Obituary of Nathan G Hand

Nathan G. Hand 1908-2012 Princeton, NJ formerly of Monticello, NY Nathan Hand died Sunday, September 2, 2012, in Princeton, NJ, after a brief illness. He was 103 years old. He had lived a long and full life as a loving husband, father, and grandfather, a respected lawyer, and an avid outdoorsman. He was born Nathan Gadalia Kleinhandler on September 21, 1908, in New York City, the youngest child of Alter and Civia Kleinhandler. He attended schools in Brooklyn and studied law at St. John's, and worked a variety of jobs in the city, including driving a taxi, owning a candy factory, and running a machine shop as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II. Tired of urban life, he moved to the Catskills in the late 1940s, where he built and operated a bungalow colony in Bushville and started a private law practice. For many years, he was a lawyer in Monticello, New York, serving as Director of Sullivan County Legal Services in the late 1960s, and continuing to practice into his late 90s. He also was involved in various civic, sporting, and charitable organizations. In 2005, he moved to Acorn Glen in Princeton, where he made new friends who appreciated his youthful spirit and feisty personality. He was blessed with an adventurous, indomitable mind and body. He hunted, fished, swam, waterskied, downhill skied, biked, and played tennis and golf. As a young man, he drove a fast 1918 Indian motorcycle through the streets of Brooklyn, and he survived a multi-day coma following a car crash in the 1930s. He was active in the ski patrol and competed in senior downhill ski races into his 80s. He became an airplane pilot at age 65, and enjoyed telling the story of the time when he made an emergency landing on a highway in Pennsylvania after running low on fuel. His wife Frances died in 2005. He is survived by his daughter, Susanne Hand, of Princeton, NJ; his grandsons, Rafe Kinsey and Alex Kinsey; his son-in-law, David Kinsey; and several nieces and nephews. The service will be held on Tuesday, September 4, at 2 p.m. at the Joseph N. Garlick Funeral Home, 388 Broadway in Monticello, NY. Rabbi Endre Stamler will officiate. Burial will be held in the Brotherhood Cemetery in Monticello. Memorial contributions may be made to the American Jewish World Service, www.ajws.org , or Ultimate Peace, www.ultimatepeace.org.