Bom-Wrapper

Albert J. Sabal Albert J. Sabal Albert J. Sabal
Memorial Candle Tribute From
Keefe Funeral Homes
"We are honored to provide this Book of Memories to the family."
View full message >>>

Obituary for Albert J. Sabal

Albert J.  Sabal
Albert J. Sabal, 89, passed away peacefully, surrounded by loving family, on January 24, 2014, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

An outsized personality, Albert was known for the wit and charm he exhibited in five languages. The epitome of debonair, he cut an elegant figure in a tux, but was equally comfortable sporting his Yankee’s baseball cap.

He was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in Seville, Spain, in 1924. His father, Solomon, owned a bakery business. His mother, Matilde, was a homemaker and mother to five, of whom Albert was the eldest. According to his youngest brother, Natalio, Albert was “encouraging and supportive”—a great older brother, always looking out for his younger siblings.

In 1936, when Albert was twelve, the family fled to Gibraltar to avoid Franco’s troops. While waiting for sponsorship to the United States, they lived in Tangiers where, during a brief stint at a Catholic school, Albert became fluent in French.

In 1938, the family immigrated to the Bronx. Albert attended prestigious DeWitt Clinton High School alongside luminaries such as James Baldwin, Richard Avedon, and Neil Simon. A quick study in languages, Albert spoke decent English by his senior year. But asked during his high school exit exam to write a story about a narrow escape, he misunderstood and wrote instead about an archer releasing a projectile into the sky—an arrow escape.

When Albert graduated, it was 1941. Although still a Spanish national and just 17, he was eager to fight for his adopted country and tried to join the Air Force, but only U.S. citizens could volunteer. Hoping an exception could be made, he wrote letters to both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, yet received only one response: “The law is the law.”

Drafted at 18, Albert was assigned to military intelligence because of his test scores and fluency in Spanish and French. He trained in Maryland and became a U.S. citizen, a part of his identity that he took great pride in throughout his life: in the words of his son John, “Alberto was an American first, a Sevillano second, and a Spaniard third.”

Albert saw his first combat the day after the initial Normandy invasion. He fought in France and Germany, receiving a Purple Heart.

In December 1944, as a 20-year-old sergeant, Albert was on a mission to deliver a sealed message to an air base in Belgium. The winter was the coldest and snowiest in years, and the major German offensive, the Battle of the Bulge, had started days earlier: shells exploded around him as he drove his jeep on the icy roads.

Stopped by a U.S. patrol for a routine check, Albert gave the password. Hearing his accent, the patrol leveled their guns. Albert knew a spy could be shot on the spot; just the previous day, he had witnessed the execution of an enemy soldier in the camp found wearing a U.S. Army uniform.

“Y’all step out,” drawled a soldier.

Albert got out of the jeep. With gun barrels trained on him, he explained his mission and his Spanish background.

The soldier said that for all he knew, his accent could be German. “Where’d you go to high school?” he asked.

Dewitt Clinton, Albert said. The soldier had never heard of it.

A spy could cook up a convincing personal history, but he could never bluff his way through the intricacies of baseball. “What’s a shoestring catch?” the soldier asked.

Albert didn’t know.

“Explain the infield fly rule,” the soldier said. “What’s a Texas Leaguer?”

Albert’s inability to answer a single question about baseball confirmed the soldier’s suspicions. The patrol would release Albert after four hours, but at one point he was ordered to squat, hands behind his head. As he knelt, shivering, in the snow, he swore to himself that if he survived, he would learn everything there was to know about baseball—a promise that he kept with a vengeance.

After the war Albert attended New York University on the G.I. bill, receiving a BA and an MBA in Foreign Trade and International Business Administration. On a dare from a friend who said that no Spanish person would ever speak the language of the small country it bordered, Albert not only learned Portuguese but also wrote his MBA thesis in it.

In the years that followed, Albert directed international trade for major chemical and pharmaceutical corporations, establishing subsidiaries and distribution networks and forming joint ventures in the Middle East, Europe, the Far East and the USSR. He married his first wife, Denise; welcomed daughter Mary and son John into the world; lived in Venezuela; learned Japanese, and traveled around the world.

