Joseph Kass

Joseph Kass of Bronx, New York, son of Albert Kass and Celia Kass, passed on to the eternal on February 2nd, 2025, at the age of 92. The cause was complications due to a long, active, prosperous, and fulfilling life. He was a caring husband, a rock of a father, and an immensely proud grandfather. A highly successful self-made business owner and entrepreneur, he thanked the community and the country in which he lived with service, including his enlistment in the United States Air Force. He loved to fly, and he loved his family. He is survived by his wife of 66 years, Lee Segal Kass, originally from Queens, New York; his three sons and two daughter in-laws, Wayne Kass of Coral Gables, Florida; Roger Kass and Andrea Van Buren of Newport, Rhode Island, and Douglas Kass and Leah Welsh of Durham, North Carolina. He is also survived by his sister Norma and brother Charles, eight nieces and nephews, along with six cherished grandchildren: Victoria, Ainsley, Fiona, Amelia, Olivia, and Lucian. He will be missed and always remembered.

In lieu of sending flowers, please consider donations to Jewish for Good of Durham, North Carolina. For more information: https://jewishforgood.squarespace.com/giving

For the funeral service, the following tribute was written and read by one of his sons.

One of my father’s favorite recurring lines, and he had many of them, was: “I’ve got places to go and people to see.” Always on the move, I marvel at his life and his accomplishments. 

Born in Brooklyn, raised in the Bronx, one of his fondest recollections was the summers he spent as a young boy working on farms in Upstate New York. The hard, honest labor built his character and appreciation for the soil. For many years, growing up, we helped him tend a large vegetable garden - his oversized zucchini’s being his most prized cultivar. 

He played stickball in the streets, and was proud of his participation on the Evander Childs High School swim team. He was an avid sportsman, who enjoyed skiing, golf, tennis, hunting (back in the day), and fishing. He remained a sports fan throughout his life, rooting especially for the New York Giants and Yankees. During my last visit with him, we watched a football game on TV. The Philadelphia Eagles won…booo.

Farming would not stick though. As a teenager wanting to get out, he found his first true passion, the automobile. He began delivering auto parts to gas stations in the Catskills, and at 18 years old opened his first business, Pleasantville Auto Parts, on Marble Avenue, in Pleasantville, New York. He loved cars. He loved driving. Years after I had to take his license away, he would ask me every time I saw him where his car and car keys were. This included the final time I saw him.

My father loved his country and was a true patriot. In 1953, during the Korean War, he enlisted in the Air Force, and would speak of it glowingly, along with the value of military service, for the rest of his life. From those days, he acquired another of his favorite lines: “Lock and load.” More forceful than “I’ve got places to go, and people to see” – he used this military command in its slang version to tell his children, “Be ready for deployment.” Practically speaking, it meant he would be starting the car imminently. I remember many times looking out the kitchen window while quickly grabbing a bagel for breakfast. You could see the exhaust fuming out of the station wagon in the driveway. He was ready to go “bright and early” on one of the many long car expeditions he took us on.

With his Air Force training behind him, he had a lifelong passion for flying, and managed one way or another, in one aircraft or another to do so. When speaking of being a pilot, he would often say another one of his recurring lines, “Not bad for a poor Jewish kid from the Bronx…”

Along with his duty to his country, my father also believed in civic duty. He was a volunteer firefighter for the Mount Kisco Fire Department. He saw few fires, but we enjoyed watching him march every year in the 4th of July parade. He also volunteered for the Ski Patrol for over 40 years.

He married extremely well to the smart and beautiful, Natalie Segal. Not bad for a poor Jewish kid from the Bronx. A prankster and a romantic, he arranged with the local jeweler to lend him two entire handfuls of diamond rings. When he proposed later that day, he said, “Do you like any of them?” These two kids in their 20’s, pulled off the dream of getting out of the city and into the rural suburbs. Together they had three boys, and six grandchildren. He adored them all. He was a tremendous provider for his family, and famously presided over Thanksgiving with fires in the fireplace, football games watched and played, and mealtime festivities for these large extended family gatherings.

With his brother Charlie, they would go on to expand Pleasantville Auto Parts with the Northern Westchester Automotive Warehouse, above which they added a space to sell auto repair kits to vocational schools. This led to a new venture, Pleasantville Educational Supply Company. PESCO, as it became known, would innovate vocational testing systems that were used in schools, prisons, and major corporations throughout the nation. PESCO flourished into my father’s reluctant retirement, somewhere in his early 80’s, though nobody knows exactly when he finally gave it all up. He was an entrepreneur, decades before the expression came into fashion.

He did not suffer fools lightly, besides perhaps his children at times. His favorite recurring lines for telling people off were some of his most classic: “cop a mope,” “save it for Sweeney,” and my favorite, which I only heard him say once, “How much do you charge to haunt a house?”

He thoroughly enjoyed good food, especially with family. Influenced by his mother Celia and father Al, he carried out the almost daily breakfast ritual of a toasted bagel with cream cheese and tuna fish. (Don’t knock it ‘til you try it). Just a couple of days ago, it occurred to me, quite sadly, that never again will I be able to enjoy with him a plate of fajitas or a bowl of chocolate ice cream – two of his absolute favorites. He pronounced it chawcolat, by the way, always maintaining a touch of the Bronx. 

At restaurants, there were more recurring jokes, more recurring lines. When asked by the waiter, the obligatory, how is everything? He would turn and say quickly, “terrible.” Terrible, with just enough twinkle in his eye so they knew he was joking. When they came back later to ask, can I get you anything else, his inevitable response: “How about a small stack of 20’s, I’m a little short today.” 

“Stop staring at your navel.” This was another line he lived by. He was always busy. Along with everything else he managed to do in his very full life, he was an epic builder of stone walls. At the house on Linden Lane in Mount Kisco, where we grew up, he built many – with help from us kids - lining the lower half of the driveway, along the entire length of the backyard, and at the back south side of the house. He was strong, always.

But to truly understand my father, you need to know another line that he would speak in his more contemplative moments. Using the Yiddish, he would say, “Do you know what rachmones means? It means ‘heart.’ You gotta have rachmones.” This was his core. 

As he grew older, and less capable, his sense of humor only grew stronger. We marveled at the way he remained positive, optimistic, and funny in his battle against age. Another recurring line came into being. When asked how he’s doing, the response: “Well, I’m not looking up at six feet of dirt!” Unfortunately Dad, you will be today. My cousin Todd remarked after contemplating the sad news, “He was the kind of guy you thought would live forever.” He didn’t, as none of us do, but his memory most certainly will. The final words he said to me were, “I love you, and send my love to the family.”