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Peter Ernest Sutheim

1940 - 2020

BORN

1940

DIED

2020

Peter Sutheim Obituary

May 6, 1940 - October 19, 2020 Peter Ernest Sutheim, beloved husband of Betsy (Elizabeth W.) Hanger, father of Anna and Jeremy Sutheim, father-in-law of Aimée Sutheim-DuFrain, and son of Ilona Barta and George Sutheim of Vienna, Austria, died peacefully at home after a long illness. Born in New York City, Peter's early interest in classical music, radio, and electronics spurred him to collect and modify "mostly junk" from NYC's Radio Row. He graduated from UConn Storrs in 1961, worked briefly at a Hartford CT radio station, then returned to NYC, where he was mentored by renowned high-end radio manufacturer and philanthropist Avery Fisher, becoming an associate editor with Radio Electronics and a free-lance audio journalist for other magazines. A dream job called him to Los Angeles: Director of Operations at KPFK-FM (1973-1979). Making significant recordings for alternative radio in the 1960's and early 1970's with the organization Radio Free People honed Peter's editing skills. He established Earworks, to advise on audio systems and acoustical problems, and provide classical musicians and organizations with exquisite on-location live recordings. Nineteen years serving at Occidental College gave him enormous joy, guiding a student staff in recording equipment and presentation technology. Every weekend for more than 30 years, Peter was the broadcast engineer for Sundays Live, a concert broadcast of solo and chamber music. In an interview for an LA audio newsletter, Peter observed "I love hearing musicians perform. It's not just a question of the audio experience or the aural experience of live music, I just love to be where musicians are doing what they do." Peter's hobbies ran deep: linguistics and languages, reading novels and the New Yorker, cooking fine meals, attending live performances, listening to Brahms, Dvorak, Shostakovich, Sibelius, and Mahler. Most quirkily, for his entire life, Peter was absorbed in every detail concerning the NYC Subway system and the Pacific Electric Railway's era of Red and Yellow Cars. Even in his last years, confined to home, he spent hours viewing videos made by subway and trolley enthusiasts. Peter was a devoted volunteer. For 21 years, his call-in and audio demonstration program In Fidelity, "for audiophiles and music lovers," was broadcast on Pacifica's KPFK-FM. At the Orange Empire Railway Museum, he helped restore trolleys from pre-World War II, operating and explaining demonstration cars in his regulation uniform with the glee of a child. He read for the blind and dyslexic at Learning Allies, repaired tape machines for the blind at Braille Institute, and supported a sustainable sharing economy at the Pasadena Repair Café. No clock radio or blow drier was too tricky for him to tackle. An online memorial will be held Sunday November 1, 2020; contact his family for details.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by Los Angeles Times from Oct. 27 to Oct. 29, 2020.

Memories and Condolences
for Peter Sutheim

9 Entries

Ria Severance

October 22, 2024

I remember Peter's sweetness, the gentle ebb and flow of his voice, the way he beamed in the presence of his children and his adoration for his beloved wife. You are loved, now and always.

Ria Severance LMFT

October 23, 2023

Remembering Peter - Betsy, Jeremy & Anna by extension and holding you all in my heart. Such a terrible loss -- too soon. Life marches on, and yet, his sweet, gentle and loving nature is with us. Such a mensch. Besos and blessings, dear ones! Ria

Andrew Teton

February 25, 2022

So sad to learn so far after the fact of Peter's passing. Knew him for many years through our shared love of audio and we got to spend time together now and again at CES, enjoying music and fine dinners. A wonderfully interesting and kind man

Roy Nakano

April 30, 2021

I have great memories of Peter and his show, "In Fidelity". In the summer of 2020, I wrote a retrospective review on a Tom Holman product for LAAudioFile.com (the LA audio newsletter cited in the obit.) and mentioned Peter and his radio show: "During a 1970s interview on KPFK’S 'In Fidelity', Holman shared with host Peter Sutheim the day (Henry) Kloss taught him the value of spending just a little bit more to produce a much better product. In the case of the (Advent) Model 400 development, Holman recounted how Kloss scolded him for short-changing the consumer in the length of the AC electrical cord, when putting a longer cord added little cost but made for a happier customer." It was just one example of the wonderful, in-depth interviews Peter conducted on the show. Between that and all of the other activities Peter was involved with, he made the world a better place.

