Longtime CMU professor of engineering
At about 5 or 6 every evening, J. Fletcher Osterle walked up the hill on Kipling Road in Squirrel Hill, briefcase in hand. His daughter remembers it vividly: Sporting dark-rimmed glasses, a brown jacket and tie, he’d wave to the kids playing kickball in the street on his way to the family home.
Down Forbes Avenue he’d go, across to Beeler Street and Wilkins Avenue before turning onto Kipling Road.
It was the end of Mr. Osterle’s mile-long walk from Carnegie Mellon University, where he taught engineering across six decades, wrote more than 100 papers and co-advised about 35 graduate students.
J. Fletcher Osterle died Friday at his home in Squirrel Hill. He was 90.
A lifelong Pittsburgh resident, Mr. Osterle graduated from Central Catholic High School in 1943. He earned a full scholarship to what was then Carnegie Tech, where he earned three degrees by 1952. From 1946 to 1995, he taught and studied engineering — a 49year run.
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“There wasn’t an arrogant bone in his body,” his daughter said. “Sometimes you had to pry it out of him, all the great things he did.”
Though he didn’t play an instrument, he took his daughter to lessons Saturday mornings. Ms. Goggin loved those times, where they shared a passion for music. “That was our connection,” she said.
Mr. Osterle’s love for music extended further. He and his wife, Jean, held season tickets to the Pittsburgh Symphony, ballet and opera for 50 years. About 100 CDs and a boom box sat on an enclosed porch at his home. Music “always” reverberated in the walls, Ms. Goggin said.
As a young girl, she’d play piano for her father. Eyes closed, he’d sit, listen and take it all in.
“He just thought it was awesome,” Ms. Goggin said. “He was envious I was able to do all of that. He loved it but couldn’t do it.”
Mr. Osterle was also an avid reader. “Always a book in his hand,” his daughter said. He read plays, mysteries, history books, newspapers and magazines daily.
Twenty years ago he lost sight in an eye, yet he continued to read with the one he had.
Two of Mr. Osterle’s brothers were priests, a fact he dearly admired.
He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Jean Peterson; two children, John Osterle of Swissvale and Ms. Goggin of Edgewood; and a brother, the Rev. Paul V. Osterle of Louisiana.
Interment and services are private. Arrangements are being handled by John A. Freyvogel Sons in Shadyside.