Kenneth T. Cascone

Born: February 8, 1941
Died: March 18, 2022

Ken Cascone was born in Brooklyn, son of Louis A. and Providence Piccione Cascone. Ken came to Yale from Stony Brook NY Preparatory School. He became a member of Timothy Dwight College and commenced a career at Yale, and after Yale, of intense activity, commitment and leadership. Ken was a Political Science Honors major, and was awarded the Bennett Prize for Political Science. He was on Dean’s List and a member of Zeta Psi, the Political Union (Liberal Party), and secretary of the Young Republican Club. He was also a successful fund raiser, serving as an Alumni Fund Agent.

Following graduation, Ken attended Columbia Law School, obtaining his law degree in 1968. He then turned his attention and boundless energies to New York politics, and support of a multitude of Republican candidates. His nascent political career came to a swift end when he enlisted in the Army Reserves barely two weeks before his draft board notice.

Ken served his Reserve duty and then in 1980 he left big law firms behind and established his own law firm, Cascone and Cole, in New York City, focusing on small to mid-sized companies and assisting them to raise capital.

Ken was sponsored by Yale to travel to Ghana and prepare a paper on apartheid. His work was well received and as a result, he ended up representing the Ghanaian government as his client for a number of years.

Ken was a student of history and was well versed in the American Revolution. He wrote and had published an historical fiction book entitled The River of Triumph. It featured a Native American who attended Yale in the 1700s, prior to the revolution, and became a physician as well as an effective spy for the American revolutionaries. The book was praised by reviewers for its accurate and colorful descriptions of the Hudson River Valley in the 18th century.

In 1975, Ken married a beautiful and stately lady from Texas, Charlotte Lansford. Charlotte and Ken had a son, Colton, who survives his father and now resides in South Carolina. Ken and Charlotte purchased an 1850 Victorian home in Newburgh, NY, about 70 miles north of the City in the Hudson River Valley, and then spent more than 7 years renovating the house. Friends used to rib him. When asked what his work was, they would announce that Ken was primarily employed in the renovation of old houses rather than the practice of law.

For many years, Ken commuted daily to the City from his Victorian mansion, until he retired in 2019. Ken initiated the very successful monthly class luncheon at the Yale Club which has drawn ‘62 classmates living in the City, as well as those in our class traveling or visiting. This tradition of the monthly luncheon has attracted and kept in touch more classmates on a monthly basis than any other unofficial class activity. And it continues to the present time, under the leadership of Larry Price, after Ken and Charlotte sold their Newburgh home and relocated to Summerville, South Carolina to be near their grandson, son and daughter-in-law. To the end of his life, Ken remained an enthusiastic supporter, dedicated to Yale and always trying to keep in touch with classmates.

Ken is survived by his wife Charlotte, his son Colton and daughter-in-law Jenny.