EUGENE MERFELD

MERFELD, Eugene Age 98, of Lexington and Boston, died peacefully at home, on Saturday, June 14, surrounded by three generations of family. He was born in the shtetl of Zbaraz, Poland, on January 31, 1927. In 1941, while he was at summer camp in Crimea, the Germans invaded Poland. He and the other children were put on trains by Russian soldiers and sent to orphanages in Siberia. He spent the war years there, moving from the orphanage after a year, to apprentice in a train station, where he slept under the stairs on a pile of hay. He was cold, always hungry, and cut off from news of his family. After the war ended in 1945, Eugene was able to reunite with his parents and his sister, the only survivors of his extended family. They eventually made it to a refugee camp in Italy. The family emigrated to New York, where he found work as an electrician's assistant, a hotel night manager, and he took English classes. This was his eighth language, after Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew, German, Russian, Ukrainian and Italian. After taking classes at Brooklyn Polytechnic, he was accepted at MIT, getting a degree in Electrical Engineering. Within the ensuing ten years, he met and married Sylvia Graham, an OB/GYN at New England Hospital for Women and Children, worked as an engineering manager for Honeywell, received several patents for computer technology, moved to Lexington, and had two children. After leaving Honeywell, he found his passion in business. He was a business owner, buying hotels, retail stores and real estate. Later, he became a business broker, helping clients negotiate business sales and acquisitions. He and his business partner, Gary Schine, wrote three books on buying and selling businesses. He enjoyed his work so much, he continued to work until he was 93. In 1983, he and Sylvia moved to Beacon Hill, Boston. When grandchildren came, they began sponsoring twice-a-year family vacations that were the highlight of everyone's year. Eugene was an autodidact, studying quantum computing and CRISPR gene editing into his 90s. He was a voracious reader, consuming books on economics, political science and history. In spite of the trauma in his early life, he was always an optimist who could not believe his good fortune in life. Predeceased by his beloved wife of 59 years, Sylvia (Graham) Merfeld. He is survived by his son and daughter-in-law, David Merfeld and Bonnie Friedman, of Belmont; daughter and son-in-law, Sue Merfeld and Bruce Richmond, of Portland Oregon; grandchildren, Heather and Tim, John and Devon, Gordon and Maddie, Johanna, Cate and Noah, and Emily and Adam; his great-grandchildren, Noah, Paris, Fiona, Liberty, Irene, Harriet, Eleanor, Flora, Max, and Lucy; and his dear companion, Cheryl Miller. A Celebration of Life will take place at the Hampshire House, 84 Beacon St., Boston, MA, on October 25, at 11 a.m. Donations may be made in his memory online or by mail to the Bunker Hill Community College Merfeld-Friedman Family Scholarship, Attn. Marilyn Kuhar.

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