WRIGHT — Rufus I. Varin Jr., who thrived on hard work and had a passion for farming, died on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2016, at St. Peter’s Hospital after a long illness. He was 58.

“His biggest passion in life was farming,” said his sister, Virgilia Tegiacchi. His second love, she said, was trucking.

Mr. Varin was born on Feb. 11, 1958 in Schenectady, a son of Rufus and Mildred (née Schager) Tegiacchi. His grandparents — his mother’s parents — owned a farm near Gallupville.

Although Ms. Tegiacchi is 19 years younger than her half-brother, she has pictures of him as a boy, working on the farm. In the early 1970s, she said, he moved to the farm. He loved the farm his whole life long, and lived there at the time of his death.

In 1976, he graduated from Schoharie High School. For the next decade, he worked at area farms as a laborer, including in Berne for the late Harry Garry, well known for his “Down on the farm” column in The Enterprise and for being the “Singing Farmer,” performing locally.

In 1986, Mr. Varin began working full-time, driving tractor-trailers, his sister said. He worked for Ambil Carriers as a truck driver for many years as well as several other carriers. At the same time, he continued to work on the family farm.

Mr. Varin served as a father figure to Ms. Tegiacchi, she said. “He would always look out for me.” As she finished her high school years, he took her to look at the Cornell University campus, which she loved at first sight.

During the years she was a student at Cornell, Mr. Varin would arrange his trucking route to visit with her. “He would meet me and give me money, just like a father would,” she said. “He would go out of his way for me.”

Mr. Varin was stoic in overcoming many physical ailments in order to continue his work. He became diabetic in his later 30s and then developed heart problems, requiring open-heart surgery at the age of 45, his sister said.

Mr. Varin suffered a stroke in 2012, which ended his career as a trucker. Almost a year after the stroke, he was diagnosed with renal failure.

“The Northeast Kidney Foundation was very generous; they really helped him,” said Ms. Tegiacchi.

Mr. Varin fought his way back to be able to continue working on the farm.

“He was an extremely hard worker,” said Ms. Tegiacchi. “Work was his life. That was what he wanted. He never married or had kids. Working on the farm and truck driving was his life.”

The year Mr. Varin had the stroke, he was unable to help with haying on the farm, Ms. Tegiacchi said. “It was a severe stroke. He had to go into Sunnyview for rehab. He could not do the haying. The biggest thing that kept him going was doing the farm work,” she said. “He had to relearn a lot of things. But he did it. He got on the tractor.”

The last picture Ms. Tegiacchi has of her brother, on her cellphone, was taken on Aug. 4; it is a picture of him baling hay.

Since her brother’s death, Ms. Tegiacchi said, almost every person she has talked to has described him as “a nice guy.”

When he was on the road as a trucker, she said, he talked to a lot of people on his CB, or Citizens Band Radio. In recent years, Ms. Tegiacchi said, her brother liked hanging out at the Home Front Café in Altamont, which he called “Jack’s,” after Jack Pollard who owns the café with is wife.

“On Tuesday, he was having coffee at Jack’s,” recalled Ms. Tegiacchi; she then took him to a routine doctor’s appointment, where the doctor noted he had very high blood pressure. Mr. Varin was taken to the hospital where he died the next day.

“He was a genuinely nice guy,” said Ms. Tegiacchi.” He always looked out for me.”

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Rufus I. Varin is survived by his sister, Virgilia Tegiacchi and her fiancé, Kenn Dittmar, of Athens, New York; his brothers, Russell Varin and his wife, Kathleen, of South China, Maine, and Roland Varin of St. Johnsville, New York; a close niece Rachelle Swiergiel of Amsterdam, along with a nephew Marcus Varin and a niece Kelley Mullens, both of South China, Maine; and several aunts, uncles, and cousins.

His parents died before him, as did his sister Mildred Swiergiel and his brother Brian Tegiacchi.

A graveside memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 29, at the Gallupville Rural Cemetery with  Rev. James Wolford officiating. Arrangements are by the Langan Funeral Home in Schoharie. Mourners may leave condolences online at www.langanfuneralhome.com.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Northeast Kidney Foundation, 501 New Karner Rd. #6, Albany, NY 12205.

— Melissa Hale-Spencer

Updated on Oct. 25, 2016, to reflect the wishes of Virgilia Tegiacchi, Mr. Varin's sister, refining facts about their age difference, his place of death, his age of diagnosis as a diabetic, and the date of his last photograph.