RENSSELAERVILLE — Many places in distant lands bear the imprint of John “Jack” Robert Long, Jr. — including presidential palaces, airports, and hotels — but none gave him greater satisfaction than the much humbler projects he helped to build in Rensselaerville, the town he always thought of as home during his long peripatetic career as a mechanical engineer. Rensselaerville is also the town where he spent many happy years in retirement.

Mr. Long died on Monday, Oct. 24, 2016, at the Evergreen Commons Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center in East Greenbush. He was 84.

His sense of civic pride, or  his love of being useful, or his innate generosity — or all three — led him to volunteer again and again on behalf of the town of Rensselaerville.

Its public works, though small in scale, owe a huge debt to him. Without pay, he planned the town’s sewer collection and treatment facilities and supervised their construction.  For its water utility, he lent his expertise to the repair of two dams and the replacement of the water distribution system.

But there was another, non-engineering side to Mr. Long that found full expression in his lifelong love of traditional music and his enthusiasm for contra dancing. Both of these loves provided still more outlets for his volunteer impulses, as well as many friends and many memories.

Mr. Long was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on Sept. 16, 1932, the son of John Robert Long and Frances Gertrude (née Gilmour) Long.

His great-grandfather, Charles Niles, who had served in the Army of the Republic in the Civil War  and stood guard at the casket of the slain President Abraham Lincoln, headed west after the war, to Missouri, to join the railroad-building boom.

But his daughter, who was Mr. Long’s grandmother, Cornelia Gilmour, had maintained ties with an aunt back in Rensselaerville. And in 1939 — says Mr. Long’s sister, Janet Haseley —   their grandmother asked, “Why am I still here in Kansas City?”

The family came back East and bought a home in Rensselaerville “above the cemetery,”  a pre-Civil War home  that was to become the home base for succeeding generations of the family.

Meanwhile, the family branch downstate into which Mr. Long was born, was raising two children in Queens. After attending New York City grade schools, then Bayside High School — which his mother judged to be too large for his son — Mr. Long graduated from Port Washington High School, having already shown an early aptitude for things mechanical.

“He was always tinkering with cars before he could drive,” recalls his sister. “One day he took apart our mother’s washing machine to see how the motor worked.”

She also remembers him mounting a one-horsepower motor on a bicycle, “but a policeman stopped him and told him he had to be 18, so he took the motor and mounted it on a lawnmower.”

After high school, Mr. Long attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and then Clarkson College of Technology (now Clarkson University) — where his love of dancing began, as a way to meet girls at neighboring Potsdam College, says his sister.

The Korean War changed his plans and he found himself in the United States Army, in charge of logistical support for 127 harbor craft based in Inchon, Korea.

It was the beginning of a long global career that took him all over the world— “We have pages listing the places he visited,” says his sister — to Ethiopia where four airports were built with his help; to West Africa where he played a role in the construction of  hotels; office buildings; and presidential palaces in Liberia, Ghana, and Nigeria, and  to Guatemala where he was an economic development consultant. He was director of the Overseas Division of J.E. Schecter Corporation.

Mr. Long was following in his father’s footsteps: Early in his career, he went to South America to help his father, who was a civil engineer, on a project, Mrs. Haseley says.

But throughout all his international travels, his heart remained back home. One of the things he shipped home from Lebanon were trays that Middle Easterners used to eat off of; the Long family used them for coffee tables with special stands holding them., Mrs. Haseley said.

Locally, Mr. Long could point to many Capital Region buildings to which he made a professional contribution: the O. D. Heck developmental center; the University Heights medical facility, and early additions to Ellis Hospital. In addition, he worked with L. A. Swyer Inc. on the planning of the Ten Eyck redevelopment.

But there could be little doubt which of his many projects was a labor of love: the renovation of the Voorheesville home of Old Songs, the traditional music performance space. His participation was more than conceptual, says his sister. He did a lot of the work too.

Mr. Long served on the Old Songs  board for 30 years and, when he retired from it, he was named Director Emeritus.

As a member of the Rensselaerville Volunteer Ambulance for 33 years, Mr. Long was a volunteer emergency medical technician.

A member of the Rensselaerville Presbyterian Church, he  supervised repairs to the church’s foundation, and when the church acquired historic Conkling Hall, Mr. Long stepped in to assist with  the building’s rehabilitation for community use.

His early passion for cars turned out to to be lifelong. “We have a lot of car magazines,” says Mrs. Haseley.  Saab was a marque Mr. Long particularly loved and collected, and he passed on “hand-me-down” Saabs to family members.

He was a man who knew a lot about many things. “If you asked uncle Jack the time, “ said his nephew, “he would  give you a history of clock-making.”

He was also a man who loved a good joke, as well as good music. His sister says that many friends visited him in the nursing home, playing music, and reading jokes from a compendium of jokes Sharon Alley and other friends had compiled for him and given to him as a surprise gift several years ago.

In a tribute to Mr. Long on Mrs. Haseley’s Facebook page, Sharon Alley wrote this of a photo of Mr. Long holding a length of PVC pipe:

“The reigning Engineer of Rensselaerville, with his scepter! Wonderful photo of Jack, celebrating the accomplishment of infrastructure upgrades in his beloved hometown! Jack lives on in our hearts and in his many acts of service!”

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John Robert Long Jr. is survived by his sister, Janet Long Haseley of Grifton, North Carolina and Rensselaerville, and by  a brother,  Robert Stone Long, and his wife, Debbie, of Spokane, Washington. He is also survived by a nephew, Allan Niles Haseley, and his wife, Kelly, of Charlotte, North Carolina; by his nieces: Susan Blair Miller and her husband, Stuart, of New Hartford; Lynne Haseley Davenport of New Bern, North Carolina; Karen G. Haseley of Columbia, Maryland; Jessica Long of Spokane; Lindsay Long of Los Angeles, California, and by seven great- grand-nieces and nephews.

An informal gathering of family and friends will be held at Conkling Hall at 8 Methodist Hill Road on Nov. 7 from 7 to 9 p.m. The family suggests, “Bring your musical instruments and singing voices (or just come to listen).”

Memorial contributions may be made to Old Songs, 37 South Main Street, Post Office  Box 466, Voorheesville 12186, or to a charity or non-profit organization of the donor’s choice.

— Tim Tulloch

Updated on Oct. 29, 2016: Some details in the original version of this obituary were changed based on Janet Haseley's corrections. These included the street number for Conkling Hall, the number of Long children who grew up in Queens, the parent who thought Jack Long would do better in a smaller school, and the souvenirs he sent home from Lebanon.