Charles Ray Rigdon

FALLS VILLAGE — Charles Ray Rigdon, 69, of Falls Village, Connecticut, died unexpectedly of heart failure on the evening of Aug. 13 at home. He was the loving partner and husband of Garth Parsons Kobal for 43 years.

Ray was born in Alma, Georgia, Bacon County in 1957 to Elzie Dillard Rigdon and Ruby Mae Lee. Elzie (b. 1894) was a Great War veteran serving in the famous “All-American” 82nd Division of the 328th Infantry, the same as war hero Alvin York. Elzie was present at the conflict-ending battle of the Meuse-Argonne offensive in 1918 and sustained a shrapnel injury on Oct. 7, a critical day in the campaign that led to York’s famous capture of 132 enemy troops on Oct. 8. The war ended on armistice day, Nov. 11, 1918. Elzie remained in a hospital in France and was released in May 1919 after healing from his wounds. Elzie was 64 when Ray was born.

Ray’s family moved to Jacksonville, Florida where some of his siblings still live today. He attended Robert E. Lee High School, now renamed Riverside High School. Jacksonville was a major stopping point for the major 70s rock groups and Ray, most often barefoot, saw them all, developing lifetime passions for David Bowie, Alice Cooper, and Joni Mitchell.

Ray moved north to Connecticut in 1976 during the Bicentennial to work for Edward R. Hamilton, Bookseller in Danbury. He was the company’s first employee and served for many years as a book buyer and copywriter.

Ray, 26, met his future husband, Garth Kobal, 18, in the spring of 1983 at a gay bar in North Salem, New York. Garth had just graduated from Bethel High School. They moved in together late that summer.

In 1984, Hamilton relocated from Danbury to Falls Village. Ray asked Garth to join him and the couple took up home at the village’s railway depot, historically the station master’s quarters.

Curious to learn more about the bookselling business, the couple moved to New York City in the fall of 1987 residing in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Jersey City until 2006. Initially working for a book wholesaler on Madison Avenue, Ray co-founded a gay and lesbian book wholesale company with Garth located in an artist’s live/workspace building in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Successful for a couple of years, the couple decided they didn’t really care for running a business and relocated back to Manhattan where Ray worked for book importer, Books Britain, while Garth was hired back by Hamilton to expand the company’s relations with publishers.

The couple celebrated their 20th anniversary with a wedding at Grace Church Van Vorst in Jersey City in 2003 with the Reverand Janet Broderick Kraft officiating. The couple returned to Falls Village in 2006 with Ray joining the copywriting team at Hamilton. Ray and Garth finally achieved their dream of legal marriage on the first day that Connecticut allowed same-sex unions, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008. Their marriage license was certified by Town Clerk Mary Palmer in Falls Village and they were married steps away from town hall by Justice of the Peace Denny Jacobs in front of Jacob’s Garage.

Ray retired a few years later. After surviving liver failure in 2016, Ray devoted himself to his husband’s health culminating in Garth’s successful kidney transplant in 2023.

Born in 1957, Ray was a Sputnik baby, a part of the first TV generation. He preferred having the TV on all the time, even if it was turned down while he listened to music. In his final years, Ray was limited in his mobility due to COPD. Even so, he continued to pursue the things that he loved most – cooking, music, reading, crossword puzzles and politics – adding a late-life passion for soccer. His favorite football clubs were Liverpool and Manchester United. In the last several years, if a match was on then Ray was watching it, sometimes several at once.

Ray was a stoic. He never let on about how he felt physically and never sat in judgement of anyone he knew personally. He had an immense capacity to show tenderness with family, friends, strangers, and significantly with animals. He loved and cared for several dogs over the years, especially Joe the Shar-pei and Emmy the Bulldog, a couple that mirrored Ray and Garth, one protective and introspective, the other outgoing and social. To the very end, if a dog visited the house, they would head directly to Ray and lay at his feet.

Ray is survived by his husband Garth Kobal and his siblings Talmadge Rigdon, Sonja Rigdon, Phyllis Moyes, Patty Tate, David Rigdon and countless in-laws, nephews, nieces and cousins in the Rigdon and Kobal families. He is pre-deceased by his beloved sisters Helen Spivey and de-facto family matriarch, Mary Dimples Freeman.

In lieu of flowers and cards, memorial donations may be made in his name to David M. Hunt Library, 63 Main Street, Falls Village 06031 or at huntlibrary.org.