Benjamin Lee Skinner's Obituary
SKINNER, Benjamin Lee "Ben"
died sitting on his beloved terrace overlooking St. Joseph's Sound smoking a cigar on Thursday afternoon August 17, 2017. He was 95.
A visitation will be held at Moss Feaster Funeral Home on Friday August 25, 5-8 pm. The memorial service will be held at First Presbyterian Church of Dunedin on Saturday, August 26 at 2 pm with a reception immediately following in the fellowship hall.
Ben was one of those rare people who was born and lived his whole life in Dunedin, Florida - and since 1948 at 1530 Bayshore Drive. He was born to Bronson C. and Brunhilde (Weller) Skinner on December 9, 1921. On September 18, 1943 he married Angela Maria Gottfried, a native of Mexico City, who died in 2004.
At the age of 15 he rode a bicycle from Florida to Maine. At 20 he graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1945 he went to work with his father at the Skinner Machinery Company where they produced orange concentrate, now the site of the Coca Cola Company on San Christopher Street in Dunedin. In 1952 B. C. Skinner founded Allied Precision Products, a screw machine business. Ben eventually ran the business until it was closed in 2011.
In 2007 Ben was inducted into the Dunedin Hall of Fame for his many contributions to the community some of which included: serving as a charter member of the Dunedin Rotary Club and a charter member of the Bay Area Manufacturing Association. He was also involved with Little League, Boy Scouts, Dunedin Youth Center, and was a member of the committee on Environmental Quality for the city of Dunedin.
He is survived by his children, Don Skinner of Wilmington, NC; Rick Skinner of Fairhope, AL, Mary Narine of Dunedin, FL, Nancy Ericsson of Tarpon Springs, FL; and Susan Wilson of Sparta, TN. There are also 12 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren of whom he was very proud.
There were three loves in Ben's life: his wife, his work and his boat, a 34 foot Morgan sail boat. He grieved his wife's parting greatly and remarked that he thought that they would grow old together even though she was 87 when she died. He loved his work so much that he took what he could home with him after closing the business. He was making bids and selling parts from overruns right up to the end. He liked to race and he especially liked winning which he usually did. He knew every sand bar in St. Joseph's Sound and got stuck on most of them because going around them would take too much time. He could be stubborn that way.
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