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Mostly Cloudy Gabe Parrish, 1921-2013
Valley Stream loses a man steeped in history
“Gentleman” was the word most commonly used to describe Gabe Parrish, a longtime Valley Stream resident and vice president of the Historical Society, who died on April 10 at age 91.
Parrish was known for his love of history, specifically aviation history, and for his depiction of Abraham Lincoln at the Historical Society’s annual Presidents Day celebration.
He was born in the Bronx on May 9, 1921, the oldest of Madeleine and Harry Parrish’s seven children. Gabe grew up in Queens, attending St. Gerard’s Elementary School, Jamaica High School and the New York Mechanics Institute. He got a job at Columbia Aircraft in Valley Stream and helped build the Grumman “Duck,” an amphibious plane produced for the Navy during World War II.
His 34-year-old grandson, Chris Ruggeri, said that helping to build the Duck — Columbia Aircraft produced a total of 330 of them — was his proudest accomplishment. “He always loved that plane,” Ruggeri said. “As young as I can remember, all he would talk about was the Duck.”
Years ago, Ruggeri said, Parrish built a model of the Duck and donated it to the Historical Society. Eventually, it was given to the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, where Parrish volunteered every week.
He met his wife, May Schoppe, at Columbia, and they were married for 68 years. After Columbia, Parrish became a precision sheet metal worker at Sperry in Great Neck for more than three decades before retiring.
He and his wife moved to the west end of Valley Stream in 1954. He was a member of the Historical Society since its inception in 1974.
Mayor Ed Fare, who serves as the organization’s chairman, knew Parrish for more than three decades. Fare said that Parrish was a longtime community activist, and once considered putting together a ticket for village office in the 1990s.
He said the two didn’t always see eye to eye — Fare supported development of the King Kullen shopping center, while Parrish opposed it — but Fare said that disagreement never affected their personal relationship. “He always thought he was looking out for the good of the people,” he said of Parrish.
