Sherwood "Woody" Snyder

On an otherwise ordinary, blue-skied summer morning, July 19, 2024, Sherwood “Woody” Snyder passed away at age 74, with his wife by his side. His passing was unexpected to him and to his family, but swift and free of pain.

Woody was born to a family with deep Ohio roots and raised in Ohio, where he met his high school sweetheart, Donna. They married while he was attending the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY, where he earned a degree with honors in photography. Soon after, they relocated to Virginia, where their three children were born and raised.

Woody’s working career was as unique as he was, and began with several years working for the CIA, then jumped into the world of investment management, and then the construction industry, where he retired as a project engineer from the Army Corps of Engineers. His love of photography carried through his entire life, and he never missed a chance to get a great shot, whether of a stunning landscape or a family gathering.

Woody was a passionate man who dived deeply into his interests: airplanes, model trains, weather, food, coins, travel. A licensed small-craft pilot and ham radio operator, his appetite for learning never waned; he lined bookshelves with the volumes acquired as he researched his interests. He visited 49 states, 6 countries, and 28 national parks, setting foot in 156 airports along the way (yes, he tracked them). His hand-typed travel itineraries were legendary. When his adult children moved to New York, he discovered the Adirondacks, and his love was immediate.

Woody was a prolific creator and tinkerer, crafting everything from unique furniture to elaborate model train layouts. He could fix anything, and helped each of his children with various renovation and construction projects. He renovated his final home from an unassuming ranch into an Adirondack-style lodge, complete with rough-sawn pine siding, a stone fireplace surround, and birch-bark veneered furnishings, many of his own construction. He single-handedly transformed an overgrown patch of muck out back into a beautiful pond with park-like landscaping. A multiflora rose has never met so fierce a foe.

Woody reveled in good food, and his appreciation for everything from home-cooked potluck fare to fine dining was well known. He delighted in finding treats to mail order during the pandemic, from every corner of the country: pasta sauce from Staten Island, maple syrup from family farms upstate, even a key lime pie shipped on dry ice from Miami. Woody loved music as well, and throughout his life he found profound meaning and comfort in his favorite artists, Bob Dylan foremost among them.

Woody leaves behind his wife of nearly 53 years, Donna, their three children, Kristie, Sherwood, and Amy, son-in-law Glen, daughter-in-law DiAnna, and son-in-law Adam, and his beloved grandchildren. For the twenty years since the first was born, his grandchildren became his greatest joy. Whether completing innumerable “projects,” studying coins or planes or trains, skipping stones into Cayuga Lake, sharing photography tips, roasting apples or marshmallows over a fire, or simply snuggling, he cherished the time spent with them, and he leaves a great hole in their lives.

A private celebration of life was held at Woody’s pond, where he was sent into the beyond with memories shared around a campfire. Memorial donations may be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.