Michael Matthew Wertheimer

Michael Matthew Wertheimer passed away on Friday, December 23, 2022, as a result of complications following a fall. He was born March 20, 1927, in Berlin. His Jewish parents, alarmed by rising Nazism, fled the country in 1933 and settled in New Rochelle, New York, where Michael grew up. He attended Fieldston School, Swarthmore College, Johns Hopkins University, and Harvard University, emerging with a PhD in psychology. He was briefly at Wesleyan University and then, in 1955, accepted a faculty position at the University of Colorado, where he came to focus on the history of psychology and where spent the rest of his career. He was very involved in the psychology undergraduates' organization Psi Chi. Many students kept in touch with him for years as their own careers developed, to his considerable pleasure. He held numerous productive roles in the American Psychological Association, and produced a great many books, articles, reviews, and presentations. His final publication was a personal memoir, Facets of an Academic's Life. The Rockies attracted him from the moment he first saw a photo of the Flatirons when considering the post at CU. He was an enthusiastic mountaineer, and actively participated in the Colorado Mountain Club and the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group for many years. Music was also a constant presence in his life; he sang songs, played several instruments for family and friends, devotedly attended classical concerts, and composed small pieces himself. He took his children on road trips every year, eventually visiting all fifty states, and in the second half of his life he traveled the world with curiosity and admiration, in the company of his wife Marilyn. His connections with family and friends were legion, always deep and vivid. He is predeceased by his brother Valentin Wertheimer, his sister Lise Wertheimer Wallach, and his first wife Nancy MacKaye Wertheimer, and survived by his wife Marilyn Schuman Wertheimer, his brother Peter Hornbostel, his children K Wertheimer Watkins, Mark David Wertheimer, and Benjy Wertheimer, and, as he was fond of saying, three children-in-law, eight grandchildren, seven grandchildren-in-law, and thirteen great-grandchildren.