It was Claude Robert Maeder’s adventurous streak that first piqued the interest of his future wife, Alice Kessen, when the two were working together at Sag Harbor Industries in the early 1960s.
He had a pilot’s license and kept his two-seater plane at East Hampton Airport. He had camped across Europe with friends and had a yen to travel more. They’d fly to Connecticut for lunch, to New Jersey to visit friends, to Virginia.
“He was 13 years older than I was, but he was exciting,” Mrs. Maeder recalled. “I picked a good one.”
Mr. Maeder, a lifelong resident of Sag Harbor, died on July 28 at the Westhampton Care Center. He was 87. He had beaten cancer once, but was diagnosed again in January and experienced a series of health problems since then, his wife said.
Mr. Maeder was born on Dec. 26, 1931, at Southampton Hospital to George Maeder and the former Rose Schlenz. He graduated from Pierson High School and served stateside in the Army from 1951 to 1953.
His grandfather had owned a watchcase factory in Switzerland, and his father had worked at the Bulova watchcase factory in Sag Harbor, so after the Army, Mr. Maeder attended a Bulova watchmaking school in Queens. He set up his own watch shop in the basement and would take in repair work, but he made his career as a design engineer at Sag Harbor Industries, where he became a foreman.
Anxious to get his pilot’s license, Mr. Maeder bought a plane first, and “then found someone to teach him how to fly,” his wife said. He earned his license in 1959, and had a series of planes.
After they were married on July 15, 1967, he and his new bride flew a plane he had rebuilt himself on their honeymoon to Mexico.
His mother “didn’t want him flying,” his wife said, but “it was just in his blood.” He was at the airport almost every day and continued to fly until late last year. “He just went and ‘punched holes in the sky,’ he used to say.”
The Maeders had two children, Daniel and Gail, and would take two-week camping trips across the United States every year when they were younger. He visited relatives in Switzerland for a family reunion every summer. He had also traveled to China, Egypt, Hawaii, Argentina, and Brazil, often with his good friend Robert Browngardt, whom he had known since high school. His son was also a frequent travel companion, and the two had recently visited Australia.
Closer to home, he enjoyed clamming and crabbing and on Saturdays could often be found on the yard sale circuit with Mr. Browngardt.
“The only thing he didn’t do that he wanted to do was go up in a hot-air balloon,” Mrs. Maeder said.
In 1997, the Maeders’ daughter, Gail, was one of 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult to die in a mass suicide on a ranch outside San Diego. She was 26 and had been largely out of contact for three years. “We tried everything to find her,” Mrs. Maeder said.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Maeder is survived by his son, Daniel Maeder of Sag Harbor, and a brother, George Maeder of Smithtown. A number of nieces and nephews and relatives in Switzerland with whom he was close also survive.
A service was held on Aug. 5 at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in Sag Harbor, with burial at Oak Grove Cemetery in Amagansett.
His family has suggested contributions to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital at stjude.org or 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, Tenn. 38105, or to the Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance Corps, P.O. Box 2725, Sag Harbor 11963.