Office Hours: Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Calls outside of office hours? No worries! Our team will respond within 10–15 minutes.
January 21, 2009
Services
Funeral services will be held at the Vander May Wayne Colonial Funeral Home, 567 Ratzer Road, Wayne. Friends may visit with the family at the funeral home on Tuesday January 27 from 2-6 pm. Services will be conducted at the chapel there at 6 pm. Please visit www.vandermay.com
Gordon L. Kent formerly of Little Falls
Retired attorney Gordon L. Kent, formerly of the law firm of Budd, Larner in Short Hills, died unexpectedly of heart failure on Wednesday January 21. He was 86.
Born in Newark on May 14, 1922, Gordon grew up in Allenhurst and graduated from Asbury Park High School. Throughout his life, he spoke fondly of his youth at the Jersey shore and time spent on the boardwalk. While a student at Rutgers College in New Brunswick, he met the love of his life, Doris Vander May, a Douglass College student. The two were married in 1947. Gordon received his diploma with the Rutgers Class of 1947. In 1948, he graduated from Rutgers Law School.
His first four years as an attorney were spent with the Hartford Insurance Company. In 1952, he was invited by John Budd and Samuel Larner to join the law firm of Budd, Larner, then in Newark. He specialized as a defense attorney in civil litigation. He soon became a partner, and during the course of a distinguished career watched the firm successfully grow to well over thirty lawyers. He retired from the practice in 1987.
Gordon and Doris moved to Little Falls in 1952 and spent the bulk of their lives there. Summers were spent at Green Pond, a treat for which his children will be forever grateful. In Little Falls, he served as a member of the township committee for a term in the 1950s and as town magistrate from 1961-1964. As magistrate, his children remember him occasionally performing marriages in the family living room. In 2005, he and his wife moved to Cedar Crest Village in Pompton Plains.
Stamp collecting and the collecting of presidential letters, documents, and autographs were two of Gordon's special hobbies. His true passion, however, was travel. Through the years, the Kents were always game to hop on a plane and take off for somewhere interesting. Their many travels included a 1959 trip to Russia and Poland, as well as later trips to Kenya, Japan, Australia, China, Outer Mongolia, and dozens of other countries. Their suitcases were covered with stickers marking the many places they had visited. Gordon and Doris were also avid boosters of the Rutgers football team. Win or lose, in good weather and bad, the two could always be found in the stands at Rutgers Stadium cheering on their Scarlet Knights.
Those who knew Gordon will miss his unfailing sense of humor, his natural friendliness to all, his unerring wisdom, and his dignity in times of trouble. After sixty years of happily married life together, Doris died in 2007. Gordon's brother Robert B. Kent of Deal also predeceased him. He is survived and deeply mourned by his sister Autumn Mesick of San Antonio, Texas, his three children, Deborah Stein of Chicago, Zachary Kent of Passaic, and Gordon S. Kent of Washington, D.C., as well as by his loving granddaughter Janna M. Stein of Chicago.
Those planning an expression of sympathy in Gordon's memory are asked to consider a donation to the Jules and Jane Plangere Endowed Scholarship, Rutgers University Foundation, Winants Hall, attn: Gift Planning, 7 College Avenue, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901 (checks should be made payable to Rutgers University Foundation and note Plangere Scholarship).
If you would like to send a private condolence directly to the family use this condolence section.
Funeral services will be held at the Vander May Wayne Colonial Funeral Home, 567 Ratzer Road, Wayne. Friends may visit with the family at the funeral home on Tuesday January 27 from 2-6 pm. Services will be conducted at the chapel there at 6 pm. Please visit www.vandermay.com
January 21, 2009
Services
Funeral services will be held at the Vander May Wayne Colonial Funeral Home, 567 Ratzer Road, Wayne. Friends may visit with the family at the funeral home on Tuesday January 27 from 2-6 pm. Services will be conducted at the chapel there at 6 pm. Please visit www.vandermay.com
Gordon L. Kent formerly of Little Falls
Retired attorney Gordon L. Kent, formerly of the law firm of Budd, Larner in Short Hills, died unexpectedly of heart failure on Wednesday January 21. He was 86.
Born in Newark on May 14, 1922, Gordon grew up in Allenhurst and graduated from Asbury Park High School. Throughout his life, he spoke fondly of his youth at the Jersey shore and time spent on the boardwalk. While a student at Rutgers College in New Brunswick, he met the love of his life, Doris Vander May, a Douglass College student. The two were married in 1947. Gordon received his diploma with the Rutgers Class of 1947. In 1948, he graduated from Rutgers Law School.
His first four years as an attorney were spent with the Hartford Insurance Company. In 1952, he was invited by John Budd and Samuel Larner to join the law firm of Budd, Larner, then in Newark. He specialized as a defense attorney in civil litigation. He soon became a partner, and during the course of a distinguished career watched the firm successfully grow to well over thirty lawyers. He retired from the practice in 1987.
Gordon and Doris moved to Little Falls in 1952 and spent the bulk of their lives there. Summers were spent at Green Pond, a treat for which his children will be forever grateful. In Little Falls, he served as a member of the township committee for a term in the 1950s and as town magistrate from 1961-1964. As magistrate, his children remember him occasionally performing marriages in the family living room. In 2005, he and his wife moved to Cedar Crest Village in Pompton Plains.
Stamp collecting and the collecting of presidential letters, documents, and autographs were two of Gordon's special hobbies. His true passion, however, was travel. Through the years, the Kents were always game to hop on a plane and take off for somewhere interesting. Their many travels included a 1959 trip to Russia and Poland, as well as later trips to Kenya, Japan, Australia, China, Outer Mongolia, and dozens of other countries. Their suitcases were covered with stickers marking the many places they had visited. Gordon and Doris were also avid boosters of the Rutgers football team. Win or lose, in good weather and bad, the two could always be found in the stands at Rutgers Stadium cheering on their Scarlet Knights.
Those who knew Gordon will miss his unfailing sense of humor, his natural friendliness to all, his unerring wisdom, and his dignity in times of trouble. After sixty years of happily married life together, Doris died in 2007. Gordon's brother Robert B. Kent of Deal also predeceased him. He is survived and deeply mourned by his sister Autumn Mesick of San Antonio, Texas, his three children, Deborah Stein of Chicago, Zachary Kent of Passaic, and Gordon S. Kent of Washington, D.C., as well as by his loving granddaughter Janna M. Stein of Chicago.
Those planning an expression of sympathy in Gordon's memory are asked to consider a donation to the Jules and Jane Plangere Endowed Scholarship, Rutgers University Foundation, Winants Hall, attn: Gift Planning, 7 College Avenue, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901 (checks should be made payable to Rutgers University Foundation and note Plangere Scholarship).
Guestbook