Joseph M. Schuttler grew up in East Hampton and lived here for most of his life, loving it until the end, his family said. He served in the Fire Department and the ambulance association here and was a member of the American Legion Post in Amagansett, the Star of the East Lodge, and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.
Mr. Schuttler died on June 29 at the GrayBrier Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Trinity, N.C. He was 85 and had renal failure.
He had a 31-year career with the United States Postal Service in East Hampton before taking early retirement in 1993. After that he was a part-time groundskeeper at St. Luke’s, and later, after relocating to Estero, Fla., he was a maintenance worker at Shaw Aero Devices in Naples and a golf course attendant at San Carlos Golf Club in Fort Myers. He retired completely in 2005.
Born in Southampton on June 7, 1939, to Joseph Schuttler and the former Alice Mitchell, he graduated from East Hampton High School in 1956 and served in the Navy from 1956 to 1960, stationed in Long Beach, Calif.
He and Anne Benbenek were married in 1963 and had two daughters. She died in 1981.
Mr. Schuttler was active in the East Hampton Fire Department from 1962 until he left the area. He served in the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association from 1975 to the early 1980s and was its secretary in its formative years.
In 1988, he married Kathryn Eichhorn Galunas. She was “the love of his life,” his children wrote. The couple enjoyed music and dancing, and he played golf. A history buff, he was especially interested in the Civil War and World War II. He was also a railroad and locomotive enthusiast and a fan of classic movies and science fiction.
The couple moved to Thomasville, N.C., in 2005. His wife survives, as do his daughters, Leigh Schuttler and Tracy Shehab, both of Marietta, Ga., and his wife’s children, Cynthia Ellas of Thomasville, Laurie Greenbaum of Holly Springs, N.C., and Timothy Galunas of Charleston, S.C.
He also leaves seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild, and his lifelong friends Kenneth and Mary Ann Lockard of East Hampton.
Mr. Schuttler was cremated. His family has suggested contributions to the National Kidney Foundation, online at kidney.org.
