Seder, Eugene “Gus" Isaac passed away peacefully in the early morning hours of Sunday, March 31, at the age of 92.
Gus was an original, and everyone who met him knew it. An award-winning journalist and photographer, an inventor, artist, a swimmer, a cyclist, a practitioner of yoga, a mountain climber, a lover of animals, and a lifelong nonconformist, Gus was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1926. He attended Shady Side Academy and began his studies at Carnegie Mellon University before serving in the Navy in Puerto Rico during World War II as an air traffic controller. After the war he continued his studies and graduated from Haverford College in Philadelphia. Post-college, he studied writing at Columbia University while living in New York City, where he met and married Harriet Bess Butler, a Maryland farm girl.
His first newspaper job was in Shamokin, Pennsylvania. He then moved on to covering Southington, Connecticut, for the New Haven Register, where he bicycled from interview to interview, camera in hand, raising eyebrows. His new found friends in that town introduced him to hiking and inspired in him a life-long love of the outdoors, which included early morning swims and teeth-chattering plunges into icy mountain streams. Then, moving his family to North Haven, CT, he became a celebrated feature writer for the Register’s Sunday Magazine, specializing in articles about inventors and their positive impact on the environment, such as solar and steam-powered vehicle regattas up Mt. Washington.
He was an avid reader of all genres (literature, poetry, history, and more) and an enthusiastic and opinionated conversationalist. His writing extended beyond journalism to short stories and creative pursuits. He designed ingeniously mechanically-operated Halloween costumes for his children, such as a blossoming flower for his 6-year-old daughter Diana with petals that opened up to reveal her face, and the Incredible Rubber Man, which enabled his son Rufus to suddenly and startingly transform into an eight-foot giant with an impossibly extended neck and eyes that popped out on springs. As Rufus grew older and became a professional filmmaker, Gus continued to fashion devices to help him out—and even acted in his movies.
Gus loved music—especially his wife Harriet’s piano playing. When Harriet’s piano went out of tune, he took it apart and learned how to fix and rebuild it himself, astonishing the Steinway Piano Company, who offered him a job (he declined). When he wasn’t installing a solar water heater on the roof of the house, he was in the driveway fixing the family’s Peugeot automobile.
His culinary tastes were also ahead of their time: He ground his own wheat by hand (three times!) to make his own bread and matzah. He made his own yogurt from scratch. He also made his own sauerkraut, which he sometimes broke out at mealtime, stinking up the place.
He never shied away from speaking his mind, no matter how provocative the sentiments. Neither liberal nor right wing, he joined the NRA on a lark, but never fired a gun. Born Jewish, he was not a practitioner—subscribing more to Buddhist philosophy—but always insisted that his family celebrate Passover and Hanukah.
Many who knew him thought him to be wise, even a genius. But Gus, who liked to figure things out for himself, knew otherwise: “The wise man learns from experience,” he would say mock solemnly, as if quoting a fortune cookie, “the wiser man from the experience of others!”
His friends and family benefited from his slow and steady approach to all his projects and his belief that anything worth doing required virtually endless, in-depth research, strong character, and persistence. He will be sorely missed by all who loved him.
He is survived by his wife of 66 years, Harriet Butler Seder, his son Rufus Butler Seder and his wife Penny Sander of Arlington, MA, and his daughter Diana Seder Simon and her husband Alan Simon of Wellesley, MA, and their children.
In lieu of flowers please consider a donation to the Alzheimer’s Association, www.alz.org. A private gathering of friends and family in celebration of Gus’ life will take place at a time and place to be determined.