Robert M. Russell
March 8, 1933-–May 8, 2017
Robert M. Russell of Berkeley, Ca. died Monday May 8, 2017 at the age of 84. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, spent his childhood all over the Midwest and moved to the Bay Area after graduating from University of Michigan in January 1956. He has lived here for the past 60 years. He is survived by his wife Leslie Month, his sons Thaddeus and Jacob (Mollie), his grandchildren Toby and Tristan, a great grandson James, his sister Reta Lancaster (Richard) and brother Bill (Lois), and several nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grandnephews. Another brother Dave died ten years ago.
He was very active in the civil rights movement and was very proud of his contributions which were an inspiration to his sons. He was also one of the pioneers of computer programming, working from the mid 1950’s to the present. Besides teaching the first computer programming class at the computing center in U. C. Berkeley he worked for the Forest Service as a computer programmer, founded Leora Software with Jackie Robertson, worked at Mare Island and volunteered his computer skills to the Wednesdays on Mt. Tam hiking group and everyone else who asked. His career as a computer programmer carried over into his daily life. He was constantly debugging life and documenting everything. His home was filled with little bookmarks he made inscribed with his favorite quotations. He had a wonderful life with his wife and companion of 32 years. They enjoyed hiking, bicycling, camping, traveling, photography as well as mathematics and science and music. His favorite composer was Schubert and he often cried listening to Schubert’s Impromptus or Strauss waltzes.
His curiosity was insatiable. He was an astronomy and space travel buff. He loved to tell the story of the day he watched Sputnik fly overhead when he was at Fort Ord. He was also a World War II buff and recently spent an hour hanging his P-51 Mustang airplane model from the living room ceiling, at the perfect height so that he could walk under it with the airplane just buzzing him. He was an engineer at heart. Nothing pleased him more than the process of design to creation of his gadgets, repairs, and carpentry projects.
He had a great smile, chuckle and sense of humor, a Russell family trait– his father was a great prankster. In Robert’s youth he liked to go to parties wearing his tee–shirt that read “Chief Anarchist”. His wife will miss the way he woke up each morning with a spontaneous most beautiful smile as he looked at her with such happiness and joy of life. It is a testament to his kindness and generosity of spirit that everyone who knew him will miss him.
The most influential books in his life were I Wonder Why, a gift he received when he was 8 years old and he kept for the rest of his life; Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian; Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of our Nature; and Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth. He greatly admired and loved reading and talking about Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, Charles Darwin (whose pictures were prominently displayed on the refrigerator), Bill Bryson and Paul Krugman. The last books he was reading were The Book that Changed America: How Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation, and The Polar Regions.
In his last days he was in constant company of family and friends. Photographs of family and friends, and his model airplane surrounded his bedside. He would like to say thank you to all his friends and give a special hug and kiss to his sons Jacob and Thaddeus, his friends Craig and Dale and Bernice, and his sisters–in–law Stacy and Nina.
His three favorite quotes summarize who he is. He was a good man.
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Charles Darwin’s final paragraph of The Origin of Species
The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that makes life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living it is fragile. Richard Dawkins Unweaving the Rainbow May the Sun bring you new energy by day.
May the Moon softly restore you by night.
May the rain wash away your worries.
May the breeze blow new strength into your being.
May you walk gently through the world
and know its beauty all the days of your life. –Apache blessing Donations can be made to The Center for Inquiry or the California Academy of Sciences