Donald S. Warner, Don to all his friends, passed away on March 6, 2024, in New York.
Born in Boston on March 25, 1935, to Natalie Weinbaum and Nathan Farber, Don was known, loved, and respected, for his smarts, sense of humor, stubbornness, kindness, and preternatural abilities with a martini shaker.
Don was a master bridge player, traveling nationally and internationally, and was successful in two careers. The first of these was in computers during its early days, when he spent considerable time in California and in extensive national travel, followed by finance, where he managed the assets of a select group of clients. The man believed in bonds and had the results to justify it.
Don was a proud Stuyvesant High School “pegleg,” as the alumni are known. Don's education continued at Harvard for his undergraduate degree and at Boston College for his MBA. The Boston influence stuck, rendering him a life-long Red Sox fan and member of the BLOHARDS (Beloved Loyal Order of Honorable Ancient Red Sox Die-Hard Sufferers). For a time, Don was a helpful Treasurer of the Sutton Area Community (SAC) neighborhood organization, roping his partner, later wife Liora, onto the Board as well.
Don lived most of his adult life in the Sutton area. He could be seen on a regular basis in ‘his’ spot, sipping a rob roy at the bar in Neary’s Restaurant, where a lasting friendship with Jimmy Neary was formed upon the restaurant’s founding 57 years ago. The fact that Don was able to nurse a cocktail with such exquisite patience was proof positive that he was there for the conversation and warm friendships, made and kept, and not the whiskey, particular as he was about that.
Don loved music, especially the Great American Songbook, and Broadway shows, movies, food, oysters- raw, clams- not raw, white wine, and more, provided the quality and price met his standards. Leisure that also brought him true joy included annual trips to Saratoga and weekend trips to Atlantic City. And he won in both locales, being preternaturally able in those arenas too.
In later life, Don was intent on traveling further afield, notching up half a dozen memorable, maximalist trips to Europe and China with his future wife Liora, whom he nicknamed Canary, whose singing on these trips he reveled in long past the return home. He took pride in her as a singer, and the fact that his mother had been a singer as well, and he relished the fun after-gig gatherings. St. Croix stints with his Canary hosted by dear friends were another source of annual revelry in a happy, extended last chapter, as were holiday meals with Liora’s family, which in the early days, included under-the-table shoe-hiding with his niece-in-law. No one knows which one of them started it.
Don cherished his friendships. They may have been formed in various phases of his life, on Fire Island, in the Hamptons, or elsewhere, but they stayed true and were a source of continuing enjoyment and warm memories for him. Tennis was a favorite pastime back in the day. Memories of the successful practical jokes he perpetrated on bosses of yore provided considerable mirth to anyone who heard the details of his exploits.
Don was loved dearly and is survived by his wife, Liora Green, and by his son Marc (m. Jaclyn) Warner by a prior marriage, and two grandchildren.
May Don rest in peace. And may he enjoy practical jokes, golf, good food, wine, and music, and the resumed friendships of those we’ve lost.