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Ria Severance

November 12, 2020

To understand my love for Peter, you'd have to understand the context for that love - my relationship since childhood with his mother, an autodidact, as gracious and as joyful as she was adventurous.

I grew up at a house on the corner at 396 W. El Repetto Drive, in Monterey Park, directly across from Ilona Sutheim, Peter's mother, who lived on the adjacent corner. When my younger brother, Bruce disappeared from the house, we knew we'd find him catching grasshoppers with "Illy" in the purple lantana carpeting the slope from her house down to the street level.

From the time I was 7 or 8, when she and her husband "George" moved in, I would "visit" Illy, my grandmother's age, pluck a little mint covered chocolate from the jar in the living room, and "Illy" and I would walk into her exquisite garden, shaded by a jacaranda tree. You could talk to her about ANYTHING, regardless of your own developmental stage.

She lived here after George passed, through all my years commuting to graduate school, until she moved into the small house behind Peter & Betsy's home where I would bring a Chinese lunch for her and her caregiver, or come with my first child, Maia, regularly until her own passing. She promised she'd "give us a sign" when she passed, if there were such a thing as an afterlife.

When I was 10, my Dad, an Eagle Scout, decided our family would climb Mount Whitney. She wanted to come - she was in her 70's back then - an era (mid 60's?) when people that age didn't do such things. She arrived with mountain climbing gear including picks and rope. I remember my parents falling over laughing. It was a hike for days with backpacks - not a formal "rock climbing" expedition. Even so it was hard enough and she was a delight. Complaining wasn't something she indulged.

She was also a die-hard humanitarian and progressive . . . I remember in the 80's she couldn't stand Nancy Reagan, and I brought her a birthday card with Nancy's face on it that had us laughing for eons. She volunteered for years at the Arboretum, given her remarkable knowledge of botany, the Braille institute, and had friend-guests stay with her regularly from all over the world. Her love and respect extended to rich, as well as those of modest means and education, and every ethnicity and religion imaginable. I remember asking her as a kid whether she'd ever worked. She said no - only once, for a while as an apprentice for a milliner - designing ladies fancy hats.

She must have been in her 80's while still at the Monterey Park house. In my late 20's I remember knocking on her door only to have her holler: "I'm running around naked. It's too hot. Let me get something on!" Another time, she slapped a light robe on and said through a crack in the door "My gentleman friend is visiting, let me call you later!" Tiny and wizened, it never surprised us that she had suitors calling - none of whom she'd consider marrying, after her beloved George.

She and George narrowly escaped the Nazi's. Leaving a factory behind in Vienna, they arrived in NYC with little if anything. So many stories of Peter's pre-birth are imprinted on my mind. In their efforts to leave Europe, George was rounded up into a Paris camp, suspected of being a Nazi spy. (Illy spoke Hungarian, German, French and English fluently - and she made herself understood well in Spanish! And she was learning Tagalog from her caregiver in the years before her passing ) Granted conjugal visits, she wrote to her pharmacist cousin in Budapest asking him to mail her a diaphragm, that apparently didn't "fit.." It's there that Peter was conceived. She didn't tell George to keep from worrying him. Illy was a woman of diplomatic grace, composure and good will. However, when an insider told her that when George's turn to appeal for release from the camp came up, if the authorities should protest, she was to cry, scream, tear her hair out, throw herself on the floor and create the most melodramatic scene possible - which she asserted she did, faithfully. Once released, they both fretted about how they would pay for a doctor in NYC. Simply walking down the street, they recognized the name of a family friend and doctor - I can't remember if he was from Vienna or Budapest - it was he who helped them usher Peter into this world.

