Allen Craig Seufert, 69, of Meredith, died on April 6 at his home following a short illness.
He was born in Franklin on April 11, 1954, the son of the late Commander Robert A. Seufert, U.S. Coast Guard Retired, and the late Janice Smith Seufert, an award-winning poet. The oldest of three sons in a military family, Craig and the family would move frequently, living on or near Coast Guard bases in Florida, Hawaii, and New York City before they settled in Newtown, Connecticut, and finally in New Hampton and Meredith in the 1970s.
Craig was a graduate of New Hampton School in the Class of 1972, and he attended the University of New Hampshire and Plymouth State University before training and becoming a licensed real estate appraiser. He worked as an appraiser for two local companies in the 1970s and then opened his own successful business, Saddle Hill Appraisals in Meredith. The company became his career, and he was appraising homes until the day he died.
He was known for his extensive music collection and his wealth of knowledge of popular music in the last century. He loved the creator of western swing, Bob Wills, as well as other legends like Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, and Les Paul. He was a fan of the Beatles, the Kinks, NRBQ, and King Crimson. In the 1980s he discovered African music artists like Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba, and King Sunny Ade. In the 1990s he adopted New Orleans jazz and cajun music, artists such as the Neville Brothers, the Radiators, Buckwheat Zydeco, Zachary Richard and Doctor John.
He was also an avid radio listener, and particularly a shortwave radio expert. With his powerful radios and antennas, he found numerous, sometimes obscure overseas broadcasters and corresponded with them via mail. He also played clarinet and drums, and was an enthusiastic fan of all the Boston sports teams, particularly the Red Sox and the Bruins. Despite living in New England Patriots’ territory, Craig was a die-hard New Orleans Saints football fan.
He was predeceased by his mother and father, and a brother, Robert Stephen Seufert, who died in 1994. He is survived by brother Daniel C. Seufert and his sister-in-law, Dan’s wife Pamela Seufert, also of Meredith, and many loving Seufert, Smith, and Linn aunts, uncles, and cousins.
A New Orleans-style memorial service will be held in New Hampton village in late July.
