Obituary of George E Alcorn
George Earle Alcorn, 83, of Montville, NJ passed on to his heavenly rest Monday, January 20, 2025. He was surrounded by his family in the final days of a valiant battle with lymphoma that consumed much of
the last year. It was a blessing that, in the end, he was free of pain and it was a fast farewell.
George was born May 27, 1941 in Hackensack, New Jersey to Earle Le Grande Alcorn, Jr. and Anne Regina (Dierks) Alcorn, and grew up in Westwood and Hillsdale in Bergen County. He graduated from and played varsity basketball for Pascack Valley Regional High School (several times against his contemporary Bill Parcells of Pascack Hills) and attended Rutgers University.
George met the love of his life, Rose Anne Miragliotta of Woodridge, in 1962 while working together at ARDE Incorporated, an aerospace company in northern New Jersey. Legend has it that George learned of an upcoming “girls’ weekend” in the Adirondacks and secretly managed to secure a cabin, a canoe, and eventually the heart of his cherished Rose. They married in November 1964 and moved into their home on John Henry Drive in Montville (in Morris County, or “the farmland” as their Bergen County families considered it), where they would spend the next 60 years together, first raising their three children – Greg, Steven and Regina – and then welcoming spouses and six grandchildren into the family. George was a Little League baseball coach, vegetable gardener extraordinaire, fishing instructor and sailing enthusiast (the latter two at the family’s treasured Lake Rickabear) who took fatherhood seriously and unflinchingly demanded one thing above all else from his children: always do your best.
George was a longtime engineer at Rowe International in Whippany, New Jersey, where he designed vending machines. Better even than his work products, though, were his personal passion projects with which he “occu-wise other-pied” himself – the air hockey table he built from scratch is still in service almost 50 years later (and with mallets that actually say “PUSH” on them, because they include vending machine selection buttons), and the ping-pong table he built and painted was the site of innumerable battles (and tantrums) in epic matches with his firstborn.
In his later years (OK, and before) George developed a repertoire of tricks, jokes, songs and gags that were always sure to generate laughs and eye-rolls from the literally thousands of people with whom he shared them. Pre-eminent within this arsenal was the (in)famous “string trick”, which, well, if you know you know. It will come as no surprise that a well-used loop will be part of his eternal remains.
George is survived by his beloved wife Rose; his children and their spouses Greg and Karen (Rose) Alcorn, Steven and Tanya (Botelho Silva) Alcorn, and Regina Alcorn Browne and Paul Browne; his sister Kathryn Alcorn Burger and her husband Leslie Burger; six adored and adoring grandchildren (Andie, Kate and Lizzie from Greg and Karen, and Grace, Benjamin and Amelia from Steven and Tanya); and an incredibly close and supportive extended family across generations on both the Alcorn and Miragliotta sides. He was pre-deceased by his parents, Earle and Anne, and his brother Richard.
Please join us in remembering George fondly and with deep love and appreciation. “Olive Oil” and “See You All of a Sudden” to a good man, and one who always did his best.
We will host a celebration of George’s life in the coming months; details to follow. For anyone who would like to support one of his favorite causes, please visit Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation
(www.alexslemonade.org -- pediatric cancer research and care), St. Jude’s (www.stjude.org – pediatric cancer research and care) or St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center ( www.stjude.org – pediatric www.sthuberts.org).
Arrangements are under the care of Dangler Funeral Home, Morris Plains, NJ.