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WALLACE BRAND Obituary

BRAND WALLACE EDWARD BRAND Wallace Edward Brand died on December 5, 2018, at the age of 88. He was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on April 16, 1930, to George and Frieda Brand, both immigrants to the US, and grew up in Southern California, working in his father's small grocery store. The youngest of four children, he later joined the National Guard and served in Korea, returning to California where he benefited from the GI bill and finished college. He then attended the Harvard Law School because he wanted "to see what the East Coast was like." He described the first day of contracts class as the day he met his true love, his classmate, Ann Gardner. He remembered wearing his bright green sports shirt emblazoned with "Acapulco" in orange cursive, while the other male students wore crisp oxford cloth shirts. To his great surprise the professor grilled him mercilessly throughout the class. A fast learner, he came prepared to his next class wearing, as he loved to describe it, "protective coloration," having quickly acquired his own cache of oxford cloth shirts, which he wore for the rest of his life. After graduating from law school in 1957, Wallace and Ann moved to Washington, DC where they both got jobs as attorneys for the Federal Government during the Eisenhower Administration. They were married in November 1958. In December 1959 they began a family that would grow to six children. Pregnant lawyers were rather unconventional at the time, and Ann left her work as a Government attorney to raise her family. Wallace eventually retired fromfederal service having worked for what is now the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and later, the Justice Department Antitrust Division. With six children to raise and put through college, he helped found a boutique law firm specializing in applying the antitrust laws to the regulated electric power industry, often representing municipalities and electric power cooperatives. In 1985 his wife Ann died of breast cancer. He never remarried and became the nuclear center for a family that would remain tightly knit around him. In 1990, his family began to grow with the birth of his first grandchild. Not yet ready for the new moniker, he was quickly christened "D-Dad" by his granddaughter, Ann, and it stuck for 28 years and 12 additional grandchildren. He described his wife's death, and the fact that she never got to see her family grow into the big and loving mob it became, as the only great sadness in an otherwise happy life. Wallace was a big thinker, a voracious reader, and a man of many interests, from nuclear physics, and the origins of the electric power industry (Tesla=Good; Edison=Bad) to the history of the Middle East, and international law regarding self-determination of sovereign nations. He liked to have what he called "civil discussions" about politics that made most of his family feel uncivil. He taught his family to push back against conventional thinking and to always look at more than one source for information. He later reveled in the successes of his children and their families; to any stranger he might meet (and he met many thanks in part to the boater he confidently sported in Spring and Summer), he proudly rattled off the accomplishments of his six children as though he recited them every day. With his big personality and bigger heart, he taught his family to always have a funny story at the ready; to sing mildly inappropriate Irish bar songs; to love science, food, good books, life, and most of all each other. They will miss him every day. He is survived by his six children, Deborah Brand Baum, Stephen Gardner Brand (Amy), David Douglass Brand (Anne), Susan Brand Agolini (Stefano), George Ayrault Brand (Kaori) and Anstice Brand Kenefick (Paul), thirteen grandchildren, and countless nieces and nephews. Services will be held at Goodwin House Bailey's Crossroads at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 15. In lieu of flowers donations can be made in his name to The Shakespeare Theater Company (www.shakespearetheatre.org), or Reading is Fundamental (www.rif.org). Services will be held at Goodwin House Bailey's Crossroads at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 15. In lieu of flowers donations can be made in his name to The Shakespeare Theater Company (www.shakespearetheatre.org), or Reading is Fundamental (www.rif.org).

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

Published by The Washington Post on Dec. 13, 2018.

Memories and Condolences
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4 Entries

Pamela Johnson

December 20, 2018

Our Heavenly Father has given us a life span of 70-80 years if we are especially strong. May you celebrate a life well lived and loved by many. May the words of Psalm 90:10,14 bring comfort to the family.

Diana

December 13, 2018

It can be so hard to face the first year without your loved one, but the love of family and friends can carry you through.

Ann

December 13, 2018

As the days and weeks pass, and as you return to life's routine, may you continue to feel comforted by the love and support of family and friends.

ERIC and AYAKO J.

December 13, 2018

One of my fondest memories is the first time I met Wallace with his generous, welcoming heart at his home on thanksgiving dinner in November of 1996. I just moved to the US from Europe, and from this night on, a deep, sincere, loving and lasting friendship was sealed not only with this charismatic patriarch but also with his entire loving family. I am glad you can now reunite with the love of you life as you shared it recently with me. My condolences and hugs to the family. RIP Wallace!

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