SCHOHARIE — Kenneth H. Skinner came very close to being a centenarian. The calm and “even-tempered” disposition that his son Douglas describes his father possessing must have helped.

Mr. Skinner  died on Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017,  in Ellis Hospital, after  a brief illness. He was 99. His son says he “was still getting around pretty well” not long before his death. He had been living  at the Oak Ridge Adult Home in Esperance for one year and  before that with his son and daughter-in-law for several years.

Born on Sept. 5, 1917, in Berne, he grew up on a dairy farm on Switzkill Road that belonged to his parents, Howard and Frances (née Dietz) Skinner. Mr. Skinner began high school at Berne Knox at a time when  the new Berne Knox high school, completed in 1932, was under construction, but he finished high school in Schoharie,  his son says.

“Sometime in the 1940s,” says his son, Mr. Skinner bought a small farm on the Knox-Gallupville Road, and with his wife, Gladys (née Zimmer),  took up dairy farming on his own. He and Gladys were married on June 19, 1938.

Hoping  for “steadier” income, Mr. Skinner invested in a backhoe — “a pretty large machine at the time,” his son says — and for many years did excavation work throughout the county.

“He was real good operating his backhoe” Douglas Skinner says. “Everything was squared up when he got done and his ditches, even when a mile-long, were always straight.”

“He was pretty low-key about it,” his son says. The business never had a name nor was it advertised.

Mr. Skinner sold the farm in 1973, but he and his wife continued to live in the Gallupville area.

He retired in 1980 from the New York State Department of Transportation where he was a heavy-equipment operator.

A big fan of the New York Mets, Mr. Skinner was persuaded to travel to Queens to see a game or two in person, but he preferred seeing them on television. “He always said you could see it better on TV,” Douglas Skinner says.  He liked watching “Family Feud,” too, his son says.

He also enjoyed bowling, “fixing things,”  and mowing “a pretty good-sized lawn” even when he was in his 90s.

Both Mr. Skinner and his wife enjoyed periodic games of pinochle with other couples.

He was a former member of the Evangelical Church in Gallupville.

In later life, he was fortunate to have many family members living nearby and took great pleasure in their presence, says Douglas Skinner, right down to the youngest: eight great-great- grandchildren.

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Kenneth H. Skinner is survived by his children: Leila Vinson and her husband, Robert, of New Port Richey, Florida; Doug Skinner and his wife, Connie, of Gallupville; and Debra Stalker of Central Bridge; by 10 grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren, and eight great-great grandchildren; by a daughter-in-law, Doris Skinner, of Gallupville; and by several nieces, nephews, and grand nieces and nephews.  

His wife Gladys (née Skinner) died before him on April 27, 2006.  His son, Howard “Skip” Skinner, also died before him, in 2006, as did his brother, Allyn; and his sister, Verna Brooks; and his son-in law, Dick Stalker.

Friends are invited to visit from noon to 2 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 15,  at the Langan Funeral Home, 327 Main Street, Schoharie. A funeral service will follow at 2 p.m.  Interment in the Old Stone Fort Cemetery, Schoharie, will occur at a later date.  Memorial contributions may be made to Scho-Wright Ambulance Service, Post Office Box 325 Schoharie 12157.  

— Tim Tulloch