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Dean Stephen Pace of East Quogue, 48, died December 5 after being diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, 18 months ago.
While the disease took so many things from him, survivors say it was never able to rob him of the gentle nature that earned him so many devoted friends over his lifetime.
Even during his last six weeks, spent at East End Hospice’s Kanas Center on Quiogue, the goodwill that defined his life was apparent in the smile he shined at a nurse administering medication, or the loving gaze unfailingly directed at his devoted wife, Kerri Cunningham Pace.
According to his sister, Robin, that patience was in evidence from the early days of his life, when he would endlessly tolerate her attempts to treat him like her own baby doll. “I was 6 and a half when he was born, and I really thought that he was my personal doll,” she said. “I would change him into different outfits and carry him around, but he never complained. He was always so easy-going. My sister and I gave my parents a hard time, but he was a saint.
“He was really a special person. From the time he was a baby, he always stood out. He was always smiling, always listening. It was like he was an old soul.”
Born at Huntington Hospital, Mr. Pace lived with his parents, Emanuel “Bob” and Helen Pace, and his sisters, Robin and Caroline, in Dix Hills. The family moved to Port Jefferson when he was in the fifth grade.
Always a hard worker, Mr. Pace got his first job, a paper route, when he was still in elementary school. By the time he was a teenager, he was helping out a few hours a week at his father’s liquor store.
“Everyone loved him,” said his sister. “He loved the customers. He enjoyed learning about wine, and he was very personable.”
After graduating from Dowling College, he turned his love of wine into a successful 20-year career with Empire Merchants, selling fine wines and spirits to stores from Montauk to Huntington.
“He liked talking to people, and he loved learning about wine and teaching people about wine, so it was really a perfect job for him,” said his wife, who is the production manager for the Press News Group in Southampton. “And because he loved it, he was good at it, and he was always winning incentive trips.”
Between those incentive trips and personal trips, the couple were able to indulge their shared love of travel, visiting France, Ireland, Italy, Aruba, the Dominican Republic, Canada and Costa Rica, among other locales.
One of his favorite destinations was Las Vegas—he was fondly nicknamed “Casino Deano” by his many friends. “Dean could sit at a blackjack table for hours, only getting up to go to the restroom,” recalled his wife.
Blackjack might seem a surprising passion for someone known for his frugal nature, but Ms. Pace said that was the point. “He would sit there until he won. And he always won.”
Whether he was playing blackjack at Mohegan Sun or cooking dinner for a group of friends, Mr. Pace could always be counted on to look out for other people, his friends said.
“When somebody dies, people will always say, ‘He was such a good guy’—but Dean really was that guy,” said Glenn Snider, one of his best friends for nearly three decades. “He’s the guy nobody has anything bad to say about, and he never had a bad word to say about anyone else. He was that guy everyone loved to be around, the guy your wife wanted to be your best friend. He was the guy who remembered your kids’ names and would ask how your mother was doing. He was always caring.”
“I will never forget how, when I was pregnant, he would call me up and ask me how I was feeling, and bring me salads,” remembered another longtime friend, Melissa Giambrone. “He was the first of all of our friends to be at the hospital when Noah was born and helped so much with everything and anything. He was a special soul, and he was taken way too soon.”
Mr. Pace served as godfather to Noah Giambrone, as he did for a multitude of the children of his family and friends.
In addition to Kerri Pace, his wife of seven years, and their two cats, Noah and Gracie, Mr. Pace is survived by his parents, Emanuel and Helen Pace; his sister and brother-in-law Caroline and Daniel Pazienza and their children, Christian and Lauren; and his sister and brother-in-law Robin and John Peters and their children Robert, Garrett and Nicholas.
Funeral arrangements were under the direction of the Werner-Rothwell Funeral Home in Westhampton Beach. A funeral service took place on December 9, officiated by Sister Catherine Schleuter of Southampton, a longtime family friend.
Memorial donations may be made to East End Hospice, Box 1048, Westhampton Beach, NY 11978.
on Dec 11, 2017