Dorothy Rice Gangai

Jane Gangai

BETHLEHEM — Dorothy Rice Gangai, a woman of grit and grace, instilled self-confidence in her three sons as she took on challenges without complaint. A World War II veteran, she worked a variety of jobs in an era when many women stayed home.

“She was upbeat and fun. She found humor in everything,” said her son, Gary Schultz. He also said, “She was completely supportive of family. Family was big to her. Us three boys were still in the community. She loved to see us together.”

Mrs. Gangai died on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2014, at the Good Samaritan Nursing Home in Delmar. She was 93.

Born in Albany, she was the daughter of the late James and Ethel Rice Kuhn. “She was part of a big Irish family,” her son said and, since there were several girls named Dorothy in the extended family, she went by Jane.

Her mother, who was divorced, supported her two daughters working for the telephone company.

Mrs. Gangai wrote about her childhood in a series of memoirs, developed at a class at the Voorheesville Public Library, and published in The Altamont Enterprise in the 1990s. She described life at her grandparents’ boarding house when she was 7; after her parents divorced, she and her sister and mother lived there.

“I was a little afraid of Gram,” she wrote. “She was very tall and very stern (or so she seemed to me then). She let me watch her make piecrust and put it in the shells to bake. She would hold the shells up in the air and cut all around to let the extra dough fall back on the table. She rolled out this extra dough and spread it with butter, sugar, and cinnamon. After she baked, she gave it to us to eat.”

She described her grandfather, Ralph Simmons, as “a big quiet man with lots of white hair. He worked for the Mack Truck Company and would come in from working very dirty. He stopped at the kitchen sink where he put down his lunch pail. I’d watch him take off his shirt and wash. He never said much to me but, when he looked at me and patted my head, I knew we were great pals. I was his first grandchild.”

Every weekday, when her mother was away at work, she wrote, “Toward dusk, I would come in from play, cold, tired and hungry, and wanting my mother. Dusk, to this day, is a blue time for me.”

But she had her Aunt Emma who “didn’t do much” but had “a wonderful soft lap.”

“Aunt Emma held me and showed me how to weave on an empty spool with four little nails,” she wrote. “I twisted the yarn around each nail and we waited for Mom’s bus to come up the street. When she came in the door, the world was all right again.”

Jane and her younger sister, Marian, attended Voorheesville schools. Mrs. Gangai was athletic, her son said, and played on the school basketball team.

After completing as many grades as Voorheesville offered, she went on to graduate from Bethlehem High School.

She married a schoolmate, Harold Schultz. “My father was in the Navy so she joined as well,” said Gary Schultz. She served in the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, a division of the United States Navy) during World War II, stationed in California.

When Mr. Schultz was discharged, their son said, “Mother joined him in San Francisco. They took their time traveling back home…I was born nine months later,” he added.

The family settled in Voorheesville where they raised three sons — Gary, Glenn, and Matthew. “She faced some hard situations when my two brothers were not well,” said Gary Schultz. “Life wasn’t always perfect, but she made do.”

He went on, “She was a wonderful mother. We were constantly reinforced. She always told us how wonderful we were and how proud she was of us. She gave us a real strong sense of self….I could always face any challenge because my mother told me I could.”

He went on, speaking hyperbolically, “She was the kind of mom, if I took out a .22 and shot you in the head, she’d defend me and say, ‘There must be a good reason.’” He concluded, “She defended her children.”

He also said, “She loved music.”

In her memoirs, Mrs. Gangai wrote of climbing the dusty stairs to the loft of the barn behind her grandparents’ home, where she and her sister would play the wind-up Victrola. “I can still hear the high staccato music coming from those thick records,” she wrote. “We marched around to ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ and danced to ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’ and ‘Alice’s Blue Gown.’”

One of Gary Schultz’s fondest memories is listening to his mother and his aunt, Marian, “pluck out a tune on the piano and harmonize songs” at their house in Voorheesville.

In addition to being a devoted mother, Mrs. Gangai was also a working woman.

“My mother worked for Larry Lane, a New York State Assemblyman as a secretary,” said her son, and she worked for the Fort Orange Press.

Later in life, after her children were grown, she worked as a typesetter at The Altamont Enterprise where the staff appreciated her good humor and quick wit as well as her hard work.

Her son told a story that demonstrated her wit and playful nature. A couple of years ago, he said, they were driving to their summer cabin on Warners Lake in the Helderbergs, talking together in the car.

“She was bragging about how wonderful she thought my daughters were…Her oldest grandchild is a surgeon…and a younger daughter is a group sales manager…She was going on about how smart and bright and beautiful my daughters are,” he recalled.

“I said, ‘Mother, what did you expect? Look at their father.’

“‘Yes, I wonder who that was,’” she retorted — her son laughed at the memory.

In 2004, as her eyesight declined, she was loath to give up her independence. She was a member of the First United Methodist Church of Voorheesville, the Voorheesville American Legion Ladies Auxiliary, and the New Scotland Senior Citizens for whom she wrote an Enterprise column.

“When I could no longer drive without endangering my life and those of my fellow citizens, I decided it was time to put my car in the garage and shut the door,” she wrote with typical matter-of-fact practicality.

“Next came the realization that I needed to go to the bank, Laundromat, grocery store, library, and post office. Also,” she continued with her trademark sense of humor, “catastrophe or not, I had to get to the beauty shop.”

At the same time, she counted her blessings, writing, “Having lived in the village of Voorheesville most of my life, I am fortunate to have school friends, neighbors, and my church family. My own dear family are taken for granted.”

Mrs. Gangai went on to brave a cornea transplant and celebrated what she called her “Independence Day.”

****

Dorothy Rice Gangai is survived by her children, Gary Schultz and his wife, Rosemary, Glenn Schultz and his wife, Susan, and Matthew Schultz and his wife, Colleen; by her grandchildren, Leah Schultz, Rebecca Evangelista and her husband, Elessio, Kassandra Foley and her husband, Vincent, Ashley Schultz; Alyssa Schultz, Erika Schultz, Abigail Schultz, Corrine Schultz, Denise Schultz, and Ed Schultz; her step-granddaughters, Allison Funk and Elizabeth Funk; and her great-grandchildren, Niccilo Evangelista, Mia Evangelista, and Quinn Foley.

 Relatives and friends are invited to attend a memorial service at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2014 at the First United Methodist Church of Voorheesville, 68 Maple Ave., in Voorheesville.  Arrangements are by the Reilly and Son Funeral Home online at reillyandsonfuneralhome.com.

— Melissa Hale-Spencer

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