CRIBBEN, Stephen Hamlin - 68, a long time resident of Sherborn, Massachusetts, died suddenly on September 11, 2011 on his boat, while under sail off Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Born in Brockton, Massachusetts, he moved later with his family to Weston Massachusetts, where he graduated from Weston High School in 1961. After attending the University Virginia, he began a career in sales at Pitney Bowes where he rose to branch manager, including a tour managing the firm’s office in Heppenheim, Germany. Later, going into business on his own, he established Alternative Business Systems in 1993, a successful Hasler Inc. mailing equipment dealership, where he serviced customers in Massachusetts and the Albany, New York area until his retirement in 2008. For the last three years he had battled colon cancer.
Steve had an unrivaled wit and sense of humor. Since grade school he had a passion for bird watching which expanded into a much broader and intense curiosity and respect for the natural world around him. He was a fisherman; and in more recent years, spending summers in West Falmouth, Massachusetts, and in Maine , he had become an accomplished sailor. He also had a lifelong interest and acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of military history, and was an omnivorous reader of the annals of warfare. Steve was gregarious and maintained a number of lifelong friendships with business colleagues, and classmates both from college and from Weston HS – whose forthcoming 50th class reunion he had been working to organize. Among immediate and extended family, he was an irreplaceable iconic figure, much beloved for the keen interest taken in lives of all, and for merriment and occasional mischief he caused, and will be sorely missed.
He is survived by his wife of 34 years, Joan; his daughter, Hillary; his parents, Austin and Virginia Cribben of Weston, Massachusetts; and his brother, Dennis Cribben of Brooklyn, New York. His sister Carol Cribben-Merrill of West Brooksville, Maine predeceased him. A memorial service will be held on September 23, 2011 at 1:00 p.m., at Pilgrim Church, 25 South Main Street, Sherborn, MA 01770-1434, tel. (508) 655-1667. In lieu of flowers, donations are suggested in his memory to Dana Farber Cancer Institute, 10 Brookline Place West, Brookline, MA 02445.