John Jacob Rosenbaum Jr.

Obituary
JOHN JACOB ROSENBAUM JR.
John Jacob Rosenbaum Jr., 69, died on September 30, 2003, at Alameda Care Center in Alameda, CA, after suffering for more than 23 years with Parkinson's Disease.For the past eight years he lived at the Esther and Jacques Reutlinger Community for Jewish Living in Danville CA (previously the Home for Jewish Parents in Oakland). Before that time John lived with his family in Berkeley and worked for the physics department at UC Berkeley. He also taught high school physics in several Bay area schools. John spent many years creating kinetic light sculptures, painting and making collages, designing and building musical instruments, and writing.Born in Atlantic City, John spent his early years in Brigantine NJ, where he was an avid sailor and well-known ocean swimmer. After graduating from Atlantic City High School in 1952, where he excelled in track (running the half-mile and mile), he went on to Cornell University and graduated in 1957 with a degree in Engineering Physics. He continued his track career at Cornell running the mile, two mile, and cross country, and was Heptagonal Cross Country Champion in 1953.After working briefly for Douglas Aircraft in California followed by service in the US Army in Huntsville AL, John returned to the Bay area where he lived and worked, with interruptions only by a year at Harvard University, where he co-authored the textbook Harvard Project Physics, and a short stay in Princeton, where he designed toys for Creative Playthings.John is survived by his son, Michael Elias Rosenbaum of Berkeley; his daughter, Sarah Jen Rosenbaum, and her son, Phoenix Gabriel Kole, of Ojai CA; and his former wife Barbara Pearl Grey of Berkeley; as well as two sisters, Barbara Schultz (Col. ret. Paul E.) of Largo FL, and M. Jill Dector (Richard) of Somers Point NJ; and two brothers, Richard Elias Rosenbaum (Jane M. Dieckmann) of Ithaca, and Lawrence J. Sarner of Haiku HI. He was predeceased by his father and stepmother, John J. and Helen Raith Rosenbaum, and his mother, Frances Harris Madonna.