My husband and I had the good fortune to have Vince as a next-door neighbor. He was a delight, always friendly and fun to talk to. And we felt that if we ever needed anything, Vince would be there for us, no question about it. We had nothing in common with Vince: different ages, different professions, different backgrounds. But we clicked. We became not just neighbors, but friends.

We once asked Vince to help us figure out how to mount and hang an Indian tapestry. He not only helped us figure it out, he did the whole job for us - and beautifully. That was Vince. We have missed him ever since he moved.

We send our condolences to his family. 

Tom Timberg and Marilyn Schiff

My Brother’s Life

My brother Vince  was born on August 14, 1953 in Brooklyn NY, joining our parents Ruth and Joseph and sisters Patrice and Rosalie. Brother Michael was born 4 years later after our dad was transferred by his company, then American Cable & Radio, to Washington, DC.

Vince’s life and favorite things were a reflection of his NY influences. Our dad Joe was the oldest son of immigrants from Castellammare del Golfo in Sicily. Mom Ruth, though German-Irish, fully adopted the Italian side of the family, and while an expert chef in all cuisines, was especially known for her Italian cooking. One of her few concessions to her side was calling Vince “my Irishman” because of his full head of white blonde curls as a child.

Otherwise, Vince’s early childhood was all Italian. Summers were spent in a compound in Deer Park, Long Island, where our Sicilian grandfather, relatives, and friends had constructed 5 small homes around a huge, abundant vegetable garden. Days  with siblings and cousins, exploring neighboring fields and dirt roads, picking wild blueberries, and swimming in the concrete pool built by grandpa, our mom, and friends. Evenings passed around a big picnic table under a grape arbor…spaghetti dinners followed by long music sessions with men singing old Italian favorites and playing banjos and mandolins.

Our family homes in Maryland offered a semblance of that early life. The Gancie houses were centers for kids who became members of the family. Our lives included many barbecues for relatives and friends, eventually a large swimming pool, of course a grape arbor, and dinners that always started with a course of pasta. Every Thanksgiving turkey or Christmas ham was greeted with our dad proclaiming, “Where’s the lasagna?” New Year always featured a traditional platter of Italian sausages and peppers...for good luck. Even our much-loved, frequent crab feasts were used as the basis for delicious linguine with crab sauce, a recipe created by mom and later perfected and often served by Vince. He, more than any of us, kept those family culinary traditions alive.

Vince’s professional life also reflected family history. Mom, a talented artist, trained her skills on creating beautiful homes and gardens while she was raising us kids, then she became a principal of Gallery 10 Ltd., exhibiting her own work there, nationally and internationally. Vince’s creative photography and video work demonstrated that he inherited her artistic abilities.

He also followed our dad’s career path in his own way. Dad had served in WWII with a Signal Corps unit of Sicilian-American kids, valuable because of their fluency in the local  dialect, who helped liberate Sicily. After the war, he began a career in communications, first as a teletype operator, then in press relations, eventually becoming a VP in government relations for companies that became ITT World Communications. (Vince and his sisters all graduated from American University with communications degrees.) Dad traveled extensively, often working with the media on presidential tours abroad, and Vince caught his wanderlust, always seeking and welcoming assignments that took him overseas.

Once Lena and Luca were born, Vince, with our mom as his role model, became the most dedicated dad, their greatest cheerleader, friend, and supporter. As Lena notes, he volunteered for every school they attended, coached their athletic teams (even though he never played a sport), showed them the joys of our Italian and many other cultures, and always kept them deliciously fed! The three of them were a loving team right up until August 16 of this year.

Our brother is gone too suddenly and too soon. He was someone I just assumed would live forever with his love of people and life, great stories for every occasion, and crazy, sometimes dumb, jokes that kept everyone (especially Vince) laughing. I miss him terribly and trust that everyone who loved him will keep him alive through our many happy memories.

Patrice Gancie