Lee Gary Kipling

When people are asked to describe Gary, the words that are often used are happy, easy going, a good athlete and an all around good guy. He was born Lee Gary Kipling on Long Island, NY, but everyone always just called him Gary.

As a very young child in Levittown, Gary, who was a bit accident prone, broke his collarbone. His older sister said that even though he looked very uncomfortable in his body cast, he never complained, always smiled, and when asked how he was doing he always said, “I’m OK.”

Throughout his school years, Gary excelled in sports. He played football and was captain of the baseball and basketball teams. He was also president of his class. In college, Gary played baseball while studying to be a social worker. Gary always wanted to help people, so right out of school he started working for a very large family welfare agency in New York. He worked with foster children. Some of these children were too physically or mentally incapacitated to be placed in homes, so they lived in a facility that could tend to their needs. But this never felt right to Gary. He wanted all children to have the opportunity to feel that they had homes to care for them. So Gary was given a grant to build cottages on the agency property in order for all of the children to be able to have a real home. He also arranged for the children to participate in typical events like dances, parades, birthday parties, proms and he even helped a child become a Bar Mitvah.

While Gary was in his 40s, he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. In 2019, he was diagnosed with Alzheimers. Shortly before he died, he was diagnosed with kidney disease. The last few weeks of his life, Gary was unable to get out of bed. Yet when the nurses would visit to check on him, they would ask how he was doing. He would always answer, “I’m OK.”

Gary was a beloved husband, son, father, brother, uncle, a proud grandfather, and a friend. We will all miss him.