Potter
While he awaited surgery for cancer, Ab Potter worried about one thing: the people on his Meals on Wheels route in Albuquerque. They might miss him.
“He was concerned about that, even though he was going through major surgery that he might not have survived,” said daughter Sabrina Potter Corson.
To family and his many friends, Albert F. (Ab) Potter was known for his no-nonsense kindness, a natural outcropping of his hardworking and inquisitive personality.
Potter, who retired to Albuquerque in 2003, died Nov. 12 of cancer. He was 81.
Prior to Albuquerque, Potter lived in Kankakee, Ill., where he helped found the town’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Foundation. He was absolutely committed to the cause, said the Rev. William H. Copeland Jr., then the group’s president.
He held leadership in the group, and sang in its predominantly African-American choir, Corson said. At a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration, Potter gathered with the rest of the choir on a public school stage.
“You see all these black faces and this one white, shiny, bald head, and that’s my dad,” Corson said.
“In our church choir, we memorize our songs” instead of reading them off paper. “He didn’t understand how we could memorize all of those songs, and how we could sing and rock at the same time,” Copeland remembered. “We used to tease him and he used to laugh and tease us.”
“He had respect for everybody,” Copeland said. “I don’t know of anybody he didn’t like.”
Potter was born July 21, 1930, in Poultney, Vt., and moved to Hamilton, N.Y., to attend Colgate University. He married Marian Davies in 1952, moving from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.
He returned to Hamilton 15 years later with Marian and two sons, to work for a company called General Instruments. He and Marian divorced in 1977, and he married Cara Gordon at the end of 1978.
In response to a shortage of primary care doctors in Hamilton, Potter helped found a nonprofit health care center.
“That’s the story of his life,” said wife Cara Gordon Potter. “Wherever he’s lived, he’s made his world a better place.”
The Potters moved to her hometown, Kankakee, to take over Gordon Electric Supply Inc. Ab Potter’s accomplishments multiplied, she said; he earned the first-ever lifetime achievement award from an electrical supply trade group, and another named an award after him.
The couple stayed in Illinois until 2003, when they moved to Albuquerque.
The pair already had an Albuquerque friend in Victor Jury, CEO of area company Summit Electric Supply. Jury described Potter as “the most well-read person I’ve ever encountered. He had a curiosity and a vigor that I found very energizing and engaging.”
Jury wasn’t the only one. “In a year’s time, he had more friends in Albuquerque than I had in 35 years of living here.”
One of those friends was Agnes Noonan, president of nonprofit small business promoter WESST.
The Potters arrived during the middle of WESST’s fundraising drive for its Enterprise Center incubating facility for startup companies. The Potters gave the center its largest individual donation, challenging WESST to match their contribution — which it did — Noonan said.
Another of his commitments in Albuquerque was to Bosque School. Potter volunteered on several committees and cheered sports teams, even after his youngest son graduated. “He has left an indelible legacy at the school,” said Marisa Gay, Bosque School director of communications and marketing.
Keith Potter, Ab Potter’s eldest son, remembered his father most from a sailing vacation in the Caribbean. He and his younger brother asked to scuba dive in a shark-infested reef and Ab was absolutely calm, saying “OK, be careful.”
The two swam three-fourths of the way across the reef, only to look back and see their dad had been following them in a tiny boat the whole time.
Keith Potter said the message was undeniable:
“Follow your dreams and do what you want, but I’ll be there if you need me.”
Potter is survived by his wife, Cara Gordon Potter; children Keith Potter, Scott Potter, Lauren D’Onofirio, Sabrina Potter Corson and Michael Potter; their spouses; four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Memorial services will be held at 2 p.m. Nov. 26 at First Unitarian on Carlisle and Comanche in Albuquerque. Details are available at www.uuabq.org under “Light a Candle.”
— This article appeared on page C03 of the Albuquerque Journal
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