Bernard Maxwell Domsky

Bernie Domsky, born July 29, 1926, passed away December 28, 2025. Bernie was born in Philadelphia and moved with his family to Washington, D.C. as a toddler. Growing up in the midst of the Great Depression, his parents both held jobs and left him and his beloved older brother, Irwin, on their own a lot of the time when they were growing up. He started working from an early age, running deliveries for his father’s and another drug store. He followed Irwin into the Boy Scouts and enjoyed many outings in the D.C. environs and at Camp Roosevelt, adjacent to the Calvert Cliffs on the Chesapeake Bay. He followed Irwin’s lead again, graduating early from Roosevelt High in D.C in 1944, and enlisting in the Navy. He was eventually assigned to a PCE that supported liberation of the Philippines from the Japanese, and finished his tour of duty tracking typhoons in the western Pacific. After returning home, he met, dated and eventually married Charlotte A. Janet in 1947.

Having done a short stint as watchmaker, he became an insurance salesman, and found his calling as a successful salesman. It was there that he demonstrated his leadership skills through involvement in the Insurance Workers Union International. Eventually, he had his own insurance agency. He was introduced to the cosmetics business in 1969, and built a new career in sales. Bernie took an active role as a father, a scout leader and coach of several boys’sports teams.

In 1973, Bernie and Charlotte left the Maryland suburbs and moved to Mesa, Arizona. After a few years back in insurance sales, he became a serial entrepreneur, demonstrating a knack for rebuilding failing businesses and starting a couple of his own enterprises. When Charlotte won the million dollar prize in the Arizona Lottery 1984 Baseball scratch ticket drawing, he sold his businesses, bought a RV and traveled with Charlotte extensively. Their RV travels included Mexico, the Alcan Highway and summers as a salesman for RV resorts in Myrtle Beach and Flathead Lake, MT. Other domestic travel included multiple trips East to visit family and friends, and attendance at multiple AARP conventions.

At age 65, he learned to play the organ, eventually upgrading to a Technics electronic organ with a panoply of bells and whistles (literally). He and Charlotte became active members in the East Valley Organaries club, which included cruises to Europe travel around the US. He became more of an arranger than a musician, using the organ’s vast selection of types of simulated instruments, percussion and instrumental accompaniment, and sound effects to create his own versions of over a hundred songs. He burned many of these tunes on CDs, which he gave to friends and family. While at the first senior community where he and Charlotte lived, he performed over 100 concerts for the residents.

He was also involved with Jewish War Veterans, and served in leadership positions in the Red Mountain Post (128), and the national organization until about 2005. He and Charlotte went on several cruises, and they made annual visits to their timeshare at Club Cascadas de Baja in Cabo San Lucas.

In the midst of all of this travel, Bernie helped a close friend save his business, and continued to provide assistance to the business until he was about 85.

After Charlotte passed, in 2017, his last trips included: a cruise across the South Pacific to see Bora Bora, which he visited during his tour of duty in the Navy; a week back at Club Cascadas; and a visit with his sister, Toba (deceased), in MD.

Bernie was ebullient, gregarious and garrulous almost to a fault, and made friends everywhere he went. His industriousness, ability to suss out solutions to problems, single-mindedness, persistence, affability,

and sheer kismet carried him through life. He lived out his final years in independent living, only relying on others for errands the past 18 months, until 3 weeks before his passing. Bernie was the last of his generation within the family, and was predeceased by several cohorts of friends. He is survived by his three children, Marcia Roth, Ira Domsky and Alan Domsky and their spouses, Johnie Roth, Carol Campbell and Joan Stouffer, 5 grandchildren and one great grandchild.