Gunther Klaus Wertheim

Gunther Klaus Wertheim

AGE: 87 • Morris Twp.

Gunther Klaus Wertheim, 87, died unexpectedly on July 14 at his home of over 50 years in Morris Township. Born in Berlin, Germany, he arrived in the United States at the age of 12 in September 1939 as World War II began. Before the war ended, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he studied Japanese and learned to make butterballs (or so he claimed). An undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology led Gunther to Harvard University, where he earned an MA and a Ph.D. in physics under the tutelage of Robert Pound. There he met Lee Hilles, another graduate student in physics. Gunther and Lee were happily married for nearly 40 years until her death in 1995. Gunther's interest in research drew him to the Bell Telephone Laboratories, where he made his professional home. A masterful interpreter of scientific data, and an early adopter of computers who trusted only programs that he wrote himself, Gunther continued to consult with other physicists after his retirement from the Bell Labs in 1995 and was an author of hundreds of peer-reviewed articles published over a period of more than 60 years.

He is survived by his brother Michael of Houghton, Michigan, his daughter Lisa Fraebel and her husband Jack of Brookside; two sons, Frederick (Angelo Chan) of New York and Charles (Veronica Whitney) of Carbondale, Colorado, and two grandsons, Alexander John Fraebel and Nicholas Lee Fraebel.

A memorial service will be held at 11:00am on Wednesday, July 23 at the Presbyterian Church in Morristown, 57 East Park Place, Morristown, NJ. The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Endowed Fund in Memory of Lee Hilles Wertheim '51 at Smith College, Northampton, MA, which provides academic scholarships to women pursuing careers in science.