George Kane, 104, investor inspired by Maine camp

The retreat on Long Pond in East Parsonsfield was closed the two previous summers, in 1917 because of World War I and the following year in deference to the flu epidemic. His arrival made such an impression, however, that he was still regaling campers with the warm memory during each annual alumni week well into his late 90s.

“He told the story that when he first saw Long Pond, his heart skipped a beat,’’ said Bill Margolin, executive director of West End House Camp. “And even years later he’d say that when he sees Long Pond on a visit, his heart still skips a beat.’’

Mr. Kane, a banker and financier who credited Boston’s West End House Boys and Girls Club with helping set a young immigrant on the path to success, died Tuesday in his home in the Back Bay. He was 104 and had remained comparatively healthy until a couple of bouts with pneumonia in his final weeks.

“On this 100th birthday, he said he couldn’t give any reasons why he lived so long, but he thought reading and walking helped,’’ said his daughter, Ann Kane Collier of Boston. “He walked everywhere and rode a stationary bike until he was at least 101.’’

Mr. Kane, she said, “never seemed old, and one thing I found interesting was that he didn’t regret the past or resent any of the new inventions. He had this wonderful sort of cosmic approach to life, to stand back and realize he was a tiny, tiny cog in this universe. I think that’s what kept him humble.’’

His beginnings were modest, arriving at 2 with his family from Vilnius, Lithuania. Mr. Kane was the second oldest of six children, and his father ran a fish market as the children grew up in the West End.

Graduating from Bentley College in 1925, Mr. Kane went to work for a furniture store, his daughter said. At the store, she said, he met Sally Smith, the owner’s daughter, and they married in 1929.

“She was a great influence in his life,’’ their daughter said. “She introduced him to some aspects of culture he didn’t know, but he just had a way with things, anyway. He taught himself French, for instance. And if we were taking piano lessons, then he learned. He just wanted to learn everything.’’

In the early 1940s, Mr. Kane and his brother-in-law, Charles E. Smith, founded Kane Financial Corp., a lending company that later turned to equity investing. In 1968, Kane Financial purchased a majority interest in Garden City Trust Co. of Newton. CNA Financial Corp. of Chicago acquired Kane Financial the following year.

Mr. Kane “was very sharp, very good at reading people’s character,’’ his daughter said, “and he was often the very first to be willing to loan money to people with new ideas.’’

In the late 1970s, Mr. Kane’s son, Louis, who had worked with him at Kane Financial, purchased the Au Bon Pain bread and croissant shop in Faneuil Hall Marketplace and expanded it into a chain, with Mr. Kane serving on the board. Mr. Kane also served on the board of Panera Bread, formerly a part of the Au Bon Pain company.

In 2002, Fortune magazine reported that Mr. Kane appeared to be the oldest corporate director in the country, having been reelected to a three-year term on Panera’s board at 96.

Referring to the longtime US senator from South Carolina, Fortune said: “This Strom Thurmond of corporate America serves on the board’s audit and nominating committees and was on the compensation committee until this year. Unlike Strom, he has not promised he won’t run again.’’

Serving as a longtime trustee for Bentley College and West End House Boys and Girls Club, Mr. Kane raised money to expand facilities at places he believed had helped him to succeed. At Bentley, Mr. Kane endowed the George E. and Louis I. Kane professorship in finance.

Mr. Kane’s wife died in 1996, and his son died in 2000.

“I think the biggest blow in my father’s life besides my mother’s death was my brother’s death, and he survived it so gracefully,’’ his daughter said.

For Mr. Kane, a century of memories, along with participation on boards, kept him vital.

At 99, he returned again to the camp in Maine that captured his youthful imagination. The journey in 2004 was much less adventurous than the one he faced 85 years earlier.

Back then, campers took a boat from Boston to Portland, Maine, then a train inland to Cornish. The camp’s custodian fetched them with a hay wagon for the last several miles, though riders had to get out and help push the cart if the horse had trouble cresting a hill.

“I was stuffing envelopes with one of the kids once,’’ Margolin said, “and he asked me, ‘Who is Mr. Kane?’ I said, ‘He is Mr. West End House,’ and that was 30 years ago. He never forgot his roots; he never forgot the people who helped him out.’’

When Mr. Kane spoke to campers, “there was a sense of history speaking, and once he was gone, that history would no longer be heard,’’ Margolin said. “It’s really the end of an era, now that he’s gone.’’

With the slightest urging, Mr. Kane could slip gently into stories of the past.

“He told me he remembered as a small boy reading the headlines when the Titanic went down,’’ his daughter said. “Up until about a year ago, you could ask him about anything, and he remembered people, figures, events - he remembered it all.’’

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Kane leaves six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held 1 p.m. today at Temple Emanuel in Newton. Burial will be in Adath Jeshurun Cemetery in West Roxbury.