Roy Douglas Marshall

Roy Douglas Marshall, “Doug,” 82 of East Berne, passed away after a brief battle with cancer on December 25, 2025 with family at his bedside.

After graduating Voorheesville High School, Doug attended Illinois Wesleyan where he met and married the love of his life Margaret Lorraine “Midge” Rowley, before settling back home in Slingerlands, NY. He enjoyed a long career as president of his family’s air conditioning and refrigeration wholesaling business, the R.D. Marshall & Co., Inc, at 1 Marshall Place. He was a member and president of ARW, Albany Rotary, and recently joined Kiwanis.

After selling the business, he founded Marshall Sales Agency serving New England, a profession that allowed him to regularly visit his NH grandchildren, before he and Midge moved down to her father’s home in NC in 2014. Once there he embarked on his third career as a Realtor for Caldwell Banker while also working as a volunteer in the Cardiac Rehab Program at Moore Regional Hospital. After Midge’s passing, he returned to NY in 2022.

An avid boater, Doug earned his captain’s license, piloting boats on lakes, the Hudson and the Mississippi, the Erie Canal from end to end, and the ocean, but the place that held his heart was the small lake camp up in the Hilltowns that he built with his family when he was 9 years old. He was a hot-dogging water skier, record setting swimmer, and could drive a boat as casually as walking down a street.

He loved broadly, had a booming laugh, and a resonant voice. A quick wit and gifted writer, he wrote many Old Men of the Mountain columns for the Altamont Enterprise.

Doug had a strong service ethos, and was always ready to help a person in need. He would gas up and plow a neighbor’s driveway, bring groceries to a food pantry, or lend his considerable muscles to a friend.

He leaves behind sister Janet Sue Erickson and her husband Jerry Erickson, daughter Cynthia Marshall St. Jean and son-in-law James David St. Jean, daughter Pamela Sue Marshall, and grandsons James Douglas and Christopher Ryan St. Jean. He was pre-deceased by his wife Midge Marshall, his parents Richard Douglas and Ellen Broughton Marshall, and sister Jo Ellen Marshall.

The family will receive visitors at Applebee Funeral Home 403 Kenwood Ave. Delmar, NY on Saturday, January 17, 2026 from 1-4, with a time for sharing beginning at 3PM.