STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 Former Staten Island educator James Canfield, who once served as principal at Ralph R. McKee Career and Technical Education High School in St. George, has died at 96 years old.<\/p>\n
Canfield died from pneumonia on Dec. 26, 2025. <\/p>\n
Born on Dec. 7, 1929, on Staten Island, Canfield was a graduate and honorary alumnus of Port Richmond High School and joined the Marine Corps. After his tour of duty was completed, he returned to Staten Island and attended Wagner College under the G.I. Bill to become a teacher, where he also met his wife Nancy (Catherine) Gallagher. The two married and built a house in Richmond, where they raised four children together until her death in 1986. Canfield also earned a doctorate degree in economic education at Ohio University.<\/p>\n
He began his 30-year education career at McKee High School, where he later served as principal in the late 1970s, according to his daughter, Eileen Canfield.<\/p>\n
He later became superintendent of Vocational Technical High Schools, now called Career and Technical Education high schools. He initiated various innovative educational programs and played a role in the creation of Concord High School, according to his daughter. He also served as superintendent of Manhattan high schools. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad, his thing was vocational technical high schools, so he thought that was very important,\u201d said Canfield. \u201cHe thought that not every student in high school needs to be on the college track if they don\u2019t want to, if they want to learn a trade or skill, it would be best that the schools can try and provide that for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
After he retired from working in education, he created the Fordham Educational Leadership Program at Fordham University\u2019s Lincoln Center campus to train educators to become successful leaders.<\/p>\n
Several years after Nancy\u2019s death, Canfield married Mary Ann Mortimer and the two moved to Florida, where Canfield became involved in politics. In 1999, he was elected as the first mayor of Palm Coast, serving in the role for eight years. <\/p>\n
Mary Ann died in 2004, and years later, Canfield developed a close companionship with Gladys Moore of Palm Coast until her death in 2018. <\/p>\n
Canfield then moved back north and settled near his daughter in Towson, Maryland, where he lived and thrived in a vibrant retirement community for eight years.<\/p>\n
Throughout his life, Canfield was an avid golfer, writer, and gardener. He loved to watch Notre Dame football games, go on cruises, and grow roses in his garden.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe loved to golf … he formed some sort of golf club on Staten Island, and he had a lot of friends who golfed,\u201d said Canfield. \u201cHe also liked to write, after he retired, he would write poems. When he went to Florida, he got into growing roses and he liked to garden in that way. And he traveled, he loved to take cruises. In fact, he took a cruise with the family at 95 this last February. He loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is pre-deceased by his oldest son, James Thomas Canfield, who died in 2016. In addition to Mary Ann\u2019s children and grandchildren, Canfield is survived by his three children: Eileen Canfield of Towson, Maryland; Julie Canfield of Boston, Massachusetts; and Kevin Canfield of New York, New York. He has seven grandchildren: Tyler, Isabel, Courtney, John, Catherine, Cameron and Rachel. <\/p>\n
The family will hold a memorial service at a future date in Montauk, New York, where Canfield\u2019s ashes will be buried. The family is also planning acknowledgements on Staten Island in June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 Former Staten Island educator James Canfield, who once served as principal at Ralph R.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-113715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}