Life lost one of its greatest champions earlier this month when John Victor Bardes, 47, of Warren, died December 6, 2015, after an illness. He is survived by his wife of 15 years, Cynthia (Cindy) Bond; his three children, John Henry, Cary and Kerna, of Warren; and his brother, David, and David’s fiancée, Sandra Mori, of Boston, Massachusetts, and Lincoln.
A proud Vermont native who returned to live in his beloved Mad River Valley in 2014, John enhanced the lives of all who knew him with his humor, compassion, integrity and a seemingly boundless love, often manifested by rib-threatening bear hugs. His sometimes larger-than-life demeanor belied a deeply thoughtful, creative and tender soul fiercely devoted to friends and, mostly, family.
John was born in Burlington and moved to Warren from North Fayston at the age of 10. He attended Harwood Union High School and the University of Vermont. He moved to the Boston area after college and lived with Cindy and their children in the Fort Hill neighborhood of Roxbury, Massachusetts, and in Lexington, Massachusetts, before returning to Warren.
Employed as an architectural assessor by VFA since 2008, John was a talented and exacting carpenter who worked with his brother for many years. He painstakingly rebuilt his Roxbury row house into a beautiful home for his family.
Beyond work, John excelled in a dizzying range of activities, writing, dancing, singing, cartooning and cooking among them. Friends recall his deceptively smooth Cosmopolitan cocktails and his nearly mystical ability to reanimate nonfunctioning machines with a single touch. He skied and ran cross-country; on the morning of his wedding John ran up Burnt Rock Mountain in Fayston, a beloved spot and one of his high school training routes.
John loved Vermont and the Mad River Valley, the Warren Fourth of July, his weeks on Nantucket and his friends and extended family. He was wholeheartedly devoted to Cindy, John Henry, Cary and Kerna.
John is predeceased by his father, John Henry Bardes; his mother, Avril Patricia Jowers Bardes; and his sister, Kerna Bardes.
Memorial services will be held December 20, 2015, at the Round Barn in Waitsfield (1661 East Warren Road) at 1:30 p.m. and January 2, 2016, at Pilgrim Congregational Church (55 Coolidge Avenue) in Lexington, Massachusetts, at 2 p.m.
To contribute to an educational fund for John Henry, Cary and Kerna Bond-Bardes, visit http://go.fidelity.com/nhf6.
