Final Salute

SELKIRK – William E. “Buddy” McNessor Jr., 83, died peacefully at home on June 9, 2023, after a battle with cancer.
Buddy was born on January 20, 1940, in Old Lyme, Conn., the second child of the late William E. and Anna K. (Donohue) McNessor. The family, including his older sister the late Patricia (McMullen) and younger brother Donald, soon moved to South Bethlehem, but Buddy spent summers on the Donohue family farm in Connecticut as well as working for his Uncle Jack in the Donohue’s construction business.
After graduating from Ravena-Coeymans Selkirk High School in 1958, where he met his future wife Joan (VanSlyke), Buddy worked for Palmer Lumber Company in Ravena as a truck driver and equipment operator. As a young man, he had a passion for hot rods but lacked the fabrication skills needed to swap a V-8 into his 1939 Chevrolet coupe. He was also restless at his job, so he joined the U.S. Navy and got assigned to the Naval Construction Battalions, better known as the Seabees. Their motto: “Can Do!” became the drumbeat of his life. Buddy became a skilled welder and fabricator working on U.S. bases in Guam, the Philippines and Okinawa, Japan. Stateside, he served out his enlistment as a welding instructor at the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Port Hueneme, Ventura County, Calif. By then, Buddy and Joan were married with two girls, Sandra and Cindy. After Buddy was discharged, the family moved to South Bethlehem and Buddy pulled long shifts as a welder at Atlantic Cement, Callanan Industries, the Empire State Plaza project and more. By 1969, he’d started a trucking business and Joan gave birth to their third child, Michael. Buddy grew his business in the 1970s and ’80s and ’90s taking on excavation work, commercial snow removal and more. In 1992, he found time to build the hot rod he’d wanted as a teenager. His well-honed fabrication skills and “Can Do” Seabee attitude, made the work easy this time.
Buddy retired in 2012, built another hot rod and spent many hours landscaping and improving the home that he and Joan built in 1992. In retirement, he found satisfaction in plying his fabrication skills on dozens of small projects and maintaining a well-mowed lawn.
Buddy leaves behind his loving wife, Joan; daughters, Sandra Doane (Eugene), and Cindy Hooper (Robert); and son, Michael (Kathleen). He also leaves behind his brother, Don, a true friend who shared Buddy’s “Can Do” attitude helping his older brother on many projects and ventures. Buddy and Joan have eight grandchildren: Nathan, Jenna, Sarah, Anna, Mary Margaret, Jack, Laura and Matthew, as well as four great-grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, June 14, in the Babcock Funeral Home, Ravena. Interment will follow in the Calvary Cemetery, Glenmont. Friends may call at the funeral home prior to the service starting at 12 p.m.
Contributions in memory of William may be made to the South Bethlehem United Methodist Church, 67 Willowbrook Ave., South Bethlehem, NY, 12161.