Now, I realize that some grandmothers are exquisite while their mothering might fall short. It's not an area I ever explored or leaned into, and I doubt Peter would have ever said anything negative, even if he'd had something in that realm to say.

Regardless, Illy was "the context" for my love of Peter and his family. I was blessed with being at Betsy and Peter's wedding. I was around as their children blossomed from babies into young adults, although not as often as my own family came and evolved at a similar time. Peter inherited his mother's grace and exquisite kindness for all those he touched. He oozed love, fierce loyalty and an all-embracing acceptance for his family. He had her love of the arts, and the impulse to learn and deepen his understanding and knowledge in bailiwicks far afield from just his professional life. He had a duty to serve and volunteer much as she did. While more introverted than she was (I don't remember George hardly at all), Peter had a quiet mischievousness and sparkle that mimicked hers. He took a gentle and palpable pleasure in all things beautiful - kindness, poetry, nature, his family. He beamed - much as in the photo above. Loving respect were a gift he shared effortlessly with those he encountered - regardless of the circumstances. Like his mother, he stretched beyond the perimeter of his comfort zone to embrace differences with grace and understanding.

Ah dear Peter. You will be so very sorely missed. May the grief of your loved ones be rich in love, gratitude and meaning. May they be "held" by the community you helped to create and nourish.

As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death - Da Vinci

Muah! Dear Peter! . . . Ria

Ellen S Jaffe

November 2, 2020

I knew Peter in the late 1960's/very early 70's when we both did some work at WBAI-FM, the Pacifica radio station in New York, and we reconnected briefly on email about 10 years ago. I remember his warmth, his intelligence, his love of music, technology, cooking, and his attentive interest in people and the world around him; above all, he was a good person. Deep sympathy to his family, friends, and colleagues for this loss; may his memory be a blessing.

Jim and Brenda Berland

November 1, 2020

Brenda and I were privileged to have Peter as a friend and workmate at KPFK for several dynamic, both sonically and politically, at KPFK 1973 to 1983. We mostly lost touch since then, but are not surprised by his continued accomplishments and many friendships. Peter was a warm and caring person, in spite of his affinity for motorcycles. Our love and support to all who will miss him.
Jim and Brenda Berland

Nancy Sartain and Winfried Banzhaf

November 1, 2020

We are very happy to have been acquainted with Peter. We still enjoy the stereo system upon which he advised us. Love to you, Betsy

Betsy Hanger

October 28, 2020

Peter's Charities: what he cared about, donated to, volunteered for (for years m often), and the non-profits he worked at.
Charities:
ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) https://www.aclu.org/how-you-can-help
Environment California https://environmentcalifornia.org/
Mazon :A Jewish Response to Hunger https://mazon.org/
KUSC: Classical FM Radio https://www.kusc.org/

Organizations he volunteered for; they'd remember him and appreciate the donation a LOT:
The Orange Empire Railway Museum (SO fun---he got to fulfill a childhood dream: be a motorman on big old trolley cars, and tell the history of public transit in LA) https://socalrailway.org/
Braille Institute (he repaired tape machines, a crucial recycling program): https://www.brailleinstitute.org/losangeles
Learning Allies: Audio Books for Dyslexia and Learn https://learningally.org/ (he read books---loved the recording booth!)

Non-profit organizations he worked for, who would recognize his name and appreciate the donation.
Los Angeles County Art Museum (he was audio engineer on SoCals' longest-running live chamber music program, free to all:)
https://www.sundayslive.org/support
Occidental College (he worked there 19 years) https://www.oxy.edu/
KPFK (Pacifica Radio) https://www.kpfk.org/ (This is what brought him to LA from NYC: he was Operations Director for seven exciting years)
===Betsy Hanger, Peter's grateful and loving wife of 35 years