Norman Menyuk

Norman Menyuk was born in 1923 on June 13, the youngest of five children. His parents, Morris and Celia Menyuk, arrived in the United States shortly after the end of World War I. They had been forced to leave Kishinev, Moldava (at that time Kishinev was part of Romania) because of the pervasive anti-semitism which led to the ruin of Morris Menyuk’s printing business. Norman was the only child in his family to be born in the United States. His parents had settled in New York City, in Manhattan, after immigrating. His mother Celia died of a stroke when he was five years old and, shortly thereafter, his father was hospitalized with tuberculosis. Left without parents he was initially taken in by another family living in New York City’s Washington Heights who had come from the same part of Romania as his parents. As soon as they were able, his older siblings: sisters Rose, Dorothy, Anne, and brother Hy took in their younger brother and supported him on their own. The family struggled with poverty, even by depression standards, and he and his sister Anne were the only ones of the brothers and sisters to finish High School.

Enlisting in the Army Air Force, Signal Services Battalion, during World War II, he was selected to participate in a special program to educate Army engineers. He ended up at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology where he met several other young men from New York, who became his lifelong friends, and Walter and Judy Rosenblith, who became lifelong mentors and dear friends. Walter was a Jewish Professor of Physics from Austria, luckily in the United States when conditions became impossible for Jews in his native country. He was the first to open up the world of physics for Norman as a teacher and mentor in South Dakota. After being discharged from the Army at the end of World War II, Walter arranged for him to return to the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, where he earned a BS degree in Physics. Norman later obtained an MS degree in Physics from Ohio State University.

During his time in Ohio, while working on his MS, Norman returned home on a visit to Manhattan — where he was maneuvered into a blind date with Paula Nichols. His sister Dorothy and Paula’s Aunt Sylvia assured Norman that the young lady was a mature woman of over 20 (she was 18) and he agreed to the date. Despite the chicanery over the age issue, Norman fell in love with Paula and they married in 1950 on March 5. They remained inseparable until the day of his death, February 10, 2016. In 1953, he moved to the Boston area from New York City and began working as a Research Physicist at Lincoln Laboratory, M.I.T. in Lexington, MA. He continued to work there for almost 40 years. While at the Lab he published almost 100 scientific papers, first in the field of magnetism and solid state physics, and later in the field of lasers and applied optics. He was a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and he had the opportunity to collaborate with many outstanding scientists, including his close friend and co-inventor of the maser, Herb Zeiger. He also wrote several scientific papers with his son, Curtis Menyuk.

In 1955, he and Paula, along with their great friends the Rosenbliths, moved into a two family home in Brookline, MA; the Menyuks into 162 and the Rosenbliths into 164. Norman lived at 162 for the rest of his life, putting his considerable DIY skills to work upgrading the family home. He and Paula had three children, Curtis Menyuk (1954), Diane Menyuk (1955), and Eric Menyuk (1959) who grew up in Brookline. In the fullness of time he was blessed with six grandchildren: Laura, Rachel, Mira, daughters of Curtis and his wife Claire; Miles, son of daughter Diane and her husband Michael; and Maxwell and Madison, children of his son Eric and Eric’s wife Laurie. He became a grandfather once again when his granddaughter Rachel married Erik Pearson. Norman was a devoted family man, remaining in very close contact with all his children and grandchildren, as well as his many nieces and nephews and their children. A source of strength and support for everyone who knew him, he will be sadly and forever missed — but he will be remembered in the hearts of those who loved him as the kind, wise and caring man that he was.

A memorial service will be held at the Levine Chapel, 470 Harvard Street, Brookline on Sunday, February 14 at 2:00pm. Memorial observance at his late residence on Sunday February 14 at 4:00pm.