William A Kaynor
William A. “Bill” Kaynor of Coconut Grove, Florida, and Quogue died in Miami on Wednesday, May 25. He was 88.
Mr. Kaynor was born and raised in Waterbury, Connecticut. He attended McTernan’s School, the Taft School, Yale, and Harvard Law School. During World War II he flew 35 missions as a B-24 pilot in the European Theater of Operations. He was awarded the Air Medal with two oak leaf clusters, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart. After the war, he attended Harvard Law School where he graduated cum laude and was an editor of the Law Review. He spent his entire professional career as a corporate lawyer at Davis Polk and Wardwell in New York City, where he was a partner for over 30 years. He moved to Florida in 1996, but continued to spend summers in Quogue for the last 50 years. He was a director of Americana Hotels & Realty Corp., Segue Software, Planned Parenthood of South Florida, and Community Partnership for the Homeless of Miami. Mr. Kaynor will be remembered as a wonderfully sweet man, always wearing a grin, whose kindness and generosity knew no bounds, survivors said.
He descended from the earliest settlers of the country on both sides of his family. His maternal ancestors included Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford, Connecticut, and Elihu Yale. His father’s ancestors included two who fought in the Revolutionary War and the Battle of Brandywine and at the Battle of Plattsburg in the War of 1812.
He is survived by his wife of 46 years, Irène Moullin; two sons, William A. Kaynor Jr. and his wife Laura of California, Robert M. Kaynor and his wife April of Connecticut; and four grandchildren, Sophia Kaynor of California, and Dillon, Caroline, and Charlie Kaynor of Connecticut.
Services will be held on Saturday, June 4, at 3 p.m, at the Church of the Atonement in Quogue. A reception will follow.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations to the Peconic Bay Medical Center, 1300 Roanoke Avenue, Riverhead, NY 11901, or East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach, NY 11978, would be appreciated by the family.
on May 30, 2011