Lasting Memories

Harry Lewenstein
1927-Feb. 3, 2010
Palo Alto, California

Harry Lewenstein, 83, a retired electronics industry marketing executive, died Feb. 3, 2010, of complications from treatment for a bone marrow cancer.

A memorial gathering was held at the Hyatt Classic Residences in Palo Alto, where he and his wife of 54 years, Marion, have lived since 2005. Lewenstein had moved to Palo Alto in 1964.

Born in Grand Rapids, Minn., Lewenstein grew up in the small town of Marble on Minnesota's Mesabi Iron Range, where his father was a storekeeper. Lewenstein served as an electronics technician in the U.S. Navy at the end of World War II, before graduating from the University of Minnesota with a BSEE in 1949. In 1951, he began work for Lenkurt Electric (later part of General Telephone and Electronics) in San Carlos as a technical editor. From 1960 to 1967, he worked as advertising manager at Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto. In 1967, he joined Farinon Electric, a microwave-manufacturing company (later purchased by Harris Corporation). He served as vice-president of marketing and corporate secretary for Farinon before "retiring" in 1978.

He spent six months as a house-husband at a time when that term was hardly known, before returning to work after finding that "there were no 51-year-old playmates (that his wife approved of) out there," he later wrote. For the next 15 years, he worked as a marketing consultant, mostly for the American Electronics Association where he developed a method for establishing the size of the American electronics industry, according to his family. He was one of the original shareholders in the Palo Alto Weekly's parent company, Embarcadero Media, and served on the company's board of directors for many years. In 1997, during a post-second-retirement bicycle tour in Portugal, he fell and broke his neck. He was a quadriplegic for the rest of his life. He published the story of his life as a disabled person online and in the Palo Alto Weekly. He had, he said, the ability to be content with whatever life had provided him, and so accepted his disability with no bitterness. His family says that many people considered him an inspiration.

He is survived by his wife, Marion; daughter, Bailey Merman; son, Bruce; and three grandchildren.