine and other iconic crooners of the forties and fifties – music that had provided the soundtrack of his life since youth.
“For 80 cents, in those days, I could watch a baseball game at Yankee Stadium and then go to the Paramount Theater in Times Square to hear Frank Sinatra,” he would relate with relish before bursting into the opening lyrics of ‘For Me and My Gal.’
That he was a musicophile was hardly surprising. Music and mirth invariably filled his parental Pandolfi home, particularly at large, lively, extended family lunches during which his brother, Lawrence, would accompany records on the saxophone while Vincent jubilantly danced the jitterbug and foxtrot with his young nieces.
Were he to write his own obituary, Vincent would recount his life in dog years, the eras marked by his various constant canine companions, who brought him illimitable joy. They were his predominant passion and, in his estimation, most valued assets.
The happiness he found was in the realization of the value of simple things – the routine pleasures and seemingly mundane moments that accrue in memory as the small treasures of a lifetime.
The youngest of four children, Vincent Philip and his twin brother, Lawrence Felix, were born on 30 October 1930 in Queens, New York, to industrious, successful, Italian immigrants, Vincent and Teresa Pandolfi. After completing his education, he served with the US Armed Forces in the Korean War, for which he was awarded three medals, and subsequently forged a career at American Airlines, where he remained until his retirement. Not one for wanderlust, he generously bestowed his airline travel benefits on family members.
It was in 1996 that Vincent and his brother, Lawrence, made the decision to relocate to Texas, where their sister, Lorraine Paterson, and her family were domiciled.
Family was of paramount importance to Vincent, who lived with and cared for his parents until their demise. He was intensely devoted to his twin brother, Lawrence, to whom he always resided in close proximity and to whose children he remained throughout his life a surrogate father and steadfast support.
While he lived frugally, Vincent was astute financially, especially as a stock market aficionado, for the simple reason that the sole pleasure he derived from amassing money was giving it away to loved ones.
His twin brother, Lawrence, and elder sisters, Antoinette Anderson and Lorraine Paterson, predeceased him.
Though he has left us, Vincent’s lifelong legacy of kindness, compassion, generosity, integrity and unflagging familial fealty lives on as a beacon for those he leaves behind. Never given to hyperbole, he would balk at the assertion, however true, that anyone who knew Vincent could not doubt that angels do indeed walk among us.
Vincent Pandolfi is survived by his loving nieces and nephews, Linda van Nunen of Sydney, Australia; John Paterson of Dallas, TX; Thomas Paterson of Grand Prairie, TX; Nancy Ward of Plano, TX; Patricia Vaughn of Hickory Creek, TX; Lorraine Morris of Frisco, TX; Karen Anderson of Kings Park, NY; Lawrence Anderson of Huntington, NY; Steven Pandolfi of Newburgh, NY; Lawrence V. Pandolfi of McKinney, TX; Susan Williamson of Princeton, TX; Jeffrey Pandolfi of Long Island, NY; Theresa Jurgensen of Long Island, NY; and his loving cousins, Mary Lehman of Flushing, NY; Margaret Carlson of Whitestone, NY; Philip Pandolfi of Dix Hills, NY; Delia Martuge of Bethpage, NY; Theresa D’Acunti of Dix Hills, NY; Joseph Ciancotto of Deer Park, NY and Ann Vetro of Kings Park, NY.
Vale our beloved Vincent