Gabriel Cillie

CILLIE Gabriel (Gabe) Gideon, passed away at home in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey on November 5 after a long battle with diabetes. Gabe was born on October 3, 1938 in Schenectady, New York. He was a retired life and pension actuary. Gabe earned a B.S. in mathematics from Union College in Schenectady in 1960. At Union, Gabe was a starting lineman on the football team and a brother of Delta Phi Fraternity. He then received an M.S. in actuarial science from the University of Iowa in 1963 and became a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries in 1971. Gabe worked for 21 years as a life actuary for Prudential Insurance and later as a managing actuary for the State of New Jersey and as Chief Actuary for American Medical and Life Insurance Company. He was an avid New York Giants football fan. Gabe is greatly missed by his family. Gabe was predeceased by his parents Charl Daniel and Ethel Mae (nee Buckley) Cillie. Charl emigrated to the U.S. from South Africa and earned an M.S. in electrical engineering at MIT. Charl was an electrical engineer and salesman for General Electric. Ethel was a registered nurse trained at Columbia University. Gabe was named after his grandfather, Gabriel Gideon Cillie, Sr., following the family custom of naming the eldest son after his paternal grandfather. Gabe's grandfather, born on the wine and olive farm Rhebokskloof in Wellington, South Africa that was owned by the family from 1825 to 1991, received a Doctorate in classics from the University of Strassbourg and was the first Rector (i.e. president) of the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. Since the family's first Gabriel Gideon was born in 1809, there have been fifteen members of the Cillie family bearing this name. Seven of these are living with six in South Africa, including an actuary for Metropolitan Life, and the youngest one in the U.S. The deceased with this name include Gabe's uncle Gabriel Gideon Cillie, Jr. who was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, attended Harvard and was later a professor of mathematics at the University of Stellenbosch. Gabe is survived by: his wife of 45 years, Barbara Ann (nee Mandel) Cillie of Woodcliff Lake, a retired schoolteacher; son Charl Daniel Cillie and his wife Barri (nee DeLoretta) with their son Gabriel Gideon, III of Hoboken, New Jersey and Warwick, New York; son Christopher Jon Cillie and his wife Amy (nee Kantrovitz) with their sons Benjamin and Evan of Cheshire, Connecticut; and son Matthew Gabriel of Woodcliff Lake. Gabe is also survived by ten first cousins in South Africa with three sharing his name Gabriel Gideon Cillie in honor of their grandfather. Funeral arrangements were private and contributions in his memory to charities serving victims of diabetes are encouraged by the Cillie family.