Mr. Werner E. Rudenfeldt

March 19, 1929 - May 8, 2017

Werner Edward Rudenfeldt, 88, passed on to join his daughter, Debra Rudenfeldt Brown in heaven on May 8, 2017, at Cedar Hill Village in Windsor, Vermont. Born in Stamford, Connecticut, on March 19, 1929, he was the 8th of nine children born to Ada Eugenia Ingebord Swanson and Carl Werner Rudenfeldt, who emigrated from Stockholm, Sweden, met and married in Mt. Vernon, New York. Werner was always very proud of his Swedish ancestry and visited paternal cousins in Stockholm during two trips to Scandinavia. When he was nine, his family moved to Lempster, New Hampshire. Attending Towle High School, in Newport, he graduated in 1947 and joined the Navy, attending Great Lakes Training to become a radar technician and serving on the USS Destroyer Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. After leaving the Navy, he met and married Geraldine LeMere and used his naval electronics training to become a central office switchman for the Verizon telephone company in Claremont. Werner’s great love for airplanes and flying began as a youngster collecting and building model planes. While working for Verizon, he spent six years constructing a single-place, open cockpit experimental Evans VP1 — one wing at a time on the pool table in the basement of his Durham Avenue home. A licensed pilot, he flew it for about five years around New Hampshire and Vermont. His favorite time was spent at the Claremont Airport with fellow flying club members and flying his Piper Tri-Pacer. In his retirement, Werner’s efforts turned to rebuilding a cottage on Crescent Lake, sailing his Flying Tern Danish sailboat on the lake and traveling through all 50 states. He is survived by his wife, Geraldine, of 63 years and sisters Marion Baldvins and Dorothy Sarsfield, grandson, Kenneth T. Brown Jr., granddaughter Katherine E. Brown, great-granddaughter Sayaka Brown, and many nieces and nephews. Predeceased siblings include his brother Arthur Rudenfeldt and sisters Alice Hungaski, Martha Schacht, Mildred Roberts and Ruth Rudenfeldt. Funeral services of remembrance will be led by Reverend Constance Moser and the members of Cheshire-Mount Vernon Masonic Lodge #23 will be held at Roy Funeral Home, 93 Sullivan St., in Claremont on Saturday, May 20 at 2 p.m.