Samuel M. Hall

June 4, 1934 – February 3, 2022

Canandaigua – Samuel M. Hall, age 87, passed away on February 3, 2022.  He is survived by four daughters, Becky (David) Spanagel, Lisa (Lori) Gnau, Laura (Michael) Colcord and Lindsey (Greg) Meeker; nine grandchildren, Alan, Andy and Angela Noviasky, Paul Spanagel, Max and Lex Colcord, Cameron Newhook, Teaghan and Anouk Meeker; sister-in-law, Edith Zimmerman; niece, Nancy Fellom; nephew, David Fellom; cousins and extended family members.  He was predeceased by his wife, Helen Hall in 2014.

Born in the middle of the Great Depression in Allegany County, the part of New York’s Southern Tier that he always referred to as “Appalachia,” Sam was the youngest child of a farming family. He began his education in Wiscoy’s one-room schoolhouse. Both he and his future life partner Helen attended that school together, just one grade apart. 

As a navigator in the U.S. Air Force Sam was sent to Texas for training. Then he and his bride spent several years at American bases around the Pacific. After his military service, Sam returned to western New York to pursue his vocation in earnest, studying law at the University of Buffalo. Upon passing the bar in 1962, Sam devoted his long career as an attorney to making “The Law” work for his clients. Sam believed with all his heart that lawyers should also help improve society through their advocacy of people’s needs while enacting justice, highlighting concerns, and pointing out necessary political and systemic changes. 

Moving his young family to Canandaigua in the mid-1960s, Sam rapidly became a pillar of the community in many ways, including several decades of committed involvement in the First United Methodist Church. He also spearheaded a transformation in local politics while serving as Chairman of the Democratic Party’s City Committee through the late 1970s, inaugurating power shifts that culminated in the election of Canandaigua’s first woman mayor. Sam later helped to set the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canandaigua on a firmer footing in the early years of the 21^st century. 

Despite his impressive professional and civic accomplishments, Sam would protest that he had never been a distinguished student. His voracious appetite for reading and his skill as an attentive, friendly, and curious conversationalist more than made up for these alleged scholarly deficiencies. Gregarious and kind, upright, honorable, and ever-caring, Sam’s mind was equipped with a double-edged razor capable of deploying both wit and humor with equal sharpness. Sometimes for fun, Sam liked to test the credulity of his close friends and family by making provocative or even outrageous assertions, stretching the truth just to see when a person would dare to challenge his veracity. Far beyond that playful kind of occasional intellectual jousting, however, Sam was universally known for his extraordinary spirit of generosity towards the families of friends and strangers alike. 

In mid-life Sam reconnected with elements of his rural childhood after purchasing a piece of land in Gorham where he planned to start an orchard of fruit trees. This little farming side project blossomed into Sam’s avocation as he became one of New York State’s leading experts and promoters of beekeeping. Turning his full attention to the plight of pollinators helped Sam to become an influential educator. He loved to share everything from practical tips for relocating an unwelcome swarm, to research on techniques for breeding and establishing disease-resistant Queens. Although the pandemic curtailed his sociability, Sam continued as a regular morning patron at the Dalai Java coffee shop, and he could also be seen walking several miles every day in the company of a devoted canine companion. Sam will be deeply missed by all who knew him, but his legacy lives on in all of us.

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Friends may call Sunday, February 20, from 1-4 pm, at Johnson-Kennedy Funeral Home, Inc., 47 N. Main St., Canandaigua.  A graveside service with military honors will be held Monday, February 21, at 11 am, at Gorham Cemetery, Co. Rd. 18, Gorham.  In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinsons Research, Attn: Donation Processing,  P.O. Box 5014, Hagerstown, MD 21741.  Condolences may be offered at www.johnsonkennedy.com.