Anton Selkowitz
April 23, 1940 - December 8, 2022
Anton Selkowitz, father, sailer, adventurer, political activist, and builder, passed away after a long illness on Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, his home for more than fifty years. Anton was born in New York City in 1940, the son of the late Harry and Anne Selkowitz.
He grew up on Shippan Point in Stamford, CT. It was there that he developed his love of being on the water, which he later duplicated on Cape Breton, and as a sailor and sea captain around the world. He graduated high school at St Luke's School in New Canaan, CT in 1958 and was a 1963 graduate of the School of Commerce at New York University. Anton was of the Woodstock generation and actually attended, which led to owning a beat clothes and head shop in Stamford called The Gas Station. When he settled down after world travel and adventures, it was in the San Francisco area where he became a building contractor; having learned to become one on the house he built on Cape Breton, on the Gulf of St Lawrence fifty years ago. He remodeled Victorian houses and built small commercial and residential projects in the Bay area of San Francisco for 30 years before retiring. Not content to leave the world as it is, he was a progressive political activist, protesting the Vietnam war, getting arrested as a protestor at the notorious 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, and writing letters to the editor of many newspapers protesting one outrage or another. His marriage to Andrea LaBore of Maui, Hawaii ended in divorce. He was a devoted father to their daughter, Savanna, who survives him, and to his brothers: Arthur (Betsey) of Stamford, CT and Robert (Nancy) of Shokan, NY. Anton loved his nieces and nephews: Bhakta Waskiewicz (Matt), Juda Whiteford (Sean), Adam Selkowitz (Laurie), and Jed Selkowitz (Alana). He doted on his great-nieces and nephews, inventing stories of the adventures of Wonder Penguin to Avery and Evan Waskiewicz, Lucy, Parker, and Marlow Selkowitz, and Nova Whiteford.
A graveside service was held on December 12 on Cape Breton at Whale Cove Cemetery, overlooking the water he loved. Donations in his memory may be made to the charity of one's choice.