Dr. Dale Sears Sappenfield passed away on the 12th of February due to complications associated with heart failure. Dad was 87 years old. Born on December 14th, 1932 to Roy and Mary Sappenfield of Miami, Florida, he married Nancy Dodge Wilson in 1960. Together they raised four sons: Eric, Carl, Max, and Rex. Dale is survived by Nancy, all four sons, and five grandchildren, Jessica, Megan, William, Alexander, and Adeline.
Dale attended Northwestern University as a chemistry major and a member of the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps. In 1953, he joined the US Marine Corp and served in Japan as General Charles “Brute” Krulak’s communications officer. He always considered this experience “life shaping”. Following his service, Dale attended the University of Minnesota where he earned his PhD in chemistry. He moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico where he worked as a government scientist at the National Laboratory. In 1970, Dale moved his family to Santa Barbara, California, where he and colleagues from Los Alamos started a science-based consulting company known as Mission Research Corporation. In 1982, Dale returned his family to Los Alamos where he assumed a leadership role at the lab and served until his retirement in 1996.
For the first twenty plus years of retirement, Dad and mom shared their time together either at home in Florida or traveling around the world. Dad was an avid reader. Some of his favorite authors included Sir Winston Churchill, Robert Heinlein, Robert C Clark, and Harlen Coben. He enjoyed building electronics from scratch including a color TV in the early seventies and his first personal computer in the late nineties. Dad’s other hobbies included photography and purchasing dolls for mom’s vast international collection. This was an endeavor begun 90 years ago by her father, a Naval Officer, who never returned home after a deployment without a doll for Nancy. The collection continues today and a large portion is currently on display at Massaponax High School in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Dale and Nancy recently resettled in Randolph, New Jersey to be closer to family.
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