Remembering Sal Salvatore and His Life of Loyalty, Laughter, and Leadership.

Carrie Jones

Jan 31, 2026

SOUTHWEST HARBOR—Kenneth Joseph “Sal” Salvatore was the kind of man who was larger than life, but, at the same time, the kind of man who came through for his family and friends and community again and again.

For Sal, friends and family and community were often all the same thing, each becoming part of the other.

Kenneth Joseph Salvatore, 74, of Southwest Harbor, Maine passed away at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston on January 27, 2026 after what his family called an “inspiring fight against cancer.”

Sal had the kind of life that inspired a lot of people who knew him. He and his sister Tina grew up in Port Chester, New York. At Port Chester High School, he was a three-sport star. He especially excelled at football. After one of his best games as a senior, he was named the Pepsi “Monster of the Game” for his ferocious play. His senior class also voted him “The Most Sincere.”

A 6-2 senior, New York newspapers called Sal “rugged” and impressive, the kind of guy that was expected to do big things on basketball courts, football fields, and baseball diamonds.

He did do those big things in sports.

He was selected by New York Television station WPIZ in 1968 as its lineman of the week. They called him the Rams’ defensive monster. He was named conference grid best the same year. His high school’s alumni association gave him the Joey Amendola Memorial Trophy, meant for the top scholar-athlete.

As his obituary explains, “Sal’s talent for football earned him a scholarship at the University of Rhode Island.”

Here’s the thing, though: Sal did big things outside of sports, too. He worked and earned his way up and up, from sardine packer and hospital orderly to eventually becoming a research assistant at the Jackson Laboratory, working with Dick Fox, and then a licensed insurance agent and one of the owners of L.S. Robinson Co. in Southwest Harbor.

When it came time to retire, the hardest part for Sal was leaving the team he spent so many years working with, his family said. The people he worked with?

“They were like family to him and stayed in his heart forever,” according to his obituary.

They weren’t the only ones who became family nor the only ones who stayed in his heart.

“Sid and Sal worked hard and they saved enough to build a house on Long Pond Road in Southwest Harbor,” his obituary reads.

Sidney and Sal were married for more than 54 years. They built a family together, a life, and a community.

“As soon as he arrived in Maine bringing me to my home to meet my parents, my dad said, ‘Let’s go canoeing,’” Sid said.

So, Sid’s dad took Sal to Pushaw Stream.

“Just to see if he was going to make it in Maine,” she said with a laugh, remembering.

He passed the test.

“The next thing my dad did was say, ‘Let’s go camping and hiking in Mount Kathadin,’” Sid said.

They did and Sal strode ahead on the trail a bit, then came running back, excited and asking, “Did you guys see the donkeys?”

Those donkeys were moose.

“He was a lot of fun and just a great dad. I can’t tell you how many people he coached,” Sid said. “He was a lot of fun, just a lot of fun. I’m the luckiest person.”

That luck, she said, is because she got to love Sal, laugh with Sal, create a family and a life together, building and embracing a community, which all created so many happy times that began at the University of Rhode Island.

“As only fate could orchestrate, a young lady from Orono was also enrolling in nursing school at URI. Inevitably, the paths of Sal and Sid intersected, and a magical life’s journey began. Sid and Sal married on September 1, 1973 and moved to Mount Desert Island, where Sid had worked summer jobs for a few years. Sid was employed as a nurse at MDI Hospital. Sal started work as a sardine packer at Stinson Canning in Southwest Harbor,” his obituary reads.

In his decades on Mount Desert Island, people loved to watch Sal dance, to watch him golf, to watch him make meatballs or play the ukulele, to witness him coach so many kids from Southwest Harbor and beyond.

He kept growing and sharing and helping. He was a driving force at the Harbor House, helping it to become a center for all ages, a place where community comes together, full of programs, events, health classes, and sports

“As a Main Street business, we know our customers by name and can ask about their business or how their children are doing in school,” Sal told the Ellsworth American back in 2016 about his insurance company.

That was important to Sal because community was important to him and he spent his whole life both building it and lifting it up through love, fun, laughter, hard work, adventure, and an occasional meatball.

Sal was part of so many things: the capital campaign for the Harbor House, coaching, organizing fundraising golf tournaments at the Causeway Club, coaching pee-wee basketball, galloping through fun runs. He was on the Mount Desert Island Hospital board, the Professional Insurance Agents of New England Board (and eventually its president), and served on the Southwest Harbor Board of Appeals and planning board.

His Green Mountain Railroad group even sang to Eldora Mae Candage at the old Hilltop House Restaurant in Ellsworth for her surprise 90^th birthday back in the late 1990s. John Sharp and Jim Vekasi were also part of the serenade according to local paper reports at the time.

“He loved music and he didn’t really play any music much in high school, except for maybe trombone. He really loved getting together with those guys,” Sid said.

The group was influenced by the hootenanny style of freewheeling, fun, and informal musical gatherings.

When Sal retired in 2017 from L.S. Robinson Co. after 35 years in insurance, he left with a legacy. Generation after generation of Mount Desert Island business owners were helped by Sal. He said he intended to spend his retirement doing chores around the house, golfing, and spending time with his three grandchildren.

He did.

But he was Sal, so he always did more. He spent time at the Triple Chick Farm, Sid said, and a lot of time with his family.

“Sal was a fixture in the Southwest Harbor community for so many years. His genuine kindness touched everyone he met. He had a passion for gardening, playing the ukulele and golfing at the Causeway Club. A perfect Monday evening for him was a twilight match at the Causeway Club followed by a few hands of poker in the Red Barn with all his Causeway buddies,” his obituary explained.

“For a New York boy, he makes Mainers proud,” Sid said.

Sal loved his family, which included two children: Eben and Anna and three grandchildren: Tyler, Penelope, and Brycen.

“Sal was an amazing father to his children and would do anything for them,” his obituary read.

Not only did he coach both of them, he went to everything—all the games, the concerts, the ceremonies. He cheered Anna’s soccer goalie skills in both high school and college, traveling throughout New England to cheer her on and to feed her teams the meatballs that were almost as famous as he was.

“When his grandchildren came into his life, the joy they each brought to him was limitless,” Sal’s obituary reads.

One of Sal’s grandson’s, Tyler, is how Sal earned another nickname: Ba.

“Ba would always drop what he was doing when Tyler wanted to work on his pitching or just play catch. Ba loved watching all the kids play sports and his passion was often on full display at any of Penelope’s basketball games. As Brycen was learning how to play football, Ba was so helpful in building his confidence. Brycen says Ba was also the ‘best grilled cheese maker ever,’” his family wrote.

Even family photos of an October trip last year showed the man known as Kenneth, Sal, Coach, Dad, and Ba caretaking, tossing some herbs on the garlic bread that would serve both family and friends. Around him on this adventure, too, like so many in the past were the faces full of smiles of the people he loved (some related, some not), their heads thrown back in laughter as they shared another story in the making, together.

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In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you donate to Acadian Youth Sports c/o Tony McKim, P.O. Box 656, Bar Harbor, ME 04609, or to Harbor House c/o Ingred Kachmar, P.O. Box 836, Southwest Harbor, ME 04679. Sal enjoyed countless hours of his kids and grandkids participating in the programs that are provided by AYS and Harbor House, and would be honored to help other kids from the community have the same opportunity.

Sal’s full obituary will likely run in tomorrow’s Bar Harbor Story and other local newspapers.