Albert met Marian in 1979, when he was in Cambridge for a job interview and asked her for directions on the northeast corner of Portland and Hampshire Streets. When they met again six months later, after he’d received the job and began working at her company, a relationship soon developed. Both of their first marriages were ending—as she says now, they “saved each other.”

They married in 1986. Together they hosted annual Boston Marathon and New Year’s parties; celebrated their birthdays—they had the same one, February 22—and traveled often to Spain. “I enjoyed it all, what can I say?” Marian says. “He was the instigator and initiator of a whole lot of things I wouldn’t have done without him.” She was the love of his life; whenever they drove around East Cambridge, Albert would talk about putting a plaque up on the street corner on which they’d met.

John, his son, describes Albert as “a wonderful teacher of how to be.” He gave John his core values—marital commitment, fidelity, and devotion to family and friends—and taught him how to embrace and enjoy life in all its complexity. Given how well John absorbed these lessons, no one can be surprised by Albert’s final, whispered words to him: “You’re a good man.”

Albert left life as he lived it, with guts and grace: refusing dialysis treatment and joking with the hospital attendants and doctors.

Albert Sabal was the devoted husband of Marian Sabal. He was the adored father of John Sabal and his wife Joan-Carol Brigham of Colorado, Dr. Mary Sabal of Alabama, Virginia Cramer and her husband Scott of Chelmsford, James Mase and his wife Karen of North Carolina, and Vincent Mase and his wife Alexa of Medford; the cherished grandfather of Meghan, Johannah, Bianca, Dominic, Morgan, and Audrey; and the dear brother of Natalio Sabal of Douglas, Arizona, and the late Jaime Sabal, Raquel Zirl, and Sarita Dubroff.

He will be missed.

Burial of Ashes with Military Honors will take place on Saturday, April 5, 2014 at 11am in the Cambridge Cemetery, 76 Coolidge Avenue, Cambridge MA, 02138. In lieu of flowers, donations in his name may be made to New England Center for Homeless Veterans, 17 Court Street, Boston, MA 02108.

Life Story for Albert J. Sabal

Albert J. Sabal, 89, passed away peacefully, surrounded by loving family, on January 24, 2014, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

An outsized personality, Albert was known for the wit and charm he exhibited in five languages. The epitome of debonair, he cut an elegant figure in a tux, but was equally comfortable sporting his Yankee’s baseball cap.

He was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in Seville, Spain, in 1924. His father, Solomon, owned a bakery business. His mother, Matilde, was a homemaker and mother to five, of whom Albert was the eldest. According to his youngest brother, Natalio, Albert was “encouraging and supportive”—a great older brother, always looking out for his younger siblings.

In 1936, when Albert was twelve, the family fled to Gibraltar to avoid Franco’s troops. While waiting for sponsorship to the United States, they lived in Tangiers where, during a brief stint at a Catholic school, Albert became fluent in French.

In 1938, the family immigrated to the Bronx. Albert attended prestigious DeWitt Clinton High School alongside luminaries such as James Baldwin, Richard Avedon, and Neil Simon. A quick study in languages, Albert spoke decent English by his senior year. But asked during his high school exit exam to write a story about a narrow escape, he misunderstood and wrote instead about an archer releasing a projectile into the sky—an arrow escape.

When Albert graduated, it was 1941. Although still a Spanish national and just 17, he was eager to fight for his adopted country and tried to join the Air Force, but only U.S. citizens could volunteer. Hoping an exception could be made, he wrote letters to both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, yet received only one response: “The law is the law.”

Drafted at 18, Albert was assigned to military intelligence because of his test scores and fluency in Spanish and French. He trained in Maryland and became a U.S. citizen, a part of his identity that he took great pride in throughout his life: in the words of his son John, “Alberto was an American first, a Sevillano second, and a Spaniard third.”

Albert saw his first combat the day after the initial Normandy invasion. He fought in France and Germany, receiving a Purple Heart.

