Louis A Kaye

Louis Kaye, 81, of Amesbury, MA, passed away on May 1st, 2025 after a lengthy illness. His warmth, good humor, lively spirit, and radiant joy will be deeply missed.

Louis was born in Bridgeport, CT, on July 3rd, 1943, to Louis Sr. and Yoly (Tassinari) Kaye. He was a wartime baby whose father was overseas with the 14th Airforce (the “Flying Tigers”) in Burma and China. After the war, the family built their life in Bridgeport: Louis attended Black Rock School followed by Bassick High School, where he enjoyed good friends and playing trumpet.

Louis then served as a U.S. Navy musician during the Vietnam Era, graduating from the U.S. Navy School of Music as a trumpet player. His first two years of service were spent in the admiral’s division on the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the world. With her two nuclear-powered sister ships, the Enterprise took part in Operation Sea Orbit, completing the first un-refueled round-the-world cruise of a Nuclear Task Force. As a USS Enterprise band member during Operation Sea Orbit, Louis performed for crew, international officials and dignitaries, TV shows, festivals, and other venues in many countries. He served as master of ceremonies on occasion, solemnly played taps at other times, and participated in workshops and mentoring of musicians in host countries — a means through which the band served as goodwill ambassadors. Louis spent a further two years stationed with the Navy Band at the South Station Naval Annex in Boston. There, he played R&B drums, solo and lead trumpet, and again served as an occasional MC before being honorably discharged in 1966 as a Musician Third Class.

During his military years, Louis had become a member of the Baha'i faith; after his service, he became an active Baha’i in Boston while living and working there, and also served for a time as a Baha’i Youth coordinator in southern Connecticut.

By 1970, Louis had moved to southern Africa to pioneer as a Baha’i. He first lived in Zimbabwe, at that time Rhodesia, where he worked in logistics, distribution, and management for a large commercial food and durable goods company. In 1972, he moved to the newly established mining town Selebi Phikwe, Botswana, where his job was developing and training staff to run a supermarket catering to a varied clientele within the local mining community, including white South Africans who needed to acclimate to living and working alongside black Africans, as well as Germans, English, and others with varied tastes in food and exposure to other cultures. He engaged the United Nations Development Programme and USAID as well as local town and mine officials to help ensure the Selebi Phikwe Consumers Cooperative Society was well run and financially viable.

Louis often recalled the extremity of the challenge: in those days, Botswana had scarcely 40 miles of paved road in total, and little in the way of telephone service where he was located.

In 1972, Louis was also recruited to oversee community services for the township and mine, including housing and mess halls. Here, as well, he worked intensively to prepare white South Africans accustomed to apartheid for life in multiracial, multicultural Botswana where black and white shift bosses, foremen, and the like lived side by side. It was his duty to promote good relationships through personal contact alone. As he recalled, there were no programs in place and little time to develop them as mining infrastructure, housing, roads and other hallmarks of development were happening at once.

By 1975, Louis had moved to Gaborone, Botswana’s capital, to work for the Botswana Development Corporation, where his assignment was to develop and manage the Botswana Craft Marketing Company. He oversaw all aspects of getting rural crafts exposed to international markets, working again with UN as well as US and Canadian support. He also took up music again, playing lead trumpet in a trio at the local casino, and playing in Gaborone’s symphony orchestra.

In 1982, Louis spent a year as a consultant to the Ministry of Agriculture, traveling throughout rural Botswana to identify wildlife foods and crafts with marketable potential to positively enhance the rural cash economy. Louis admired Botswana’s thoughtful management of wildlife resources in harmony with grassroots local economies, as well as other good fiscal, social, and environmental policies to which Botswana was committed. He also remembered with fondness and reverence his time spent with Botswana’s rural people, in particular the Bushmen (Basarwa) of the Kalahari Desert. Louis continued in related fields from 1983 to 1986 working for Botswana Game Industries, which ran a well managed, government-licensed game and safari concern.

With Botswana in prolonged drought during the 1980s, Louis identified a need for better water conservation and conveyance for rural agriculture, and set about finding and implementing solutions. In 1987, he founded Hydrocon to manufacture water storage tanks and liners that were resistant to corrosion and user friendly for farmers. He opened a factory providing generous wages and benefits to the local population, and introduced the Israeli firm Netafim’s innovative drip irrigation systems to Botswana. He recruited donor agency support from the UN and USAID, and educated farmers and government ministers about the benefits of drip irrigation for improving crop yields while drastically reducing agricultural water use. After selling Hydrocon and moving back to the U.S. in 1992, Louis was happy to know that the company continued to expand to meet Botswana’s agricultural needs, and does so to this day.

Throughout his years in Botswana and Zimbabwe, Louis took part with other Baha’is in advancing the religion’s goals of multiracial unity and world peace. He was an especially devoted and active Baha'i in Botswana at both local and national levels, including as a member of the National Spiritual Assembly, attending conferences, visiting Baha’i holy places in Israel, and taking part in hosting visiting Baha’is from abroad.

Once back in the U.S., Louis took courses at U Mass and worked for several real estate companies. He then founded Inn Street Realty, a boutique real estate company in Cambridge, MA, where he again put his multicultural skillset to use with an international clientele consisting mainly of visiting scholars and graduate students from Harvard’s Kennedy, Business, and Law schools as well as from MIT.

Louis retired from real estate around 2010, after which he devoted more time to reading all manner of history - biographical, nautical, military, etc. Out of this hobby came an encore career giving historical tours on land and water in Boston — first for Super Tours and then Boston Duck Tours, from which he retired after the 2021 season. Louis enjoyed having the chance to combine his love of being on the water and of Boston history with his gift for being an entertaining host.

For someone as active as Louis, finally being retired in 2022 meant long trail and beach walks, enjoying good food, watching his favorite PBS shows and documentaries, visits to Canada, and participating in Baha’i gatherings online and in person — all these despite increasing challenges brought on by his progressing Parkinson’s disease. His declining health eventually made these much loved activities no longer possible, but Louis had certainly lived a full and impactful life by that time.

Louis is survived by his best friend and loving wife of 28 years Nannci Willson and their son Matthew Kaye; by his sister Nancy Kaye; by his children from his first marriage Ian (and his wife Katalin), Melanie, and Jeffrey, and by six grandchildren. He will also be dearly missed by Nannci’s extended family in Canada, by good friends, and by the Baha'i community near and far to whom he remained deeply devoted.

Much gratitude to the dedicated, caring staff at Advinia Care Country Center in Newburyport as well as to his prior in-home team from Tufts Home Healthcare, and to his primary care provider for over 25 years Dr. Deborah Bershel at Davis Square Family Practice. A graveside burial service will take place at 1 p.m. on Monday May 5th, 2025 at the Bartlett Cemetery, located behind the Macy-Colby House at 257 Main St., Amesbury, MA.

A graveside service will take place at 1 p.m. on Monday, May 5th, 2025 at Bartlett Cemetery, located behind the Macy-Colby House at 257 Main St., Amesbury, MA. Arrangements were by Paul C. Rogers Family Funeral Home, 2 Hillside Avenue, Amesbury, MA 01913.