Alden Wilfrid Brosseau
June 6, 1927 - March 10, 2024
Alden Wilfrid Brosseau, 96, passed away peacefully at home, in Sonoma Valley on Sunday, March 10, 2024. Born in North Adams, in the Berkshires of western Mass. – Alden was the eldest child of Ernest and Elizabeth Brosseau, and grew up in nearby Pittsfield.
Alden is survived by the “light of his life” his wife of over 71 years, Elaine Caulfield Brosseau; brother, (Ernest) William Brosseau (Anne); cousin, Margaret (Peggy) Louise McKane; children, Geoffrey Alden Brosseau (Shelley), Stephen Clarke Brosseau (Rung), Amy Brosseau Porter, and Andrew Caulfield Brosseau (Heather); grandchildren, Spencer Thomas Klugherz (Travis), Paige Elaine Klugherz (Scott), Julia Carol Brosseau (Jon), and Hayley Anne Brosseau; and nine nieces and nephews. Elaine continues to live in Sonoma Valley, surrounded by her children and grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his parents, sisters, Susanne Elizabeth Brosseau Rupp (Nevin) and (Mary) Judith Brosseau Brown (Paul); son-in-law, Robert Small Porter; and grandson, Daniel Alden Brosseau.
Proud of his lineage, Alden carried the family surnames of two of the earliest pioneers of North America. He was a ninth great-grandson of pilgrims, John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, and a seventh great-grandson of Denis Brosseau, one of the first European settlers of “New France” (Canada).
Alden excelled academically, graduating first in his class from Pittsfield High School. He was in the top 5% of his class at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and graduated summa cum laude from Boston University School of Business Administration. Alden served as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army during the Korean War – training thousands of soldiers.
Following college and military service, Alden started his business career in N.Y., then onto Ill., Calif., Miss., Iowa, and Texas. After a successful 43-year career, including chief executive for half a dozen large insurance companies, Alden returned with Elaine to their home in the Sonoma Valley. Speaking about retirement, Alden declared that the next chapter in his life was not a question of what he wanted to do, but who he wanted to be.
Throughout his life, Alden was deeply involved in his community – volunteering and often chairing the governing boards of local civic, educational, and service organizations.
Alden was a student of management – believing true managers have the security to “do through others.” He believed every job has a personality and the manager’s task is to match as closely as possible, the personality of the person with the personality of the job. His mantra was “selection, selection, selection.”
Alden was a super-supporter. To have him in your corner was to have at your disposal all the information and resources he could provide, unconditionally. He received great satisfaction in helping others and delighted in the joy that their achievements and successes brought to them.
Alden was a lifelong learner. An advocate of self-education, he often remarked “You learn something new every day.” In fact, he started a blog labeled “LSNED”. He was also a lifelong teacher – as a young aquatics instructor and coach through teaching management systems and into his late 80s after he got his teaching credential so he could teach and mentor kids.
Around Sonoma Valley, he was best known as “Mr. B”, to the countless kids he taught and mentored, the local businesses he frequented, and the doctors and nurses who kept him going and helped him get the most out of his one body.
Alden was a fearless adopter of new ideas and technologies. He had makes of cars before seemingly anyone else – and not one but two electric cars. He went digital, solar, and electric, long before they were popular.
Alden was always looking for an opportunity to save time and effort – whether it was using a Dvorak keyboard, backing his car in right next to the exit from the Oakland Coliseum parking lot for fast getaways, or limiting almost any document to one page or less – the written equivalent of the elevator speech.
He strongly believed in not wasting one’s potential and often cited the Socrates quote “The unexamined life is not worth living,” when encouraging others to regularly assess whether they were optimizing their talents.
He loved music and art – amassing a significant collection of jazz albums, as well as fine art pieces. He played and taught chess and tackled the highest levels of mind games, like acrostics and sudokus. He wrote haikus and he loved to dance – meeting his wife Elaine at a YWCA dance in Boston.
Alden was a mathematician – inventing a system of teaching basic math called Math Facts, in which children become literate in math (numbers and arithmetic operations) akin to becoming literate in language (words and sentences).
He was a natural competitor – turning almost any activity into a competition, most times with himself to do better. Alden was a tennis player, swimmer, tricyclist, ice skater, rollerblader, and runner—swimming a cumulative 100 miles every summer, tri-cycling the backroads of the Sonoma Valley and Sacramento’s American River Bike Trail, and using his treadmill until the week before his death.
Alden was a passionate sports fan – especially of the Boston Celtics and Army. He watched every Celtics game and never missed the annual Army-Navy football game – “living” or “dying” with every Army victory or loss.
Alden’s zest for life and perpetual drive to excel were a gift to all who knew him. He didn’t stop and he gave everyone the strong impression that he never would. He was always ahead of his time. So, it may sound like an oxymoron, but it is so. His death at 96 was truly untimely.
Above all in Alden’s life was family. His last words: “Mine has been a blessed life.”
A Celebration of Alden’s Life will be held at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, Sonoma at 2:00 p.m., Saturday, March 23, 2024.
In lieu of flowers, we suggest a donation to the Sonoma La Luz Center or the Sonoma Charter School.