Lyndon Raymond Seaver

A private funeral will be held for family and close friends.

Lyndon Raymond Seaver , of Kingston, New York, passed to his eternal home on September 21, 2024, with his beloved at his side, marking the end of a long and storied life. He was 91.

Born in Stockholm, NY, in 1933, Lyn spent his formative years in Parishville, a tiny North Country town nestled in the Adirondack Mountains. As the youngest of three children, Lyn was very close with his parents. His mother Inez was an accomplished musician who improvised piano scores for the local silent movie theater; his father Harold at one time worked at a car dealership and would take his son on rides in the latest models, instilling Lyn's lifelong passion for cars.

Lyn enlisted in the army during the Korean War. His talent playing the trumpet earned him a spot in the USO band, but because the war ended right before he was to go on tour he instead served at a Nike nuclear missile site "staring at a green light." If the light should ever turn red, it was his job to launch the missiles. Luckily, the light always stayed green.

While on leave from the army in 1952, Lyn married his childhood friend since grammar school, Sally Ann LaFountian, in an intimate ceremony within the Methodist church. Four years later they welcomed their daughter, Suzanne Marie, and their son Mark Bradley arrived three years after that. In 1955, the family moved from Parishville to Kingston, NY, where Lyn began his career at IBM in the paint shop. He quickly rose through the ranks, eventually retiring as a director within the company.

Lyn had the rare trait of being a gifted manager, so much so that he was asked to design and teach graduate courses on management at Clarkson University, despite not having a postsecondary education himself. At IBM, he received an award for improving the efficiency of a team he managed, which he accomplished in part by having staff rotate roles to deepen their appreciation for what each other did. He had a knack for identifying potential and prided himself on the many careers he launched as a recruiter for IBM.

Lyn also took pride in his collection of antique cars, and greatly enjoyed his car club friendships and participating in car shows. His 1969 Porsche 911E and 1969 Jaguar E-Type were featured on the cover of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car Magazine, and he was always happy to show his collection off in tours of the seven-bay garage he built himself off of his house.

His life was touched by tragedy when, after almost 50 years of friendship and 36 years of marriage, Sally lost her fight with cancer in 1989. In 1996, Lyn found new love and life through a marriage to Wilma Joyce Seaver, whom he affectionately nicknamed "Dutch." In Dutch he not only gained a best friend and true partner but an extended blended family that cherished him for the next three decades.

Lyn bore a resemblance in both persona and visage to Theodore Roosevelt. His gruff exterior hid a kind heart; he was known to patiently cup injured birds in his rough hands until they recovered from hitting the glass of a clean window. A jack of all trades, he was over time a fire department chief, a plumber, a U.S. Forest Serviceman, a calisthenics instructor, Sunday School superintendent, choir member, and consistory elder at the Plattekill Reformed Church. He was a principled man whose actions left an imprint on countless others across the near century of his life.

Lyn is predeceased by his wife Sally, and sisters Hope Holcomb and Carol Whalen. He is already missed by his wife Wilma Joyce Seaver; children Suzanne Creek, her husband Bill Creek, and Mark Seaver; step-children Daniel Needham and Joyce Leslie Seaver; grandchildren Sarah Vitale and Jarred Seaver; step-grandchildren Jaime Reed, Amanda Price, Anastasia Costache, Matthew Price, and Tanya Needham; and nine great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Shriners Hospital for Children