Jeffry Wisnia

Jeffry Arnold Wisnia, 89, who possessed a brilliant brain, a wicked wit, and an ability to connect with others despite a stoic exterior, died on January 3, 2026. He had been in declining health, and passed away peacefully at his Winchester, MA, home with his beloved wife of 47 years, Judith, by his side.

A San Francisco native, Wisnia was an only child who as a young teen found others to chat with by becoming a ham radio enthusiast. He communicated with fellow “hams” across the country and the world, including service members far from home in the years immediately after World War II. In some cases Jeffry was able to link up soldiers by phone with their families, sweethearts, and spouses, and he later installed a ham radio in his first car as well. One high school friend remembered Jeffry exclaiming “CQ CQ Calling CQ” – the familiar ham signal greeting -- as they cruised through Golden Gate Park.

Swapping coasts to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1953, Wisnia lived within a few miles of his alma mater’s Cambridge campus for the rest of his life -- with the exception of one academic year at the University of Pennsylvania. By age 22, he had already earned both his bachelor’s (from MIT) and his master’s (from Penn) degrees in electrical engineering, a field he would work in the next four decades.

Jeffry’s keen intellect and mischievousness both shined bright in those years. In keeping with MIT hacker culture, he joined buddies in climbing atop a building and attaching an apostrophe to a neon sign advertising “Heinz 57 Varieties” – thus briefly immortalizing their Class of ’57. When not in class or up to such hijinks he worked repairing equipment at The Listening Post, a hi-fi store in Harvard Square, where he participated in the introduction of stereo sound to recorded music. Among the store’s regular customers was retired Boston Red Sox catcher Moe Berg, an Ivy League-educated attorney who spoke many languages and served as a spy during World War II. Not one to suffer fools gladly, Berg quickly recognized Jeffry as a young man of remarkable talents and intelligence and befriended the teenage technician.

Although Wisnia’s own military service did not extend beyond a ROTC stint at MIT, he aided his country early in his engineering career while working for a company that helped construct rockets. At the height of the Cold War, in the spring and summer of 1962, he traveled to the South Pacific as part of Joint Task Force Eight to participate in Operation Dominic – in which rockets were shot into the sky to “sniff” the atmosphere after nuclear bomb tests and gauge the possibility of humans surviving a Russian attack. He rarely spoke of such exploits, and eschewed invitations to join the Mensa

High IQ society or attend Harvard Business School (despite acing the entrance exam). He was happy living the quiet life of an engineer who tinkered in his basement workshop on nights and weekends and enjoyed a variety of hobbies including scuba diving, collecting model trains, and amateur car rallying.

The last of these was a craze during the 1960s, with rally participants engaging in precision driving events where navigation and timing were the keys to success rather than outright speed. To get an edge on the competition, Jeffry devised a system with a sensor on his driveshaft that linked to a Curta calculator (a mechanical cousin to the slide rule) driven by a car battery-powered motor. The device was legal, much to the chagrin of rally rivals, and Jeffry and then-wife Madelyn Bell – his driving partner -- were soon filling their Newton home with loving cups and silver platters won by Team Wisnia.

Another talent of Jeffry’s was player piano restoration. In the days before fully electronic self-playing pianos, when power to turn musical scrolls was provided by foot-pumping, he took broken-down instruments and turned them into musical works of art. Each featured cymbals, drums, xylophones, and triangles banging away in rhythm with the keys – often visible behind a large glass window underneath the keyboard. Many of the pianos he restored during the 1960s and 70s wound up in the homes of Wisnia family friends, and at least one is still in working order today.

In the late 1970s, Jeffry took a professional detour when he cut down his engineering hours to help run the business side of a company started by his wife Judith, who was a speech-language pathologist: Judith Wisnia and Associates (JWA). In its 40 years providing speech-language, occupational, and physical therapy services, along with the Wisnia-Kapp Reading Program, JWA employed hundreds of therapists and helped thousands of clients.

Jeffry and Judith were true partners. Driving to and from the JWA offices together nearly every day, they shared an office with desks facing opposite walls so each could focus on their work or turn their head to chat. They made their home first in Burlington and (since the mid-1980s) in Winchester, and when not working enjoyed the theater, late-night movies, and concerts -- especially live performances by their friends Bo and Bill Winiker and their bands.

During his final working years, and into retirement, Jeffry began spending more time reaching out to those around him. He became very active in the Burlington Rotary Club, and was a regular (along with Judith) at many of its Thanksgiving turkey giveaways and other events. Always quick with a joke, he delighted in regularly sharing limericks -- often of his own creation -- with an eclectic group of email recipients. He was also a passionate Wisnia family genealogist, and moved his Winchester neighbors by creating hand-crafted plaques of remembrance after their dogs passed away.

In addition to his wife Judith, Wisnia is survived by his sons Adam, Saul (Michelle) and Ben (Kristen); his daughter Julie (Grace); his grandchildren Sam, Nellie, Jason, Rachel, Leo, Alex, Corey, and Rafa; and by many West Coast Wisnia cousins. He was predeceased by his parents, Ben and Lillian Wisnia.

Services for Jeffry were held on January 06, 2026, at Levine Chapels at 470 Harvard Street in Brookline, MA. Burial was at Congregation Kennesseth Israel, 19 Washington St., Woburn, MA. Shiva was observed at Jeffry and Judith’s home.

In lieu of flowers, donations in Jeffry’s memory can be made to the Burlington Rotary https://portal.clubrunner.ca/10050 or the Wounded Warriors Project https://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/