Richard Steel Pastore

RICHARD STEEL PASTORE

passed away on December 27, 2007, at his home in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, at the age of 75.

He is survived by his wife of 49 years, Joanna Matthews Pastore, four sons, Michael, John, Thomas, and Richard, his daughter, Anna Sommers, twelve grandchildren, and three siblings, Susan Rollinson, Grace Boyd, and John Pastore.

The son of Emil and Virginia Pastore, he was born in Brooklyn, New York, on September 25, 1932. He spent his childhood in Chatham, New Jersey, graduating from Chatham High School, where he was class president, all-state soccer player, and captain of the 1949 state champion soccer team.

Dick, as he was known by friends, received his bachelor's degree with honors in History in 1954 from Amherst College. He was an active member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, a pitcher on the baseball team, and a member of Amherst's undefeated football team in 1953.

After graduating from Amherst, he served in the US Army. He received a lieutenant's commission upon graduation from Officer Candidate School and was honorably discharged from active service in 1957.

After the army, Dick took advantage of the GI Bill to attend Columbia University's School of Law, where he was a member of Phi Delta Phi and Kent Court. In law school he met and married Joanna Matthews, from Beaumount, Texas, while she was studying for a master's degree at Columbia. During law school, Dick supplemented his income by working as a New York City cab driver Ð an experience which he would fondly recollect with his children in later years as they were graduating from school and deciding on their own careers and professional pursuits.

Dick was a founding partner of the Greenwich law firm Albert, Pastore & Ward. A member of the American, New York, and Connecticut Bar Associations, he spent most of his career practicing general and commercial law in Greenwich until his retirement in 2006.

For many years, he taught a continuing adult education course, Tax Law for the Layman, at Greenwich High School. From 1986 to 1990 he was a member of the Board of Directors of Camp Dudley in Westport, NY, the oldest boys' camp in America.

A resident of Old Greenwich, CT since 1960, Dick was active in youth sports, coaching Old Greenwich and Riverside Community Center basketball while his children were growing up. Rarely did he miss his children's athletic events, where he was always a stalwart supporter from the sidelines or the stands.

Devoted to his family, Dick's interests included traveling the world with his wife and children, reading voraciously, fishing on Long Island Sound, long lunches with favorite colleagues and friends, bicycling around Greenwich Point, stock-picking and horse racing. Dick liked to claim that his greatest accomplishment was to have "raised five children, all of whom graduated from college in four years." He was an active member of the New York Racing Association and took great pride in his ownership of "Rubiano," a winner of the 1992 Eclipse Award for Champion Sprinter.

A memorial service will be held at 10:30 AM on Thursday, January 3, 2007, at the First Congregational Church, 108 Sound Beach Avenue, Old Greenwich, CT.

Contributions can be made in Dick's memory to the William J. Schmidt Scholarship Fund, Camp Dudley, Westport, NY, 12993.