Albert "Al" Frank Stouter

Albert Frank Stouter passed away on Saturday September 6, 2025 at 101 years of age. Just a few days before he had been happily driving his electric scooter. Al grew up in Port Chester, NY and spent most of the next eighty five years in the New York City suburbs. He graduated from Port Chester (NY) High School and I M Wright Technical School in Stamford CT. The only boy with three sisters and always interested in machines, Al began making and flying remote controlled (RC) airplanes during high school with his best friend John Kirla. When World War II started, 18 year old Al was too slender for the Air Force. He joined the Navy and served until February 1946 on the Ashland, a repair ship following the USS Lexington during early battles in the Pacific. After the war Al was the first of his family to attend vocational training, studying mechanical drafting and then getting a job designing trainer machines for pilots. Al married Frances Kirla, John's sister on September 11, 1949. Their only child, Bruce, born in 1955, grew up downstairs from Frances' sister Alice and her family. Al stayed near Frances' family, taking Alice and Gene north when he moved next door to Bruce in Fishkill in the 1990s. During this time Al attended the Fishkill Nazarene Church, who supported him through Frances' death in 2004. Although involved in the Mid-Hudson RC Society, his love of flight led in his sixties to him and Bruce assembling three ultralight airplanes and flying them above the mountains and rivers of the Hudson Valley for about twenty five years. In 2012 Al moved with Bruce's family to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Al was active there in a local RC airplane group, and his good hand-eye coordination helped him to drive a car until he was 97 years old. He regretfully stopped flying even RC planes as his eyesight declined. Al moved again with Bruce to Canyon, Texas in 2022 where he could enjoy being mobile in a quiet neighborhood using an electric scooter. He still tinkered with his RC models and loved watching videos about airplanes. He is survived by son, Bruce and his wife Patti, a grand-daughter Ariel living in Edgewood, New Mexico, and a grandson Caleb who lives with his wife Veronica and son Luke in Hyde Park, New York. Almost a dozen of France's nieces and nephews survive him, and several of the easiest to fly RC models are waiting in case Luke wants to continue his great-grandpa's tradition. He was preceded in death by his wife, Frances Bridget Stouter (nee Kirla) and his sisters Emily and Pauline Stouter and Wilhelmina (Dilly) Stefanowski; 1 son Bruce Lawrence Stouter; Parents: Albert John Stouter and Emily Bohrer Stouter and his great grandchild Luke Stouter The funeral will take place in the afternoon of October 13th at Calvary Chapel of the Hudson Valley in Poughkeepsie, NY. Flight related charities that can carry on Al's vision to the next generation: JAARS (aviation in support of Bible translation worldwide) https://www.jaars.org/give Civil Air Patrol (training the next generation and serving in search and rescue and emergency response) https://www.gocivilairpatrol.com/giving

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Albert "Al" Frank Stouter

December 29, 1923 - September 6, 2025