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Solomon J. Upbin, loving husband, father

January 23, 2023
Solomon J. Upbin, 83, of Lewes, passed away Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023. Sol had a long career as a prominent corporate tax adviser in New York before retiring to Steamboat Springs, Colo., in 1995. He and his wife Jeanne moved to Lewes in 2021. Sol was fiercely intelligent, witty, charming, and could converse with anyone. He lived for his family, read mysteries and histories voraciously, relished good delicatessen, and valiantly fought to improve his 25 golf handicap.

Sol was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., March 21, 1939, the second of three sons of Mortimer and Celia Upbin (nee Slater) of Tehama Street. He lived the textbook Brooklyn boyhood: egg creams, doo-wop, street stickball, and summers (and disappointing autumns) at Ebbets Field. He graduated from Erasmus Hall High School in Flatbush and attended the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University before transferring to New York University, where he graduated first in his class in financial accounting. He met his first wife, Michele, while they were camp counselors in the Catskills, and they started a family in Cedarhurst, N.Y., after his brief stint in the Army National Guard in the early 1960s. 

He was named one of the youngest associates to ever make a partner at Arthur Andersen, where he worked the next 30 years, ultimately becoming Northeast regional managing partner and head of its Capital Markets Group.

He married Jeanne Kallman in 1981 after being set up by good friends. It was a loving relationship that endured for the next 42 years, including six dogs, two cats, and a handful of horses. Jeanne brought out the inner rancher in Sol, who gamely took up hay farming, riding, hiking, and the Texas two-step. In addition to Jeanne, he is survived by his children, Lori Abrams, Leslie Paparo, Bruce Upbin and David Upbin; and stepson, Craig Kallman; along with 10 grandchildren, Lucy, Nicholas, Annie, Isaac, Willie, Charlie, Eli, Ryland, Garrett and Eliza. He is also preceded in death by his brothers, Sanford and Harry.

A memorial service will be held at a later date.