Inducted in 2009
Banking Executive
Member, Prep Board of Trustees (1996-2002)

Induction Video

James Golden Kane was born in 1926, the son of Helen Golden Kane, a homemaker, and George Kane, a member of the New York City Fire Department.  

Jim would attend Public School 72 on Dewey Avenue before making his away across the Bronx to Rose Hill.  The first graduate of that institution ever to make his way onto the Prep rosters, Kane knew that Fordham was the high school for him from the very beginning — the day he took the entrance exam, in those days given in an amphitheater in the newly constructed Keating Hall. 

During his Fordham Prep days, James would commute by trolley from his home on Quincy Avenue in Throggs Neck — a part of his high school experience that Kane would always look back on nostalgically.

At the start of his Prep career, one of the first teachers to help orient Jim to life at Hughes Hall was a scholastic, then-Mr. Victor Yanitelli, SJ, Class of 1933, a fellow member of the Fordham Prep Hall of Honor.  By Kane's estimation, connections like these made Fordham Prep the very special place it was for him — connections that embodied the Jesuit notion of cura personalis long before the superior of the Society had even distilled their notion of an engaged spirituality into the single phrase.

James was a four-year trackman during his Hughes Hall years, as well as a member of the Chemistry Club. He was also involved in some of the social aspects of Prep life, helping to organize dances and other events — a huge part of teenage culture in those days. But most important to Kane during his Prep years were the ways in which he was able to deepen his faith.  A devoted member of the Sodalities, Kane would take the Jesuits' lessons of the life of St. Ignatius to heart: lessons he would carry with him throughout his adult life.

Eager to serve his country, Jim enlisted in the military during the Second World War soon after his graduation from the Prep. Stationed in the Pacific, Kane would return once more to his beloved Rose Hill Campus and attend the university once his service was complete.
 
After graduating from Fordham College in 1951, Jim followed his father’s advice and entered the field of banking. He was accepted into the Executive Training Program at Chemical Bank. Specializing in credit management, he was assigned to various institutions in Manhattan and Rockland County, eventually establishing credit departments at several banks in Rockland County. In 1966, he left Chemical to work at the Peekskill Savings Bank, where he eventually became president. In 1982, Jim merged the bank with two others to form Peoples Westchester Savings Bank and was named executive vice president and chief financial officer.

He retired in 1994.
 
Kane always showed remarkable devotion and generosity to the Prep. He served two terms on the Board of Trustees, was a member of the Consecutive 20-Year Giving Club and was a fixture at many Prep alumni events, most notably the Alumni-Senior Breakfast, the President’s Dinner and the Wall Street Forum. He was the featured speaker at the 2007 Alumni-Senior Breakfast, where he shared his thoughts on the importance of his Prep education in his life. 

Jim Kane was also very involved beyond the gates of the Rose Hill Campus, serving on the boards of a number of institutions, including the Hudson Valley Hospital, and as a founding coordinator of the annual Putnam County Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick Dinner.
 
But Jim's love of family superseded all. In a wedding presided over by his long-ordained former teacher, James married Carol Mortensen in 1951 — a move he would always say was the best he ever made. They raised five children, three of whom were baptized by Yanitelli. In time, Jim and Carol would have 12 grandchildren, enough to keep their Putnam Valley home full of joy, warmth and laughter all their days. 

James Golden Kane passed away in 2020.