Obituary of Gordon E. Coggshall

BOONTON - Gordon Eugene Coggshall, known as Gene, Papa, or Boss, age 67, died Tuesday, January 24, 2012. Born in Ithaca, New York on March 1, 1944, to the late William L. and Josephine S. Coggshall, Gene was a 1962 graduate of Ithaca High School and earned his Bachelor's degree in English from Cornell University in 1966. He went on to earn his Master's degree in Fine Arts, also from Cornell University. After a year gallivanting across the country with his close friend Bill Snyder and a stint playing bass and singing back-up in his band, The Back Alley, Gene taught writing at Ithaca College and then worked as a technical writer at Perkin-Elmer in Danbury, Connecticut. Later, he was an executive with Lab-Volt Systems in Farmingdale. At each stop, he fixed up a fixer-upper, culminating in the complete rehabilitation of a beautiful Victorian in Allenhurst. In his early thirties, Gene was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and retired to focus on his writing and his four children. Whether he was patiently teaching them to drive, repeatedly turning their socks pink, or making math homework complicated, Papa never let his children go without his gentle, affable presence. He attended every concert, recital, soccer practice, baseball game, and Brownie meeting. G.E. Coggshall was a prolific writer of short stories, plays, and poems, scores published by small presses and hundreds written with care and humor for his many friends and family. Gene was predeceased by his beloved wife, Donna Brogle Coggshall, for whom he wrote clever poetry and made black coffee every morning. Surviving are his children, who inherited his love of language, cats, and ice cream, Emily Coggshall Kahn, and her husband, Daniel, Mountain Lakes, Jane Gordon Coggshall McConnochie, and her husband, Timothy, University Park, Maryland, Paul Daniel Coggshall, and his wife, Vanessa, Fanwood, and Elizabeth Learn Coggshall, and her husband, Paul Ellis, Jersey City. His grandchildren, to whom he surely passed on his love of music, puns, and ice cream, are Lily Josephine Kahn, Max William Kahn, Charlotte Simone Coggshall, George Muir McConnochie, and Emaline Lynn Coggshall. Also surviving are his siblings, William L. Coggshall, Jr., Menlo Park, California, and Joanne C. Thibadeau, Ithaca, New York. Memorial contributions in Gene's name may be made to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation, 1359 Broadway, Suite 1509, New York, NY 10018 ( www.pdf.org). A memorial gathering for family and friends will be held at his daughter's home in Mountain Lakes on Saturday, January 28th from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. All other services will be private. Arrangements were by Mackey Funeral Home (mackeyfh.com), 107 Essex Ave., Boonton.