Michael Rodell of New Canaan, Conn and Chilmark, died after a slow decline on August 9. He was 84.

Michael was born January 11, 1941 in New Haven, Conn., the son of Fred Rodell and Katherine Cowin Rodell. He later moved to Bethany, Conn. with his father and stepmother, Janet Learned Rodell.

He attended Hopkins Grammar School and Amity Regional High School before graduating from Haverford College.

After college he spent two happy years as an early recruit in the Philippines with the Peace Corps before attending Yale Law school.

After receiving his JD degree in 1967, he started working for New York City Housing Development Corporation before moving on to Harlem Urban Development Corporation, finally finishing his career as director of development for the nonprofit Harlem Health and Housing. After retiring, he enjoyed volunteering as a driver for New Canaan’s Staying Put organization.

In August 1968, on Martha’s Vineyard, his cousin Susanna Rodell introduced him to Dorothy (Taffy) Ellsworth, both having spent much of their childhoods summering there — Taffy from age three and Mike from age 10. Both grew up in the New Haven area, so how they never met before then is a puzzle, but they made up for lost time. Five months after they met, they were married, on December 31, 1968.

After living in a fifth-floor walk-up in New York, Taffy persuaded Mike to move (with baby Matthew in a backpack) to her grandfather’s converted ice-house in New Canaan, Conn., still spending as much of their summers as possible at their house on Tisbury Great Pond in Chilmark.

Mike is survived by Taffy, their three children, Matthew (Jenna), Benjamin and Amanda (Nick), and four grandchildren.

Throughout his life, Mike was rarely seen without a camera slung around his neck and another in his hand. From high school on, he chronicled the day-to-day lives of all his family, his friends and his fellow office-mates. Each year he created the family’s Christmas card writing a limerick telling of the year’s events, illustrated with many pictures of the people he’d seen that year. He will be missed, but the 300-plus photo albums will live on.