Douglas Gregory Mathewson

1943 - 2025

Douglas Gregory Mathewson
12/18/2025
Douglas Gregory Mathewson, 82, of Gaylordsville, died on December 18, 2025, in Southbury, after a brief bout with cancer. He was born in Yonkers, NY, in 1943 to Theodore Mathewson and E. Lillian Mathewson. He was the first of three children and one of a kind.
Douglas-preferably Doug, or 'Douj'-was a man of many vocations, but a man defined by his avocations.
Doug was an artist. A painter and photographer, he possessed a singular eye, as adept at lighting the faces of hopeful high school seniors as emphasizing the curves of a fashion model or evoking the early gloaming of a midwinter hollow.
Doug was a risk-taker. He redlined British roadsters at Lime Rock. He traveled behind the Berlin Wall at the height of the Cold War. He invested in personal computers over a decade before they became household necessities.
Above all, Doug was a musician. A singer-songwriter, he was no less in his element in jazz, country, and bluegrass, as virtuosic on the six-string, the resonator guitar, the drums and keys. He performed in several bands dating back to his teen years and, over a span of four decades, fronted the outfits River Rouge, Doug Silverado, and Red Dirt Road. He wrote over fifty songs, jammed with scores of bandmates, landed hundreds of gigs, brought thousands of women to their feet and not a few men to tears.
Doug married thrice and divorced thrice. Somewhere along the way he earned an associate's degree in business administration at Westchester Community College, dabbled in art education at SUNY New Paltz, and scraped together a paycheck in gigs as varied as sales, maintenance, writing, design, and tech support. He was a loving father, a doting grandfather, a kind brother, and a good friend.
Doug lived more lives in his allotted years than most would ever dare. To know him was to know the value of a life lived for its own sake.
Doug is survived by his son Jesse (Jennifer), his daughter Susan (Patrick), his sister Jeanne and his brother Robert (Barbara), his cousin Richard, his grandchildren Cormac and Callan, his nieces and nephews Rachael, Paul, and Hannah, and a sea of friends, fans, and admirers. The light he painted will never fade; the sounds he crafted will echo through the ages.