Norman Roderick Lane
Southampton native Norman Roderick Lane died in Culpeper, Virginia, on January 11. He was 90.
The youngest of six children, he was born on March 24, 1920, in his family’s home at 83 Halsey Street in Southampton to then Village Police Chief Osmon C. Lane and Gertrude Hubbard Lane. He graduated in 1938 from Southampton High School, where he played oboe in the school band. He then attended Northeastern University in Boston, earning a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1943.
Having worked at the Western Union Experimental Laboratory in Water Mill while still in college, he was employed there full-time until the lab closed in the mid-1960s and continued to work for Western Union in New York City and then Mahwah, N.J., until his retirement in 1979. The following year, he took a job with the Federal Reserve in Culpeper, retiring in December 1989.
In Southampton, Mr. Lane was a member of the Agawam Hose Company, the Water Mill Rod and Gun Club, and the Bullhead Yacht Club. Throughout his life, he was an active Methodist, first in the Southampton church and later in Spring Valley, New York, and Culpeper. Known for his fine tenor voice, he sang in the church choirs and also participated in the church men’s clubs. After his retirement, he was an active member of the Culpeper Regional Hospital Auxiliary.
Mr. Lane is survived by his wife, Sheila Waldron Lane, whom he married in the Southampton United Methodist Church on June 28, 1944; two daughters, Susan Lane of Virginia, and Karen Lane Rood and her husband, Robert M. Rood of South Carolina; a grandson, Jonathan M. Rood and his wife, Jamie Cathcart Rood, also of South Carolina; two great-grandsons, Nelson and Benjamin Rood; and many nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by two sisters, Ella Lane King and Doris Lane Fishburn; and three brothers, Elihu, Harold, and Osmon Lane.
The family would appreciate memorial contributions to the Southampton United Methodist Church or Human Resources of the Hamptons.
on Feb 2, 2011