James A. Lange, a former Ossining resident, died of complications from lung cancer on March 30, 2018. He was 71.
Jim was born in Salina, Kansas July 9, 1946, the first year of the Baby Boom, to Esther P. and Leo Lange. Among his fondest memories of childhood were walking home from school for lunch, sledding down the town’s only hill, his first job delivering pizzas on a three-wheeled motorbike with a portable oven, and eating Cozyburgers by the sack from the iconic greasy spoon.
After high school he joined the U.S. Navy to see the world. He was sent to boot camp in San Francisco in 1964. When he had a day off he would sit in Golden Gate Park and listen to local bands like the Grateful Dead. He saw the Beatles at the Cow Palace.
He and his fellow graduates of the electronics school were given the choice of West or East Coast, and he chose the Eastern Seaboard. He ended up at the Patuxent Naval Air Base in southern Maryland and served on an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, where he was amazed by visits to Pompeii and Marseilles.
After four years in the Navy he went to college on the G.I Bill, graduating from the University of Kansas.
He and his first wife, Lizzie, returned to Maryland, settling in Baltimore where he worked as an advertising copywriter. They were later divorced. It was then that he learned how to sail and bought his first boat, which he named Oz.
He met his second wife, Emily Lanning Taliaferro, when they were both volunteers for the Baltimore City Fair. They married at the Church of the Redeemer on April 4, 1981 and instead of a honeymoon went to Opening Day at Memorial Stadium.
They moved to New York in 1989, choosing to live in Ossining so they could raise their children in a diverse community and picking the Sparta neighborhood so Jim could walk to the train. He loved getting off in Philipse Manor on summer nights to join family and friends at the Beach Club.
A member of All Saints Episcopal Church in Briarcliff Manor, Jim served on the vestry and as a warden, but his greatest contribution was as a member of the Pancake Boyz, a group of mostly bearded, mostly middle-aged men devoted to grilling things. He was part of the church’s cooking team for Loaves and Fishes, a Saturday night open meal offered to the Ossining community at Trinity Church. He loved decorating the church with pine boughs and trees at Christmas.
As a volunteer for the Ossining Food Pantry, he wrote its fundraising letters for many years.
He and a shifting consortium of friends went sailing on the Hudson River, first in an 18-foot Cape Dory Typhoon named sequentially Asbeljara and Relic, then in a 24-foot C&C called Motley. He liked tucking up under Croton Point and drifting, trailing boat cushions tied to the cleats, as everybody swam.
Some of his other happiest times were when his children were in high school and college and the house was filled with their friends. They called him “the Skipper.”
The gift of a trip to Edinburgh from his daughter and son-in-law reignited his travel bug. On that trip, they visited Scotland, London and Paris. Among his other favorite trips were a jaunt to Cancun with friends, a bus tour of Rome, Sorrento and Sicily, and a trip to Hawaii. With family and friends they took a river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest and an ocean cruise around the Baltic Sea. He was planning a trip to Venice.
He is survived by his wife Lanning; children Austin and Annie Lange and Anne and Paul Dabrowski; grandchildren Samantha Marie and Austin James Lange; sister Janice Foutch; and nieces and nephews Kristin, Brian, Jennifer, James, Rachel and Emily. His brother Alan died before him.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 7 at All Saints, 201 Scarborough Road, Briarcliff Manor.
Funeral Director John G. Crawford is handling arrangements.