Cambridge, NY - Kirby Duffield White, 89, of Reynolds Road in Cambridge NY passed away at home with his family on Sunday, June 7, 2026. A writer, a thinker, an advocate for the disempowered, a wilderness paddler: he was a complex and devoted citizen, husband, father, brother, and friend. Kirby's intellect, heart, and humor will be missed by all who knew him.

He is survived by his wife Nola Davis White (Cambridge, NY) and daughters Nancy White (Cambridge) and Bonny White, with husband Dwight Holmes (Brattleboro, VT);  siblings Duffield White and wife Izzy Guy (Middletown, CT), Benjie White (Cambridge) and partner Loretta Quigley (Saratoga, NY), Tim White (Guildhall, VT), and Bliss McIntosh and husband Robbie (Cambridge), as well as by grandsons Nolan Holmes (Brattleboro) and Kirby White and wife Shelby (Cambridge).

Many nieces and nephews will carry his legacy forward as well: Alex White, Annika and Helen McIntosh, Mariah Sanford-White, Jenny and Annie White, Will and Sophie White, Douglas and Ilene Wright.

Beloved friends, colleagues, and paddling companions remained in his heart even as Kirby's memory failed in his final years: Bob and Cora Howe, Bart Howe, John Davis, and others. His childhood friends too were fondly remembered: Bob Wright, Garrett Albert, and Carlton Peters.

Born in 1938 in Detroit MI, Kirby moved 2 years later with his parents Helen Muir Duffield White and Lyman Nash White to Cambridge NY where his father served many years as president of the Cambridge branch of Asgrow. He graduated from CCS in 1955, married Nola Davis in 1958, and earned a BA in English from Wesleyan University in 1959. His first daughter, Nancy, was born just as he was completing an MAT in 1960, followed by a move to Bennington VT where he taught at Mt. Anthony High School and welcomed his second daughter, Bonny, in 1962.

In the next decade, the family moved often as Kirby taught at a variety of schools, using the moves to see different parts of the USA: 2 years at Ricker College in Houlton, ME; 2 years at Colorado Alpine College in Steamboat Springs; 1 year in Iowa City and 1 in Oxford, IA, as he earned an MFA in fiction from the University of Iowa; and a year in the Bighorns while he taught at Sheridan College. Kirby's love of his family, of nature, and of learning and writing flourished throughout.

In 1972 he returned to Cambridge to assist his father in a start-up, Cambridge Seed Packet. Then he taught himself the skills needed to build with his wife Nola the home he lived in until he died with brief stints living in the Albany area while he worked on the development of the Albany Land Trust and founding and further developing the Albany Community Loan Fund.

For many years he worked with the Institute for Community Economics, helping to support local community land trusts (CLTs) that enabled low-income people to gain homeownership and empowered marginalized communities to control the use and development of their land. To this day, anyone who has worked with CLTs has benefited from the books, legal manuals, and newsletters that Kirby edited and co-authored for the Institute for Community Economics and, later, for Equity Trust.

A lifelong writer, Kirby published 4 novels later in life. Three are mysteries that center around property rights issues, set in the Albany area and the Adirondacks. The 4th, realistic fiction about a Vermont community in the wake of Hurricane Irene, demonstrates how deeply he cared about the natural environment and the lives of those around him.

In between working long hours on the causes that occupied the second half of his life, Kirby would plan trips away from his desk into the solitude, silence, and vast expanses of unspoiled nature: his native habitat.

He spent weeks canoeing in the wilderness of northern Canada and hundreds of days exploring just about every waterway of the Adirondacks. These trips nourished his spirit. He loved taking friends and family along, if they could handle the physical challenges and the quiet for as long as he could. Those who joined him on such expeditions still savor the time spent in these untouched places with a man who knew how to listen: to his fellow humans, to the universe, to the water and the wind.

Kirby approached much of life with the same philosophy he brought to the wilderness he so loved: first, do no harm; appreciate everything just as it is, but never sit by when wrong is being done; lastly, leave no trace. But the traces he leaves behind now are profound. Thousands of families are able to own their own homes because of his work, housing activists around the country have benefited from his writing and editing in their field, and his friends and family will always cherish the kind, humorous, thoughtful boy and man he was.

Private services will be held.

To express your sympathy or share a memory of Kirby, please visit www.gariepyfuneralhomes.com

Arrangements have been entrusted to the Ackley, Ross & Gariepy Funeral Home in Cambridge.