Victor Saulsbury, a lifelong D.C. area resident. died Jan. 4.
Victor Saulsbury, a lifelong D.C. area resident who worked for 30 years as a financial analyst and writer for the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation before switching careers to become a Realtor, died Jan. 4 at the Manor Care Health Services rehabilitation center in Chevy Chase, Md., from complications associated with spinal lymphoma. He was 66.
His longtime friend, Gary Mastroddi of Philadelphia, said Saulsbury was active socially in the D.C. gay community since the 1970s and enjoyed spending time in the summer in Rehoboth Beach, Del., and Provincetown, Mass.
He said Saulsbury, an only child, was born and raised in D.C. as the son of Lewis J. Saulsbury and Dorothy Graury. He received his primary and secondary education in D.C.-area military schools.
According to Mastroddi, Saulsbury graduated cum laude from Georgetown University in 1973 with a bachelor’s degree in economics. He received a master’s degree in business administration from George Washington University in 1976.
After completing college he worked for the Western Union communications company before beginning work in 1974 for the FDIC as a financial analyst and author, where he wrote numerous technical papers and articles on the banking industry and banking regulation. His career at the FDIC lasted for 30 years.
An online search shows that his name appears on a wide variety of articles as a contributor on topics such as problems associated with the Savings and Loan industry and bank failures.
Mastroddi said Saulsbury retired from his job at the FDIC in 2004 and took a year off to travel before obtaining a real estate license and beginning a new career as a real estate broker at the Long & Foster realty office in Georgetown. Five years later, in 2009, he retired “for good” and, among other things, pursued his love for travel, Mastroddi said.
Italy and France, along with his favorite get-away destinations in Rehoboth Beach and Provincetown, were among the places to which he traveled in his retirement years, said Mastroddi.
Beginning in the 1970s, Saulsbury became a behind-the-scenes supporter of LGBT rights causes, assisting in fundraising efforts for LGBT groups in D.C., Philadelphia, and New York, Mastroddi said.
“He lost a lot of friends to AIDS and also helped in fundraising for AIDS organizations,” Mastroddi told the Washington Blade.
Mastroddi said Saulsbury cared for his mother, his only surviving relative, until she passed away in 2014.
He said Saulsbury lived in a house he bought in 1974 on Corcoran Street, N.W. until he sold the house in 2009 and moved into an apartment in the Crystal City section of Arlington where he remained until he became ill last year following a diagnosis of lymphoma of the spinal cord.
Mastroddi said Saulsbury underwent complicated spinal surgery last September and was admitted to the Manor Care rehabilitation facility in Chevy Chase in October, but complications related to the cancer and its treatment took its toll on him. A short time later he was transferred to a hospice unit at the Manor Care facility.
“He was witty and intelligent and he was an amazing writer,” said Mastroddi in commenting on Saulsbury from the many years Mastroddi and his and partner, Ettore Mastroddi, have known him.
“He said I am fine with moving on. I’m tired,” Gary Mastroddi quoted Saulsbury as saying a short time before his passing. “But he said we had a wonderful life. I enjoyed every moment of it.”
Mastroddi said Saulsbury is survived by many friends in D.C., Rehoboth Beach, and Philadelphia, among other places, including Mastroddi and his partner and longtime D.C. gay activists Paul Kuntzler and Richard Maulsby.
Plans for what Mastroddi said would be an informal memorial service among friends, in accordance with Saulsbury’s wishes, would be announced sometime soon.