In December 1944, as a 20-year-old sergeant, Albert was on a mission to deliver a sealed message to an air base in Belgium. The winter was the coldest and snowiest in years, and the major German offensive, the Battle of the Bulge, had started days earlier: shells exploded around him as he drove his jeep on the icy roads.

Stopped by a U.S. patrol for a routine check, Albert gave the password. Hearing his accent, the patrol leveled their guns. Albert knew a spy could be shot on the spot; just the previous day, he had witnessed the execution of an enemy soldier in the camp found wearing a U.S. Army uniform.

“Y’all step out,” drawled a soldier.

Albert got out of the jeep. With gun barrels trained on him, he explained his mission and his Spanish background.

The soldier said that for all he knew, his accent could be German. “Where’d you go to high school?” he asked.

Dewitt Clinton, Albert said. The soldier had never heard of it.

A spy could cook up a convincing personal history, but he could never bluff his way through the intricacies of baseball. “What’s a shoestring catch?” the soldier asked.

Albert didn’t know.

“Explain the infield fly rule,” the soldier said. “What’s a Texas Leaguer?”

Albert’s inability to answer a single question about baseball confirmed the soldier’s suspicions. The patrol would release Albert after four hours, but at one point he was ordered to squat, hands behind his head. As he knelt, shivering, in the snow, he swore to himself that if he survived, he would learn everything there was to know about baseball—a promise that he kept with a vengeance.

After the war Albert attended New York University on the G.I. bill, receiving a BA and an MBA in Foreign Trade and International Business Administration. On a dare from a friend who said that no Spanish person would ever speak the language of the small country it bordered, Albert not only learned Portuguese but also wrote his MBA thesis in it.

In the years that followed, Albert directed international trade for major chemical and pharmaceutical corporations, establishing subsidiaries and distribution networks and forming joint ventures in the Middle East, Europe, the Far East and the USSR. He married his first wife, Denise; welcomed daughter Mary and son John into the world; lived in Venezuela; learned Japanese, and traveled around the world.

Albert met Marian in 1979, when he was in Cambridge for a job interview and asked her for directions on the northeast corner of Portland and Hampshire Streets. When they met again six months later, after he’d received the job and began working at her company, a relationship soon developed. Both of their first marriages were ending—as she says now, they “saved each other.”

They married in 1986. Together they hosted annual Boston Marathon and New Year’s parties; celebrated their birthdays—they had the same one, February 22—and traveled often to Spain. “I enjoyed it all, what can I say?” Marian says. “He was the instigator and initiator of a whole lot of things I wouldn’t have done without him.” She was the love of his life; whenever they drove around East Cambridge, Albert would talk about putting a plaque up on the street corner on which they’d met.

John, his son, describes Albert as “a wonderful teacher of how to be.” He gave John his core values—marital commitment, fidelity, and devotion to family and friends—and taught him how to embrace and enjoy life in all its complexity. Given how well John absorbed these lessons, no one can be surprised by Albert’s final, whispered words to him: “You’re a good man.”

Albert left life as he lived it, with guts and grace: refusing dialysis treatment and joking with the hospital attendants and doctors.

Albert Sabal was the devoted husband of Marian Sabal. He was the adored father of John Sabal and his wife Joan-Carol Brigham of Colorado, Dr. Mary Sabal of Alabama, Virginia Cramer and her husband Scott of Chelmsford, James Mase and his wife Karen of North Carolina, and Vincent Mase and his wife Alexa of Medford; the cherished grandfather of Meghan, Johannah, Bianca, Dominic, Morgan, and Audrey; and the dear brother of Natalio Sabal of Douglas, Arizona, and the late Jaime Sabal, Raquel Zirl, and Sarita Dubroff.

He will be missed.

Burial of Ashes with Military Honors will take place on Saturday, April 5, 2014 at 11am in the Cambridge Cemetery, 76 Coolidge Avenue, Cambridge MA, 02138. In lieu of flowers, donations in his name may be made to New England Center for Homeless Veterans, 17 Court Street, Boston, MA 02108.

Recently Shared Condolences

Recently Shared Stories

Recently Shared Photos

Share by: